I recently attended a wedding with the Hover Camera drone, and to my surprise, many friends and relatives present said that they had "known" the drone on Weibo or TV, and expressed strong interest in it. So, in the UAV market which tends to be solidified in brand and form, will the concepts of folding design, indoor flight and selfie UAV advocated by Hover Camera be the new hot spots in the market? Minorities got a taste of Hover Camera, which was recently released on the Apple Store.
It's a "selfie" drone
As you read about the Hover Camera below, please keep in mind "This is a selfie drone." The well-known DJI and Xiaomi drones are collectively referred to as "aerial photography drones", which need to be used in the open outdoors, away from people and at a higher height. Although the performance is powerful, the use scenario is relatively simple, and the skill requirements of the operator are relatively high. The target user group of aerial photography drones is photography enthusiasts with professional purposes.
Hover Camera is completely the opposite, small size, simple operation, and even encourage the use of crowded Spaces, diverse gameplay. However, due to volume limitations, it can not carry too many devices and components, and some key performance is also affected. The selfie drone is aimed at ordinary users who want an extra dimension to take photos. As the name translates, make a "camera that levitates."
The foldable body is undoubtedly the biggest highlight of Hover Camera, the width of the foldable body is similar to the iPad mini, and the length is comparable to the Kindle Paperwhite, which is not noticeable in the hand. At the same time, the folding structure plays a locking role, which can prevent damage caused by accidental start of the aircraft in the standby state. However, the durability of the folded parts remains to be seen.
Hover Camera completely wraps the four blades with a carbon fiber frame, solving the safety problem once and for all in terms of mechanical structure and psychology. There is no need to worry about fingers getting stuck in moving parts, and the bloody scene of traditional drone blade cutting is avoided.
The design of Hover Camera refers to the bionics principle of insects to a certain extent, all important components are arranged in the fuselage similar to the trunk, the engineers involved in the design of the machine have revealed in the knowledge that they have been optimized for many times to achieve the current compact layout, not only the motherboard area is smaller in similar products, It even cools the fuselage with reliable airflow from the rotating blades.
However, this mini layout also makes the aircraft without the concept of traditional head, and the dynamic anti-shake of the lens can only be optimized in one axis, in other words, the wind stability of the aircraft is not optimistic, and the probability of instability when taking photos is very high.
The version sold in Apple Store has a new outer packaging, although the volume is smaller and more beautiful, but the random accessories are also slightly shrunk. From the original version of the hard storage bag into a soft bag, there is little protection for the body, and there is no room for the second battery. Fortunately, the battery and charger maintain a consistently high level, not only can charge two batteries at the same time, but also the full speed is very fast.
Freehand release, zero-distance contact before the drone, flying the drone is a technical work, can not wait to learn for a period of time, and Hover Camera with freehand release and recovery and its own obstacle avoidance mechanism, successfully turn the operation of the drone into a situation that everyone can use.
Free release
Long press the Hover Camera power key, the aircraft after about ten seconds of self-test will emit a buzzer, and then just tap the power key, only listen to the plane's blade suddenly spin up at high speed, you can put the plane in the air.
Free recovery
Similarly, when the plane is hovering, you can gently press the power button with your hand to bring the plane back.
Vertical obstacle avoidance
When the plane detects an object below it, it floats up a certain distance.
Horizontal obstacle avoidance
When the drone is hit horizontally, the aircraft will actively move in the opposite direction to prevent a collision.
Fighting ability
Slightly hard slap or collision aircraft, Hover Camera will easily fall, so the purpose of the design may be to try to avoid accidental collision caused by accidents, would rather break the plane, can not touch people.
App control
After the plane leaves the hand, the realization of all functions depends on the App of Hover Camera.
Join
Hover Camera is connected through WiFi signal, and the phone is connected to complete the pairing.
After connecting to Hover Camera, the App automatically detects the firmware version of the aircraft. There is a major bug here, when the App detects the new firmware for the first pairing, it will force the aircraft to operate after the upgrade. Since a firmware has nearly 300MB, downloading on mobile networks may take a long time. If the plane has been airborne, there is a certain probability of being pushed into the air by the crowd of onlookers on the "vertical obstacle avoidance" mechanism, and the plane can not operate or land for a long time, and can only quietly consume the battery. It is strongly recommended to add the firmware upgrade function in the mobile network prompt.
Controls
Hover Camera adopts the design of double rocker in flight operation, the left side controls the takeoff and landing of the aircraft, and the right side controls the movement of the aircraft in the horizontal direction.
Slide the screen in the App to adjust the lens. Horizontal slide will let the plane rotate in place, sliding up and down can adjust the lens pitch Angle, the trick is that after sliding, do not let go of the lens will always adjust in this direction, suitable for overhead shooting and other scenes that greatly adjust the lens.
In order to make up for the natural inconvenience of touch screen operation, Hover Camera adopts technical means such as face recognition and motion tracking to increase the autonomy of the aircraft, which will be introduced in detail in the lower face section.
mode
Of all the drone apps I've used, Hover Camera is at a high level of design detail. According to the different shooting mode, the App provides excellent works and special tutorials created by users, and only after learning the tutorials one by one can you enter the actual shooting interface. But frankly speaking, these shooting modes are a little too much, and many of them can be classified into one category in terms of operation and actual experience. More classification makes me need to find frequently when operating, which increases my annoyance. In general, these patterns can be grouped into three categories:First experience, flight, photo shoot。
selfie
Hover Camera will recognize the user's face, after recording the user's facial features, the plane will follow the user to fly in a small amplitude, and automatically shoot when the scissor hand gesture is made, measured in good light, even if many people stand in a row, the plane can still accurately identify the user.
Overhead/group photo
This model is more in line with the traditional image of using drones to take photos: the aircraft flies high and shoots low targets from below. But what is more inexplicably is that in the specific process, the Hover Camera does not do any optimization for overhead shooting, the camera is even facing the horizontal front after the aircraft rises to the height, and it needs great efforts to adjust the camera to the right below, then what is the meaning of setting up this mode? The App also provides a ring shooting mode, which can do 360-degree surround shooting around a central point, but in actual use, it is either difficult to find such a wide airspace, or to sweep over the heads of a large group of people, and test shooting twice in the park, and they are stopped...
Motion tracking
The use of drones to follow the movement is undoubtedly more exciting than the use of action cameras to shoot first-person video. The operation of the whole process is relatively natural. Change the Hover Camera to a hovering state, and then go to the front of the plane to set up the motion state. After selecting the movement to be tracked on the screen of the mobile phone, the plane will automatically shoot in the back. However, there are two problems here: first, the aircraft is in a position invisible to the user during the flight, which may cause people to worry about losing the aircraft or hitting the obstacle, and it is also a danger to other pedestrians who may appear; Second, the aircraft's judgment of the user's motion state is lagging, and in the case of sudden acceleration or sudden deceleration, the aircraft will be forced to adjust its flight attitude, resulting in the most exciting moment of movement, but the effect of the aircraft is the most jitter.
Shooting effect
What is little known is that Hover Camera uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform solution, SOC and ISP are the well-known Snapdragon 801 and IMX214, that is to say, the visual processing power of this aircraft is equivalent to a millet 4 mobile phone. In addition to the problem of poor flight stability mentioned above, the shooting effect of Hover Camera can only be said to be a moderate situation at present. In the case of good light, stable air flow, and appropriate distance, the effect of taking photos is satisfactory, you can get a lot of excellent 4K high-definition pictures, but when the above three conditions have a more extreme case, the aircraft will frequently use electronic anti-shake, not only the picture is too dark, and the picture quality is not flattering.
Another key factor is battery life, Hover Camera single battery life is 10 minutes, what is this concept? I used it to take three selfies in the park, then rose to the highest height, took four overhead shots, and then dropped to half height, took four group photos, and then indicated that the low battery automatic landing. This is also the point that small drones are inherently weak. Even if the two batteries are replaced, they can only achieve about 2/3 of the endurance of traditional drones. In addition to buying more batteries, we also hope that Hover Camera can launch an available car charger set as soon as possible.
Sum up
Returning to the question posed at the beginning of the article, could the selfie drone become the next generation of selfie devices? In terms of appearance structure and operation process, Hover Camera has taken a big step out of the drone, just like the appearance of daily necessities and the volume that can be easily held, making it not only possible for girls who love selfies to carry a drone, but also a less unusual thing. The simple App remote control operation, combined with detailed video tutorials, also minimizes the psychological barrier between drones and groups who love selfies.
