Archive for the ‘99.99’ tag
Parrot AR.Drone Review – The Coolest RC Toy I’ve Played With
We've been excited for the Parrot AR.Drone since we first heard about it early this year. After a few different hands-on opportunities at various conventions, it was hard to not see the amazing potential the device had once you got it outside of the little 10 foot by 10 foot tent that was home to its demonstrations. After spending an entire week with the Parrot AR.Drone, it does have some down sides, but is still the coolest RC toy I've had a chance to play with.
The Parrot AR.Drone is a quadricopter that is piloted using an iPhone, iPod touch, or even an iPad. When the device is powered up, it starts broadcasting its own WiFi network. Using the companion Free Flight [Free] app, you connect to this wireless network and begin controlling the unit. The network it creates isn't encrypted at all, but the AR.Drone does bind itself to the first device that connects to it to prevent other people from hijacking your flight session. Unpairing your phone is as simple as pressing a small button on the underside of the device.
Once you're connected to the AR.Drone via the Free Flight app, you're immediately shown whatever the front facing camera sees. The top left button cycles through what is displayed on the screen between the front facing camera, the bottom facing camera, or a mixture of both. With both displayed you can continue pressing the button to swap whether the front facing or bottom facing camera is shown in the corner or filling the screen.
Just below the camera cycling button is a button that allows you to edit the settings of the device. From here you can tweak nearly everything such as how quickly it will climb, how much it will bank on turns, how sensitive the iPhone controls are, and even the SSID the AR.Drone broadcasts. Also in the settings is what kind of shell you're currently using and whether or not you're flying outdoors.
Included with the Parrot AR.Drone is the large indoor shell which protects the propellers from bumping in to things as you fly it around your house as well as the much sleeker outdoor shell. Swapping these is easy, they fit over the front facing camera and are secured on the back with a magnet. Outdoor hulls are available in three different colors for $20 each, and a replacement indoor hull will run you $30.
The first thing you notice with the AR.Drone when you pull it out of the box is just how incredibly light and fragile the whole unit feels. The two different hulls and the body of the unit itself are made of EPP, or Expanded Polypropylene, a material that is widely used in most RC aircraft. It's able to bounce back and retain its shape, but just like other RC aircraft, I don't see the AR.Drone being able to handle much abuse. Thankfully, Parrot has an with every part you'd need to completely rebuilt your AR.Drone if you had to.
Flying the device itself is very easy, although doing anything more than just basic maneuvers requires a bit of getting used to. In the Free Flight app, tapping the button at the bottom of the screen causes the AR.Drone to either take off or land. From there, holding your thumb on a button on the bottom left side of the screen allows you to move the unit forward, back, or side to side by tilting the device you're running Free Flight on. Turning side to side and adjusting your altitude is accomplished using a virtual joystick of sorts on the right. If you get in trouble, an emergency button on the top of the screen immediately kills power to the propellers.
It's amazing just how much the AR.Drone does for you. It comes packed with some fairly advanced circuitry that will do everything it can to keep the device level. If you ever lose your connection to the AR.Drone WiFi, it just stops itself then slowly lands. Using sensor data from the bottom of the device, it can keep itself hover in place, even outside in a light breeze. Aside from actually running into something, the AR.Drone is also very difficult to crash, even when you're intentionally trying to get it to lose control. If it senses that it's about to tilt too far to one direction or otherwise lose control, it will abruptly correct itself.
It's really cool to see all these systems working in tandem, and if you've ever fiddled with other RC helicopters before, how idiot proof the AR.Drone is in comparison will amaze you. Unfortunately, because flying the device is such a cool experience, the first thing you immediately come to grips with is just how short the battery life is. On a full charge, I was able to fly the unit outside for around a half hour (or less depending on wind conditions) and indoors I was able to juice an additional 15 minutes or so out of the battery for a total flight time of about 45 minutes. Charging the battery back up takes an hour and a half.
Another unfortunate drawback to the AR.Drone is just how mediocre the cameras on the device are. The forward facing camera sports a resolution of 640×480, and Parrot claims it delivers this video feed at 15 FPS, but in my testing the frame rate was rarely anywhere near that, or very constant for that matter. The bottom camera is a much lower 176×144, but can display 60 FPS according to Parrot. In my testing, video from the bottom camera is a lot smoother, but it is very difficult to fly the unit using only the bottom facing camera. Because of this, more often than not I just flew the AR.Drone like I would any other RC toy in that I just watched it in the air and used my iPhone as an incredibly elaborate controller.
Without a shell on, the AR.Drone can lift very light loads, allowing for things like high definition helmet cams to be strapped to it for some better video. For instance, I found this video on YouTube of an AR.Drone with a onboard:
Once you spend more time with the AR.Drone, other limitations begin to become increasingly noticeable. For instance, with the height limiter enabled in the options, the AR.Drone will only climb to around 20 feet off the ground which is as far as the sensors under the craft can detect. With the height limiter disabled, you can climb much higher, but flying the unit becomes incredibly difficult as it's no longer capable of hovering in place once you exceed the capabilities of its bottom-fancing sensors.
Testing the vertical capabilities of the device was the only time I had to use the emergency button. Once you take away the AR.Drone's ability to figure out where it is in relation to the ground, it loses its ability to correct its location. Flying the device on what I'd call a fairly calm day resulted in it almost being blown into some trees when a small breeze picked up. In comparison, in similar conditions closer to the ground the AR.Drone barely moved at all.
Also, since the whole device operates on WiFi, you're constrained by the range limitations of both the AR.Drone and the iPhone. Parrot is claiming you can operate the device from 150 feet away, which seemed a little optimistic in my testing. Thankfully, all the cool auto-pilolting stuff I mentioned earlier comes in to play when you lose your connection to the AR.Drone and it just flies in place waiting for you to get back in range and resume flight.
Overall the Parrot AR.Drone seems like a very 1.0 device with loads of potential both in future hardware revisions and in future development with the AR.Drone API. Improved battery technology, higher resolution cameras, and more powerful sensors to allow for higher flights are all things I would love to see in future models. Currently the only companion app available for the AR.Drone is the Free Flight app, but Parrot has promised other apps such as augmented reality games where two players with their own AR.Drones can have virtual dog fights, and other similar things. None of these were available at the time of this review, but I definitely can see the amazing potential for future software development.
Parrot is boasting a for developers to program their own apps to interface with the AR.Drone. While I'd love to think that there are going to be all kinds of different third party apps for the device, I really can't imagine many developers devoting resources to projects that not only require you to own an iPhone or iPod touch, but also a Parrot AR.Drone– Especially considering the mediocre uptake that iPad-only games have seen, and the iPad's market is likely exponentially larger than that of the Parrot AR.Drone.
However, if you're interested in RC aircraft and have dabbled in iPhone development, I really can't think of a much better toy to own than the AR.Drone. Throughout all my testing, I kept thinking "The AR.Drone would be cool if it did _______." If you're capable of utilizing the API to build an app that fills in the blank for whatever awesome functionality you come up with, $300 for the AR.Drone seems like a worthy investment for hobbyists.
While the Parrot AR.Drone is the coolest RC Toy I've ever played with, it's hard to give it a strong general recommendation given the current lack of software. It also would have been nice to see Parrot bundle a second battery in with the unit since additional batteries are pretty much required if you're serious about flying the device. If you're OK with waiting to see what additional apps get released, and you're patient enough to deal with 90 minute recharge cycles, flying the AR.Drone will likely be one of the most awesome things you'll ever do with your iPhone.
The Parrot AR.Drone is for $299.99. They offer a number of accessories with it, including extra batteries for $29.95 and both two- and three-year service plans– although it's not entirely clear if crashing the device in to a tree constitutes as "normal wear and tear" in the eyes of Brookstone's warranty department.
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Unboxing and First Impressions With the Parrot AR.Drone [Updated]
There is nothing worse than getting a FedEx tracking number late on a Thursday, knowing full well that your package will not arrive until Monday. Even as an adult, I'll still obsessively refresh tracking information, even when I know something won't be delivered for days. Still, that didn't stop me from tracking the Parrot AR.Drone all weekend, or getting up and looking out the window when I even thought I might have heard the sound of tires on gravel in the distance all day today. Surely any self respecting geek knows the feeling as they anxiously await their newest techno-toy.
The AR.Drone arrived mere moments ago, and after carefully opening the packaging I was greeted with the wondrous quadricopter that we've been drooling over since we first caught wind of it back at CES in January. Since then we've had a brief hands-on and later discovered that it would sell for $299.99 available for preorder through .
In the demos we've been given in the past, we've never actually been able to touch the unit, only fly it around for a few seconds inside of the controlled environment of the Parrot booth at conventions. My first impression as I took it out of the box was just how amazingly light and delicate the whole unit feels. I suppose it makes sense that it's light because it has to fly, but it feels like nothing.
In the box with the unit is a brief quick start guide which explains to first charge the battery, how to install the battery, and the basics of getting the Parrot AR.Drone in the air. Like any impatient man child, I immediately installed the battery, and paired it to my iPhone which was as simple as downloading the free Parrot AR.Drone Free Flight app and connecting to the WiFi network it creates. After that, you launch the app, it connects to the quadricopter, and you're met with a screen that looks like this:
Unfortunately, since I skipped that whole "charge the battery first" step, the AR.Drone only flew for about 45 seconds before it ran out of juice. I'm currently impatiently waiting the light on the charger to flip from red to green, and daylight is fading fast. I hope to have some extensive video of how the unit works, how it is assembled, and flying it in the not too distant future. (All depending on how long it takes to charge of course.)
Following that, I'll be doing a full review of the Parrot AR.Drone, so if you have any questions that you'd like answered or anything you want me to do as I put it through its paces, post a comment on this story.
Update: With the sun about to set I grabbed the battery with as much charge as the charger was able to give me and headed out to shoot some video. The companion app initially showed that I was at around 30% battery, which seemed to last for about 10 minutes of outdoor flight time. Here's a video of my first real flight outdoors with the Parrot AR.Drone:
Something that immediately struck me was how awesome the device is at steadying itself, even with the breeze outside. In the video I am actively trying to get it to lose control, by having it bank in to the wind and the onboard flight controller just automatically leveled the quadricopter without any issues at all. Also, it's really cool how low it will fly to the ground, automatically adjusting its height as it goes up or down hills. Buzzing over the grass at about a foot off the ground was a truly impressive display of how accurately the AR.Drone can hold its altitude. While none of these things are really new revelations from our previous hands-ons at conventions, all of those were always indoors in a very small controlled environment with no winds at all. A part of me was expecting everything to fall apart once the AR.Drone got outside of the calm 10×10 Parrot tent on the show floor… But it performed flawlessly.
The strangest part about flying the AR.Drone is trusting the iPhone display over just watching it fly through the air and controlling it like a normal RC helicopter. This is even more disorienting when you notice that you can see yourself in the image. The AR.Drone is always controlled from its viewpoint, creating a brain-bending situation where you can see the device with your eyes, you in the devices eyes, and everything is backwards as you're facing it.
At demos in the past, controlling the AR.Drone seemed really easy, and it is when you're limited by about 10 feet in any direction. When you actually get outdoors, and have tons of obstacles to fly around, piloting the device actually seems to take a bit of skill– Even with all the automated flight systems it has.
Just as I was getting good, I was met with this yet again:
So far I'd really advise anyone who already had one of these preordered to buy as many extra batteries as you feel comfortable purchasing. Flying the AR.Drone is really cool, but having it run out of battery, then sitting and waiting for the battery to charge sucks just as much as it did when I was a kid waiting for the NiCD batteries of my various RC cards to juice back up before I could play again.
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Unboxing and First Impressions With the Parrot AR.Drone
There is nothing worse than getting a FedEx tracking number late on a Thursday, knowing full well that your package will not arrive until Monday. Even as an adult, I'll still obsessively refresh tracking information, even when I know something won't be delivered for days. Still, that didn't stop me from tracking the Parrot AR.Drone all weekend, or getting up and looking out the window when I even thought I might have heard the sound of tires on gravel in the distance all day today. Surely any self respecting geek knows the feeling as they anxiously await their newest techno-toy.
The AR.Drone arrived mere moments ago, and after carefully opening the packaging I was greeted with the wondrous quadricopter that we've been drooling over since we first caught wind of it back at CES in January. Since then we've had a brief hands-on and later discovered that it would sell for $299.99 available for preorder through .
In the demos we've been given in the past, we've never actually been able to touch the unit, only fly it around for a few seconds inside of the controlled environment of the Parrot booth at conventions. My first impression as I took it out of the box was just how amazingly light and delicate the whole unit feels. I suppose it makes sense that it's light because it has to fly, but it feels like nothing.
In the box with the unit is a brief quick start guide which explains to first charge the battery, how to install the battery, and the basics of getting the Parrot AR.Drone in the air. Like any impatient man child, I immediately installed the battery, and paired it to my iPhone which was as simple as downloading the free Parrot AR.Drone Free Flight app and connecting to the WiFi network it creates. After that, you launch the app, it connects to the quadricopter, and you're met with a screen that looks like this:
Unfortunately, since I skipped that whole "charge the battery first" step, the AR.Drone only flew for about 45 seconds before it ran out of juice. I'm currently impatiently waiting the light on the charger to flip from red to green, and daylight is fading fast. I hope to have some extensive video of how the unit works, how it is assembled, and flying it in the not too distant future. (All depending on how long it takes to charge of course.)
Following that, I'll be doing a full review of the Parrot AR.Drone, so if you have any questions that you'd like answered or anything you want me to do as I put it through its paces, post a comment on this story.
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$299.99 Parrot AR.Drone Now Available for Pre-Order – Shipping September 3rd
We got word this afternoon that the Parrot AR.Drone Quadricopter is going to be sold exclusively through and is . Brookstone plans on shipping orders on September 3rd, and the first 300 orders get a free flight bag. (Tempting, I know.) Currently, Brookstone is only willing to ship the Parrot AR.Drone to customers inside of the USA, and optionally available is a $49.95 bundle which includes a additional hull, battery, and an iPhone 3G/3GS case. They're also selling two and three year service plans for $39.99 or $49.99, although it's unclear whether or not breaking your AR.Drone by crashing it in to something is considered "normal wear and tear."
We got our first hands-on at CES 2010 earlier this year and thought it was incredibly cool-
The device is currently controlled using an iPhone/iPod Touch app which communicates through Wi-Fi to the AR.Drone itself. Simply tap on Launch and the AR.Drone takes off and hovers over a stationary spot. On screen controls are easy and effective.
Left/right buttons allow you to rotate 360 degrees in one spot, while up/down buttons control altitude. Pressing on a special button activates tilt-control on the iPhone/iPod Touch itself. This allow you to fly the device by naturally tilting the iPhone itself. Meanwhile, the on screen controls are overlayed with live video coming from the front-facing camera of the Drone itself.
In picking it up for the first time, I found it very easy to maneuver. The main thing I had to get used to was using the drone's point of view to steer, rather than my own. Check out our video:
The Parrot AR.Drone has some serious technology built in to it with its ability to auto-level itself, and pilot itself if it loses the connection with the device you're controlling it with. Remote control helicopters (which require much more skill to fly) sell for upwards of $1,000, making the $299.99 they're asking for everything the AR.Drone is capable of doing seem surprisingly appealing. For more information on the Parrot AR.Drone and make sure to take a peek at their that you can play for the device.
I can't wait to get my hands on one.
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