Xiaomi unveils the Mi Drone | Hacker News Reader

Xiaomi unveils the Mi Drone

theverge.com

77 pointsjrnkntl30 comments

That's f-n huge, the big drones we were getting so far like the DJI Phantom are also Chinese but they market them selves and charge people like they were made in Switzerland and designed by clones of Wernher von Braun.

If Xiaomi gets into the game we can expect many more high quality Chinese drones at reasonable consumer prices.

When would we likely see this in the states?

May hold on upgrading from my Phantom 3 Standard to Phantom 4 in lieu of an alternative at 1/3 cost..

I have no idea, but if you are prosumer and you use your Phantom for work I don't think this one will be for you. The ecosystem that DJI ahs built is going to take quite a bit of time to match for the prosumer market.

I never bought into DJI I disliked the fact that they tried to mask the fact that they were Chinese at first and at those prices i rather had to have something semi-custom built and finish it my self.

What DJI did was great they produced pretty much the first (commercially successful) out of the box can be used by anyone (children to professional photographers) drone with a good ecosystem - basically the "iPhone of drones", but they always priced it too high for what it was (the prices oddly enough have been dropping for the past few weeks and a full DJI P3 4K drone kit with extra blades, 3-axis gimble and the works can be had under 600GBP in the UK, I don't know if it's just because the summer is coming or DJI knew about this) especially considering the amount of accessories you usually had to buy ontop of the base kit to make any use of the damn thing.

Considering we also don't know how this drone performs yet and that they'll be crowdfunding it initially I don't think you should wait if you really need to upgrade (also why upgrade the P3? It's still one of the best drones around) do it, I'm not sure if I would ever get the Xiaomi drone either but it's good to see that big Chinese companies are getting into the market because there is nothing wrong with Chinese companies but there's also no reason for what so ever to price serially produced drones that can cost <100$ in BOM at a 1000$ or higher...

Definitely not using it for work; youtube videos at best.. love my P3S. Was able to fly for the first time within an hour at a tennis/golf retreat. Would only upgrade to get the further range.

Said video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mucjAyPrKOU

If you want more range for the Wifi look at Wifi boosters for the DJI P4, other than that I don't really think you will get more range. I know people with both and the flight time is pretty much identical 25~ min or so, even tho the P4 has officially 2-3min longer flight time it doesn't seem to really express it self that much in reality.

Would you happen to have a link for where the P3 4K is for £600? After some bad experiences with a Quanum Nova, I'd like to try a DJI instead.

> When would we likely see this in the states?

Xiaomi has officially said they have no plans to enter US markets with their phones at least and considering this "depends" on their phones for now I don't think any time soon, at least officially.

Unofficially, of course, you'll be able to order it off AliExpress/eBay/etc in a few weeks after release and I'm sure someone will reverse engineer it a bit and produce a modified apk that can be used to control these things.

The press release said that the Mi phone was used as the view finder, that's an Android phone no where in the article did it say that it would not be compatible with other Android phones in the least. I would really surprise me if Xiaomi would even attempt at locking this to it's phones only, it makes absolutely no sense for them that said since many Mi phones cost less than 150-200$ and most people i know that fly DJI's have a dedicated tablet for it, it still would be considerably cheaper than the DJI phantom if it could manage to come close to it performance wise.

P.S. While I'm not an American Xiaomi does has a US store http://www.mi.com/en/

They have an english site but nowhere on that site do they sell phones to the US. They may sell some other products (for example, their headphones, I know they offer warranty in the US on them at least, but I can't seem to find a store page on their site).

They said "uses your Mi smartphone as its viewfinder". Hard to say for certain, but that line makes me think they're trying to lock it. Other manufacturers have done similar stupid things, so it wouldn't really surprise me.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/1/10885500/us-mobile-xiaomi-m...

Again I don't know much about the US market, but they do have FCC approval and it seems that they do have direct marketing sales in the US. The biggest problem I see is that their phones for the most part are EU/ASIA focused which means that LTE won't work on most US networks, and US only bands won't be supported either.

just buy on gearbest.com

> a remote control that uses your Mi smartphone as its viewfinder

This seems like a strange limitation, unless of course this is just trying to push Xiaomi's other products, which wouldn't be so surprising considering this article is essentially an ad.

I hope the prices remain the same upon release, as I've been wanting to get one of these for a while.

Does anybody know of inexpensive drones that can be used just for hacking? Ideally, I'd like something with a remote API, a bit like the AR Parrot Drone 2, though it doesn't need to be as good (or expensive) as this would just be for experimenting.

From what I can tell they're crowdfunding [0] it (???) Why would a large company with presumably plenty of cash crowdfund something like this?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something, or maybe it's to drum up publicity for their crowdfunding site, but it just seems very confusing to me.

[0] http://home.mi.com/shop/detail?gid=186

They do this for pretty much every product release

Maybe they're measuring demand before getting too far into the game. Getting people to pay is arguably the best way of measuring demand.

Pre-orders would likely cover their R&D and build costs with the advantage of "made to order" for a new product..

Pre-ordering != crowdfunding

First they took on the smartphone market, then GoPro, now drones. I, as a consumer, am very excited about this. If the first test results show it's capable and the quality decent, I will instantly order one.

Go Xiaomi!

I used to be bullish on Xiaomi. Not any more. They seem to get into any hot sectors very quickly, but never manage to grab a big piece of pie and keep it. I wonder if Xiaomi has spreaded itself too thin.

They're only successful because of government protectionism. Google android services aren't allowed in China and this Android fork using homegrown services is. They don't pay patent or licensing fees so that cuts the price of the phone significantly and they more or less ripoff Apple for design:

http://www.cultofandroid.com/66569/xiaomi-dont-copy-apple/

They're cheap and work "well enough" but I wouldn't buy a drone from them until there are a lot of reviews. Even then, it probably wont be available in the states if they still license fee dodge. The pricing is in yuan and a straight conversion to dollars is pretty much meaningless. There's always going to be a higher price in the states, or to any country they export to, for a variety of reasons.

I'd rather pay a little more and buy a DJI. They're reputable and have great reviews. The $500 model has a 2.7K HD camera and 4.5 stars on Amazon and I can get it here via Prime in two days. There's a lot of competition in this space already. I'm skeptical they'll break through.

> They're only successful because of government protectionism.

Protectionism exists across the board in the EU and the US, especially in agriculture. In fact, it has been stated that if there weren't protectionism in the EU and US poorer countries in the world could trade their way out of debt and in a very real sense the protectionism in the US and EU is keeping those places poor and relying on handouts.

I only _wish_ the EU was more protectionist about tech. Because the EU hasn't been we have home-grown no Googles, no Apples, no Microsofts, no Amazons, … you name it. It's actually smart of China to protect their tech sector from being steamrolled over.

I get it though. When we act in our self-interest, it's normal and reasonable. When others do, how dare they.

> I'd rather pay a little more and buy a DJI

Article states that 4k model of DJI is over $1000, Xiaomi 4k model is $460. That's the first time I've seen 'a little more' mean 'greater than twice the price'.

>It's actually smart of China to protect their tech sector from being steamrolled over.

Yet there's no homegrown Android, no Chinese OS, etc. Just lazy Linux distro derivatives and lots of pirating of Western software. I think you're overplaying the perceived benefit of protectionism.

Europe's lack of innovation has more to do with its high regulatory environment, high taxes, expensive labor entitlements, and anti-entrepreneurial attitudes. How well is protectionism working in Brazil, which has absurd import taxes? They need to import that things they can't make, which are significant, and Brazilians pay absurd tariffs on these goods.

The benefits of open and free markets are obvious.

>Xiaomi 4k model is $460.

Again, that's not the US price. There is no US price yet, or ever. The US/EU price will include import costs and patent/licensing fees for technology they are using. There's a reason you can't get Xiamo phones in the West. The DJI price includes all of that and the 4k Phantom 3 is $649.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1208608-REG/dji_phanto...

That's a real product you can buy today, not a disingenuous yuan to dollar conversion.

> Yet there's no homegrown Android, no Chinese OS, etc.

Not yet, but seeing how they have taken over the hardware industry, I can see them taking on hardware very soon.

Their mobile apps are getting to be quite innovative, with Facebook copying many WeChat features.

> I think you're overplaying the perceived benefit of protectionism.

If you read the book, "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" you'll see that protectionism and IP theft played a major role in helping all modern Western nations develop.

Like the US stealing British tech to fuel their own industrial revolution, and not respecting patents until it benefited tem.

For a more recent example, take a look at South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. All of them are protectionist until just 25 some years ago.

>The benefits of open and free markets are obvious.

All "developed" countries were heavily protectionist in their formative years. Only now that they have some economic power in the world, they're trying to impose asymmetrical "free trade" agreements on nations which are not developed and force them to abandon protectionism. These are just the facts.

>I think you're overplaying the perceived benefit of protectionism.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1843310279

Ah that link is interesting. I was wrong about the price differential, wasn't trying to be disingenuous, I was going by the article (and ended up comparing apples to oranges by mistake) so I didn't know where you were coming from.

I don't think I've ever seen a Xiaomi phone in the wild and I've only ever seen a single OnePlus v1.

Again, I think it is in China's interests to protect their markets as they see fit, within reason.

Yeah, DJI would be a better choice, if you are in the market for a drone.

not to nitpick but there's a typo 'gimabl'. I wish 21st century people could utilized the spellchecker.

> utilized

Not to nitpick but there's a typo. ;-)

I think you are wrong. Please check: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/utilize

The spelling is correct for American and Canadian English, but the grammar is not. Saying "people could utilize" is correct, as is "people could have utilized", but (for whatever reason, and not that it matters) "people could utilized" is never utilised (alternative British Spelling). Also, "would" is arguably better than "could" in this sentence, but it should be clear to the reader either way.

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