I see what your saying but completely disagree. I found the videos on yt amazing and think avid mountain bikers or outdoor enthusiasts would pay to have video taken autonomously by a drone. I'm neither dizzy or bored seeing the ridiculous ability this drone has. The reason you see so few videos on yt for other drones doing tracking is because the tracking ability is no where near what this can do and yes those videos are boring and lack creativity. If I had an extra $1K I would order one in a heartbeat. I love my EVO and have few complaints with it, but I'm blown away seeing what the Skydio 2.0 can do and I dont feel it's overpriced, but would love to see the remotes included.
I do not know what the FAA will say about autonomous drones. If you do not have the controller or the beacon, you have to rely on the software which is operating\controlling the craft, there is really no pilot but the software. I was reading that in Australia it is against the law to operate any autonomous drone.
Any drone that is capable of being programmed to follow a flight plan is, in that instance, autonomous. That includes drones from DJI, Yuneec, Parror and Autel. One assumes the ability to over-ride the program amounts to control.
Let's see the response in 2020 and see what kind of market there is for this drone, as they already sold out their pre-order supply for 2019 in just a few days. I disagree, as you said this drone can do much of what the other drones on the market can do already - PLUS a huge differentiator that no one else has in a consumer drone.I acknowledge your point of view and rationale but the company is going to fail by trying to market a product that is basically advertised as a one trick pony that excels at one thing....extreme tracking in insane conditions. Considering all other types of drone filming it is in the same category and capability as every other drone out there and actually specs-wise the flight time, speed, and versatility of multiple resolution filming speeds is below today's standard.
To summarize: You aren't going to remain in business selling your product to a niche market of users/photographers. There are already a ton of professionals out there filming extreme sports (with drones too) so the market is very small. You need to be selling tens of thousands if your company is to survive and remain competitive. And there isn't that kind of market out there. Plus there is always the real possibility in autonomous tracking by yourself that you get to the bottom of the mountain and have no idea where your drone is - perhaps confused and hovering or worse, encountered an obstacle and went down on the side of a mountain....somewhere. Will Skydio honor their warranty with no corpse? Its a big world out there and a very tiny speck to find. And also what gear is recording the flight log, the telemetry, the data that is crucial to knowing where your bird ended up when you are flying autonomously and bare bones with the minimum control equipment?
Am not playing the devil's advocate....just being a realist.
Would this fall under the "Flying under a Waterfall not covered" clause?
Good points. Don’t think the forward rotors would be an issue if it had landing gear—after all, there are a number of multi rotors that have props on bottom as well as top. All the ones I know also have ‘stilts’. Somebody no doubt will come out with an after market set, as a couple have done with the Evo. Without legs, I’d be very dubious about hand catching, the Skydio2, given there are motors both top and bottom! Agree that there is a growing market for this kind of bird.
I wonder if the reason for the lack of landing stilts/legs is related to their testing of their obstacle avoidance system? Maybe, and this is strictly conjecture, introduction of stats in the FOV of the bottom camera(s) creates issues?
Yes, I wondered about that, too. I actually emailed them to ask a number of questions, including if landing gear was planned, and was told no, it wasn’t.
