Falcon Vcopter at 700 usd
7km range, 50 minute flight time and weight, camera that'd be similar to mavic 2 pro's.

And skydio having the best autonomous active track and follow mode with the beacon.

The competitors are exceeding what dji has
For flight time and autonomy mainly.

Will have a look at them.

Vcopter design is interesting

Well. Skydio already eats DJI mavic series completely. I mean its a bit more expensive, but man they have like 15 sensor cameras in there, Nvidia processor..etc.. That thing is like dream come true for people who do Extreme sports. I saw few obstacle avoidance videos, and wow..just wow.

Yeah, Skydio is a very interesting platform from an obstacle detection / autonomous flight perspective ... kind of takes the fun out of 'flying a drone', but as you said, an awesome platform for the extreme sport set.

Beeworld Posted at 1-3 23:12
Yeah, Skydio is a very interesting platform from an obstacle detection / autonomous flight perspective ... kind of takes the fun out of 'flying a drone', but as you said, an awesome platform for the extreme sport set.

Except if you take it into the woods.  Billy Kyle proved that it’s detection wasn’t great and it kept loosing him and gps.

Skydio it has already been proven that it won’t detect all obstacles like branches and wires, so take these out of the equation and it’s basically only 100% reliable in open ground because all trees have branches and wires are almost everywhere except in the open, so on these terms M2 is every bit as reliable as the skydio, but has the advantage of been able to track user Centre frame and has much better camera.

We only learn how good or bad these craft are when we see them in real users hands and skydio is proving not to match up to the hype .

hallmark007 Posted at 1-4 05:22
Skydio it has already been proven that it won’t detect all obstacles like branches and wires, so take these out of the equation and it’s basically only 100% reliable in open ground because all trees have branches and wires are almost everywhere except in the open, so on these terms M2 is every bit as reliable as the skydio, but has the advantage of been able to track user Centre frame and has much better camera.

We only learn how good or bad these craft are when we see them in real users hands and skydio is proving not to match up to the hype .

Hallmark007, I slightly disagree with you but not by much.  

I bought the Skydio R1 to use in capturing video (it doesn’t take single photos) of my grandson at the skate park and at the motorcycle racing track.  A quick disclaimer: DJI is currently the leading drone maker and its drones are becoming increasingly sophisticated in both software and hardware but at the release of the Skydio R1, DJI couldn’t match its autonomous features.  Since that release DJI has responded with many advanced features.

My reason to spend more money for the Skydio R1 is that it can be used solo, allowing me to capture footage of myself racing my RC boat or my grandson’s sports activities while not having my eyes glued to the drone or screen.  A part of this is made possible by the 13 onboard cameras which have great depth and motion sensors.  The Skydio R1 is controlled via an app on your mobile device.  Skydio R1 did not ship with an RC.  You do all controls on the app such as height and direction.  Once you tap the circular bubble over what you desire to follow for over the should video or to a lead mode for front facing video or simply to orbit the autonomy takes over.

It should be noted that the co-founders of Skydio were among the first engineers hired to get Google’s Project Wing drone delivery initiative off the ground.  Their extensive experience in UAV development and in the computer vision techniques helped drones perform safely and autonomously.

My only negative for the Skydio R1 is the limited flight time.  I got 2 batteries with it and the most flying time I could squeeze out was 15 minutes per battery.

I have ordered the Skydio 2 and can’t wait to see how the six 4K navigation cameras perform.  Also, need to see how the Nvidia Tegra TX2 processor with its 256 GPU cores speed up the AI computing capability over the R1.  Speaking of can’t wait, yeah I have to wait as I am in Production Batch 2.  

DowntownRDB Posted at 1-4 07:23
Hallmark007, I slightly disagree with you but not by much.  

I bought the Skydio R1 to use in capturing video (it doesn’t take single photos) of my grandson at the skate park and at the motorcycle racing track.  A quick disclaimer: DJI is currently the leading drone maker and its drones are becoming increasingly sophisticated in both software and hardware but at the release of the Skydio R1, DJI couldn’t match its autonomous features.  Since that release DJI has responded with many advanced features.

Of course I understand it will out preform dji in active track in many situations, but we are learning that this will never be a guarantee of it not crashing, in open areas the M2 tracking is amazing and incredibly fast an accurate, I just fear for many using skydio in areas they are convinced it’s infallible, would I buy one , if I could but I can’t , but be careful .

hallmark007 Posted at 1-4 08:22
Of course I understand it will out preform dji in active track in many situations, but we are learning that this will never be a guarantee of it not crashing, in open areas the M2 tracking is amazing and incredibly fast an accurate, I just fear for many using skydio in areas they are convinced it’s infallible, would I buy one , if I could but I can’t , but be careful .

I agree, there is no drone made that can be guaranteed to NOT crash.  Also, I think Skydio is over-marketing quite a bit Skydio 2s ability to follow anywhere...especially since the review videos show it still doesn't recognize wires and has issues in forested areas.  

For what I use my current Skydio for it works great and I am sure the Skydio 2 will work even better.  I don't plan on using it in heavily treed areas or around power lines, etc .  

It just does a superb job of making great quality videos of the sport activities I use it to film.  Rest assured I will continue to be cautious and careful with it.  Too expensive to get cocky or complacement.

Hope you had a great trip to Sweden as I see you are back home now.

speed_freakz Posted at 1-3 23:00
Well. Skydio already eats DJI mavic series completely. I mean its a bit more expensive, but man they have like 15 sensor cameras in there, Nvidia processor..etc.. That thing is like dream come true for people who do Extreme sports. I saw few obstacle avoidance videos, and wow..just wow.

Seen one user (not company) obstacle avoidance video's comparing DJI drone to Skydio.  IMO, test was biased for Skydio.

Feel less bias testing needs to be done between drones, before saying one is definitively better than another.