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ROVA Flying Selfie drone review

When drones first started becoming popular, they were big bulky quad copters with large GoPro sized cameras and people mostly used them for cool landscape videos. People still use drones to shoot landscape shots, but a newer category of drones has been designed for taking a more personal type of photography – the selfie. Now you don’t need an extra friend to take your picture. Or at least that’s the idea. Let’s see if the ROVA Flying Selfie drone can take a picture and keep on hovering.

What is it?

The ROVA Flying Selfie drone is a small quad copter style drone with a built in 12MP camera. It’s controlled with an iOS or Android device and has been designed to shoot selfies.

Specs

12MP camera, HD video
Up to 64GB micro SD card capability
33ft (10m) max flight height from launch
≤ 98ft (≤ 30m ) Communication Range
Obstacle Avoidance using infrared sensors
Flight Stability and Positioning using barometer, accelerometer, optical flow and gyrometer

What’s in the box?

When you open a new gadget and find that it comes in its own zippered case, you immediately get the impression that this is going to be a great review experience.

Inside the case is:

ROVA Flying Selfie drone
2 rechargeable batteries
USB battery charger
micro USB cable

Also included are 4 bumpers, a carabiner for the case, a 16GB micro SD card, and a setup guide.

The ROVA is approximately 8.5 x 8.5 x 1.5 inch black plastic frame with four 3-blade propellers in each corner and a battery holder in the center.

You’ll also notice a red activation button on top as well as a warning sticker that instructs you not to put your fingers inside the frame when the propellers are spinning.

if you flip the ROVA drone over, you will see the 12MP camera with LEDs on either side and you will see the flip up landing gear (feet) in each corner.

The camera is designed to manually pivot to customize the video and image shooting angle.

On the side opposite the camera is the micro USB charging connector and the micro SD card slot.

Before you can fly the ROVA, you have to charge one of the included batteries in the included charger.

The battery easily snaps in the charger which plugs into a USB port on your computer or a USB charging adapter that you plug into an electrical outlet.

It takes about 30 mins to charge the battery which then provides up to 8 minutes of flight time.

The battery plugs into the slot in the center of the drone and as soon as you plug it in, the drone powers up and LEDs on either side of the camera begin to flash.

The ROVA Selfie Drone comes with 4 hard foam bumpers that you can snap over each corner.

Installing the bumpers is not mandatory, but are supposed to provide added protection while you learn to fly the drone. FYI, the drone with the bumpers does not fit in the zippered case.

In addition to charging the battery, you’ll also need to install the ROVA app on your iOS or Android device. I tested the ROVA with my iPhone 7 Plus.

The app has a basic interface as you can see from the image above. I felt like flying the ROVA would be a piece of cake compared to other drones I’ve tried.

When you first launch the app, it looks for the ROVA drone’s built in WiFi network. After you successfully connect to it and enter the password, you press and hold the red button on the ROVA for a few seconds. The button will flash (which is impossible to see in bright sunlight) and after it stops, the drone will beep and you’re ready to fly. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work…

Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work… It took me quite a while to even figure out how to get the drone to spin up. The instructions that come with ROVA are really vague and pretty much useless. But once I figured out the steps to get the propellers to spin up, I thought I was all set.

It took me quite a while to even figure out how to get the drone to spin up. The instructions that come with ROVA are really vague and pretty much useless. But once I figured out the steps to get the propellers to spin up, I thought I was all set for flying and selfie snapping.

Yeah, no… To fly ROVA, you go through the steps I mentioned above and then when the propellers are spinning, you can press the up/down arrow icon in the lower left corner of the app. ROVA will lift off and hover in place until you use the onscreen joysticks to fly it up, down, left, and right.

Once you go through the steps I mentioned above and the propellers are spinning, you can press the up/down arrow icon in the lower left corner of the app. ROVA will lift off and hover in place until you use the onscreen joysticks to fly it up, down, left, and right. That’s what is supposed to happen, but what happened every time I tried it was that the drone would lift off the ground about 3-4 feet, and then on its own, it would start trailing off left or right a few feet and land. At that point, I would try to fly again but the app would freeze. I would have to kill the app, pop out the battery on the drone, pop it back in and try the whole connection sequence again. I did these same steps over and over again over the course of several days with no positive results. I tried using the other battery, making sure the batteries were freshly charged, uninstalled, reinstalled the app on the iPhone, etc. No joy.

In the handful of super short flight sessions that I had, I was able to catch one video that at least shows the image quality.

See it in action (sorta)

It’s a shame this little drone doesn’t work because the image quality is actually pretty decent.

I sent 2 emails to the PR person who sent me the ROVA for review and I have yet to receive a response after days of waiting.

I looked for more info on ROVA’s own website but their FAQ page brings up a 404 page not found message. I also went to the ROVA page on Amazon and read a few reviews there that mentioned some of the same frustrations that I had.

Final thoughts

My final thoughts can be summed up in 3 words: Don’t Buy It.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by ROVA. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.

 

Product Information

Price: $199.00
Manufacturer: ROVA
Retailer: Amazon
Pros:
  • Comes with a zippered case
  • 16GB micro SD flash card is included
Cons:
  • Won't fly more than 3 – 4 feet above ground if you're lucky enough to get it to fly at all
  • App has to be restarted with each flight
  • Have to put in drone's WiFi password almost every time you use it

Filed in categories: Reviews

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ROVA Flying Selfie drone review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 15, 2017 at 4:21 pm.

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AirSelfie is a pocket-sized drone designed to take your picture from the air


Taking a selfie by holding your phone at arm’s length is usually fine if you’re only taking a snap of yourself or at most another person. But when you try to squeeze more people into the frame or want to see the background too, a camera at the end of your arm just won’t cut it. Neither will a 3-foot long selfie stick. Is there a better alternative? The folds at AirSelfie think so.

AirSelfie is a small smartphone-sized drone whose sole purpose is to take pictures of you as quickly and easily as possible.

This drone is made of lightweight anodized aluminum and features a flat design for easy launching and landing and a 5-megapixel camera with 4GB of storage for images.

It’s powered by a rechargeable battery that provides 3 minutes of flight time and it communicates with your phone via 2.4Ghz WiFi.

AirSelfi comes with a smartphone charging case that provides up to 20 charges in the field.

The AirSelfie drone will be shipping in July and is currently available for pre-order on airselfiecamera.com with a limited time special discount of $279.13 for the drone without the charging case and on Amazon for $329.00 with the charging case and free shipping.

The fine folks at AirSelfie will be sending me a drone to review, so stay tuned for some Gadgeteer selfies very soon!

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AirSelfie is a pocket-sized drone designed to take your picture from the air originally appeared on on June 25, 2017 at 10:00 am.

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Eachine E55 Mini WiFi FPV Foldable Pocket Drone review


We’ve reviewed a variety of drones over the years, from the high-end Chroma 4K drone to the teeny tiny Axis Vidius drone. But this is the Eachine E55 is the first folding pocket drone that we’ve had the opportunity to review. And after my experience with this one, it might be the last… Let’s take a look.

What is it?

The Eachine E55 is a folding pocket drone that can be controlled with an iOS or Android device or the included handheld remote control.

What’s in the box?

Eachine E55 drone
Remote control with phone bracket
Extra propellers
Screwdriver
USB charging stick
USB charging cable
Drone battery
User manual

Design and features

This drone doesn’t even look like a drone at first glance. I’m not sure what it looks like. Maybe a small backup battery, or something like that.

The Eachine E55 is made of plastic with a power button on the top.

 

On the bottom, you will find the battery compartment.

A thin fragile feeling door opens to allow access to the battery.

That battery has to be removed and charged using the included USB charging stick. Charging this way is inconvenient and the inconvenience gets worse when you find out that it takes about 40 minutes to fully charge the battery. That wouldn’t be a deal breaker if a charge allowed you a long fight time, but unfortunately, you will only get 6-8 minutes of flying time per charge.

Notice the glowing LED on the USB charging stick and notice that the stick isn’t plugged into anything… That LED is supposed to be a charging status LED. I found that the LED would sometimes turn off when I plugged the stick (and battery) into a USB power adapter. And sometimes it remained on – forever so that I never could tell when the battery was finished charging.

At only 2.56 x 2.56 x 0.98 inches, it is very pocket-friendly compared the majority of other drones on the market. But the real magic happens when you unfold the four legs (arms?) to reveal the propellers.

Nifty huh?

Let’s fly!

You can fly the Eachine E55 drone using your smartphone or the included handheld controller. I loaded the app and tried to pair my Nexus 6P with the drone but had no luck. So I decided to try the handheld controller because the instructions claimed that it had a one button take off and one button landing feature.

The controller looks and feels like an inexpensive video game controller. It has two thumb-style joysticks with a D-pad below each one.

The controller also comes with an attachment that will let you attach your smartphone to the controller. Since I was unable to pair the drone with my phone, I didn’t test using both together. I actually didn’t get much time at all to test the Eachine E55 as you will see in the video below.

See it in action (sorta)

As you can tell from the video, I didn’t have much luck or time flying the E55 drone before it flew off into my woods to be lost forever. It’s so small that I couldn’t find it.

Final thoughts

The instructions that come with the drone fail to provide the most important info on how to fly the drone. You have to turn on the drone, turn on the handheld controller. Press the left throttle up, press the left throttle down, and then press the take off button. Sounds easy right? It is IF you know that you’re supposed to do that. As you can tell from my video, I kept trying to fly just using the take off button. And after minutes of trying that, I started pressing combinations of buttons until the drone finally lifted into the air. To say it was frustrating is an understatement.

It’s a shame that I never got a chance to really get used to flying this little drone or to test the camera and other features.

The Eachine E55 could be fun but I can’t say one way or another. I will say that having to remove the battery from the drone to charge it is annoying and not knowing when the battery is fully charged is also annoying. You also have to supply your own batteries (3 AAAs) for the handheld remote control.

When it’s all said and done, the Eachine E55 Mini WiFi FPV Foldable Pocket Drone annoyed me and for that reason, I can’t recommend buying one.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Eachine. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.

 

Product Information

Price: $46.99
Manufacturer: Eachine
Retailer: Amazon
Pros:
  • Tiny pocket-sized drone
  • Comes with a handheld remote control
Cons:
  • Hard to control
  • Have to remove battery to charge
  • USB charging stick status LED is inconsistent
  • Short flight time
  • Batteries not included for handheld remote

Filed in categories: Reviewing soon

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Eachine E55 Mini WiFi FPV Foldable Pocket Drone review originally appeared on on June 17, 2017 at 4:06 pm.

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DJI announces the $499 Spark, a compact hand-controlled drone


This week, drone industry leader DJI announced their latest market offering, the $499 Spark. The Spark is a stylish “lifestyle accessory” drone that has a 16 minute flight time, obstacle avoidance and the unique ability to be controlled via hand gestures alone.

By design, the Spark is meant to be taken with you and used. It weighs less than a can of soda and can be folded up small enough to fit into a backpack or purse. The Spark can be “quick launched” from your palm and without a remote or mobile device, you can use simple hand gestures to position it to take a selfie. Or, you can use one of the preset flight modes to have it follow you, circle the action or automatically create a 10-second shareable video from shot footage.

And, if the Spark gets too far from you or you’ve navigated it out of sight by accident, it can return to you safely thanks to built-in obstacle avoidance similar to the DJI Mavic and Phantom 4 drones.

Aside from hand gestures, the Spark can be operated by an optional remote controller or with the DJI app on a mobile device. In “Sport Mode” the Spark can attain speeds of up to 31 mph and allows you to view the action from a first-person view using the optional DJI Goggles.

The Spark houses a front-facing camera set on a 2-axis gimbal that captures 12-megapixel photos and shoots stabilized 1080p videos. It is powered by a LiPo battery and has a maximum flight time of up to 16 minutes.

The Spark will be available in five different colors; Alpine White, Sky Blue, Meadow Green, Lava Red, and Sunrise Yellow.

For $499 you’ll get a DJI Spark, a battery, a USB charger and three pairs of propellers. For $699 you can get the “Spark Fly More Combo” which includes a Spark, two batteries, four pairs of propellers, a remote controller, propeller guards, a charging hub, a shoulder bag and all necessary cables.

The Spark is up for preorder today with a ship date of June 15. Go to dji.com for more info.

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DJI announces the $499 Spark, a compact hand-controlled drone originally appeared on on May 25, 2017 at 7:00 am.

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Is it a car, is it a plane? It’s both!


Imagine this… you’re racing your RC car along the ground when an unexpected obstacle suddenly blocks your path. Instead of crashing, the car zooms into the air where you continue controlling it in flight. If that sounds like more fun than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, then you have to check out this RC flying car from Hammacher Schlemmer.

With a scaled ground speed of 67 mph, this race car shaped drone can be maneuvered like other RC cars from up to 130 feet away using the included 2.4 GHz radio remote control.

Take sharp fast and furious left and right turns while driving on the ground and then in the air enjoy 360° movement that includes spins, loops, and rolls.

The flying car’s built-in rechargeable battery provides up to five-minute flight times from a full charge using the included USB charger.

The RC Flying Car can be purchased for $59.95 at Hammacher Schlemmer. You can also find a wide selection of similar flying cars on Amazon too.

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Is it a car, is it a plane? It’s both! originally appeared on on May 8, 2017 at 6:53 am.

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