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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

Skydio is an American company and is ahead of DJI technically, at least for now. Better obstacle avoidance, a beacon for tracking shots, and (this is the best one) you can fly the drone through a path and set splines in 3d space, which the drone will then fly for you as many times as you want.

I don't own one, just a fun little DJI Mini 2, but it's only a matter of time.

The US isn't the EU, but I have negative trust in DJI (that is, I assume they're doing dastardly things with their huge firehose of data) and figure Skydio has a reputation to maintain if they want to differentiate, so neutral and even slightly positive.

I hope Skydio learns from Apple that privacy is something consumers who don't want the cheapest Chinese model of something demand, and does a better and more consistent job of delivering it.

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Skydio doesn't have anything in the EU hot market (under 250 grams; over that weight you have limitations). If you do not trust DJI you can just use a different application to fly the drone instead of DJI Fly; Litchi is the best I think.

Litchi also adds a lot of customizable fly patterns (e.g. follow), and I can confirm that DJI apps have no idea that these other flights happened (to my annoyance, as I actually liked the DJI flight logs feature).

This also means anyone can use the SDK DJI created to run their own drones. If I get a lot of time I might be tempted, though my drone will probably die to my code..

I keep stumbling over the Skydio, they look quite impressive, and I think almost what I am looking for but all their inspection videos are tailored towards relatively big structures (factories, RF towers, ...)

Does any company make an indoor capable drone that can fly a fixed path (through a house). It does not really matter how fast it is, and it does not need to be a strong drone.

"All" I want is to walk through a house with a drone, capturing the video and then have it repeat the same path over and over again autonomously. I don't even care about obstacle avoidance beyond the most basic "stop if you can't move to the next point"

Amazon's Ring Home Cam? (Though currently "Available exclusively by invitation")

Ring Always Home Cam | Flying indoor cam with multiple perspectives, custom flight paths, and In-Flight Live View

https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Always-Home-Cam/dp/B08YH144XD

That's an interesting idea, but also gives me the creeps. Amazon's proprietary software controlling a free-roaming camera that can move about nearly my entire house.

Why people are worried about China and not worried about police surveillance of their home is beyond me. Police are not your friend either

Count me as someone who has both in their threat model.

I would buy the version of that drone which doesn't immediately make me think of Ubik, though.

That, when it was announced would have been exactly what I was looking for, but it got kinda silent since then. So I am not sure how well that actually works and where it currently stands

That would be a Cinewhoop style body but with a kind of firmware that, alas, I don't believe is on offer. Cinewhoops are generally flown FPV.

The market is huge and bewildering and I don't put a lot of time into keeping up, though. If there's not something in this niche, there will be.

I have started experimenting with a DJI Tello and ORBSLAM but I would like to have at least a little less of a toy like drone that can stream the camera and accept remote commands

I have looked at the Tello on and off for awhile because it is supposed to be programmable in Go (https://gobot.io/documentation/platforms/tello/). Your impression seems negative, can you elaborate?

Sorry if that came over as negative. I really like what they did with it. I am using it in python and getting a video stream into OpenCV and sending commands to the drone is stupidly simple. If you are on the fence I'd say just buy it, it's quite cheap and is great for experimenting.

The reasons why I would like something like the Avata are:

* I want something that does not rely on Wifi but has their own transmission system (DJI is really top of the market here) because it should fly around a two story house where I can't guarantee coverage

* and I don't want to deal with switching networks (the goal will be switching between multiple houses and flying the route recorded for that specific house)

* and a better camera (the Tello is a toy camera). I would go for adding a naked GoPro but that's a hack

* and if all stars align, something that has indoor path following already built in

Thanks for clarifying. Sound like Tello is what I want to start with, particularly for introducing my kids to coding.

Very interested. I sent you a mail

FWIW I'm trying to build this. We're not targeting consumers initially, but maybe in the long run for your kind of use cases. contact info in about, happy to chat more about your use case.

I saw a YouTube video of a drone following a spline path, shooting day, dusk and night video then the YouTuber blending it altogether, very impressive.

I had been searching for it on YouTube thinking it was a DJI video, I’m fairly sure it was, hence me not finding it.

I don't see how they are ahead. They have drones that are more expensive and with artificial restrictions, I don't think that's the right approach to try to compete with a market leader

Do you think copying the market leader would be the best way to compete with the market leader?

Those are your words, not mine. But having a product that has less features and is more expensive is probably not the best approach, I guess they are playing the "made in the us" card.

edit: Ohh, you work for skydio, I should've guessed. I wish you and your team a successful spam campaign.

> edit: Ohh, you work for skydio, I should've guessed. I wish you and your team a successful spam campaign.

There's no need to be nasty. They were just asking if you thought copying the market leader was a good idea. Personally I'd pay more for the Made in the USA product if it has the features I need (not necessarily the "most" features)

The keyframing, DJI Waypoints is a me-too come lately feature which isn't as good.

I haven't tried it in the skydio drone but in the demo video it doesn't seem to work too well.

You can't fly a Skydio in Europe. (source: I own one)

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