Drones have been a controversial technology over the last decade. They’re used for everything from warfare to aerial photography, and love them or hate them, they’re here to stay. Personally, I’ve wanted one for years now.
My girlfriend believes that I would simply use it to creep on and terrify people, but that’s just not true! I mean, sure… that may be a part of it, but that wouldn’t be the whole story. No, what I really want is the ability to take beautiful aerial photography like we see in Postcards from Pripyat.
How cool would that be?
The trouble… is that drones are expensive. We’ve only had one major consumer drone manufacturer that makes drones with the functionality I’m looking for – they’re called DJI and make the Phantom line of drones – and without competition, prices stay high. Thankfully, that’s changing.
It’s Time to Go Solo
Founded by five ex-DJI employees, 3D Robotics has just released what they’re calling the Solo drone. It’s fast, light, has a long battery life (20+ minutes with camera) and is powered by two 1GHZ computers running the open source operating system Linux; one computer in the drone, and one in the controller.
It’s a beast!
But the best part is that it can actually stream back HD video to the controller via the GoPro Hero 4 camera you can mount to the chassis.
Here’s a video of it in action…
Now, though 3D Robotics is bringing some much needed competition to the consumer drone market, the Solo still isn’t exactly inexpensive. It retails for about $999, and that’s not even including the camera you’ll need to purchase and mount for streaming HD video.
Even so, I’m excited. Every technology is inherently primed for abuse, but it’s important to consider all the the wonderful applications as well. Already, drone operators the world over are capturing stunning, incredible images and video. Providing these drones are used properly and in a reasonable manner, I can only hope that we’ll see even more awesome drone footage in the coming years as the price of drones continues to decrease, and the technology gets better and better.
You can learn more about the 3D Robotics Solo on their official website.
