Snap launches its first drone • Hacker News Board

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#201

Post by qq66 » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 7:57 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #137

olafura wrote: post #36

Refreshingly honest about the video quality you should expect in the main promo video. Typical problems like dynamic range, color profile, light bleed and tracking problems with the top of the head being cut off at one point. Pretty typical unless you spend more money on your drone or camera equipment. There are so many companies that fake the footage or pick much easier shooting locations.

That is nice, but there is still intentionally misleading marketing fluff like this: >Each rechargeable battery allows you to capture content for 5-8 flights, depending on the flight mode(s) selected. Rechargeable batteries can be swapped for easy use... Why phrase it like that? That gives zero impression of what the actual battery life is because I have no idea what a "flight" means as a unit of measurement. Just te…

The default flight is 30 seconds.

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#202

Post by qq66 » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #156

bushbaba wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea on how many minutes it takes to get a photo. I personally like their metric choice.

I'm not sure that I follow what you are saying. Are you suggesting the expectation is that each flight yields one photo? It takes milliseconds not minutes to take a photo. I would expect this thing to be taking photos nearly continuously during flight which would make flight time the most informative metric.

Their target market measures the value of this thing in number of Snapchat Stories it can create so really the flights does make more sense. Their target market isn't going to want to divide 3 minutes by 20 seconds.

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#203

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

serf wrote: post #190

mrtksn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very surprised to hear the rotor buzz. Most drone promo videos pretend that when the motors spin, it makes moody beats sound.

I was too busy being deafened by Frank Sinatra a split second after the rotor noise played to even remember hearing the rotor noise; rather than faking the silence they just over-wrote my memory of it in the advertisement with shock-and-awe style Sinatra -- I guess that's okay.

[deleted]

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#204

Post by ryeights » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

Please no! Drones are a public nuisance; I would really prefer for them to be banned from all public outdoor areas.

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#205

Post by whywhywhywhy » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

When Snap moved into hardware I had high hopes but by this point had written them off.

Think this is a great step in the right direction and seems completely obvious once you see it.

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#206

Post by flatiron » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #197

The one thing that drives me up the wall is being on a beach, or on a hike, and somebody brings out a drone. The whine of the rotors carries much farther than people would like to admit. The ambient screech makes a beautiful natural landscape feel like an anxious techno nightmare. Now make them cheap, connect it to social media, and target them at teens. Let's hope these don't take off (pun intended). At least they c…

Totally unrelated but I feel like everyone smokes weed on the beach now. I’m not a prude, I don’t care, I just don’t want to smell it and have my kids ask about it all the time.

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#207

Post by Saris » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #197

The one thing that drives me up the wall is being on a beach, or on a hike, and somebody brings out a drone. The whine of the rotors carries much farther than people would like to admit. The ambient screech makes a beautiful natural landscape feel like an anxious techno nightmare. Now make them cheap, connect it to social media, and target them at teens. Let's hope these don't take off (pun intended). At least they c…

It would be nice to see some more effort put into noise. The tradeoff is shorter flight time, so I imagine that's why they're all loud.

Drones with 8 or 12 bladed props can be surprisingly quiet, with essentially no whine at all.

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#208

Post by the__alchemist » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 8:01 PM UTC

cupofpython wrote: post #100

marstall wrote: post #89

cue my dystopian paranoia self: in a few short years technology like this will enable the effortless creation of a perfect, stylish, witty video of each and every day of your life, shot and edited in complete autonomy. Which shows you at your best. And expresses none of your fears, anxieties, inelegancies, loneliness, family trauma, time wasting or thoughtless cruelty. Fast forward another nanosecond in the singulari…

and actual reality will have world peace* *all disturbances automatically nullified** immediately **nullification may include death

What do you mean by that?

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#209

Post by dymk » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 8:02 PM UTC

Brystephor wrote: post #183

alexk307 wrote: post #142

For another 100 bucks you can get an entry level DJI drone that blows this thing out of the water in terms of camera quality, range, features. This is a piece of trash.

$100 is a 40% price increase. Think about how people buy chocolate. Sure, for $4 you can get a good chocolate bar that's quality, sources sustainable goods, is fair trade, etc. But you can also get a chocolate bar that tastes decent for $1-$2. The "good chocolate bar" is only $2 more, but people are just looking for some chocolate. not to mention, the pixy flies itself and controls itself which removes effort + a lea…

People are saving $100 to waste $240 on a piece of plastic which will be amusing for a week or two, get boring because the image quality and battery suck, and then it goes to a landfill.

Re: Snap launches its first drone

#210

Post by trompetenaccoun » Thu, Apr 28, 2022, 8:02 PM UTC

rabuse wrote: post #180

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good business idea, it's going to be very successful. I also hate everything about it. The selfie sticks were bad enough but just like you say soon every idiot tourist is going to have an autonomous drone following them wherever they go, capturing hours of social media material that no one's going to care about. Unless they catch you doing something that goes against their boring norms, because then…

What makes you think this will be even remotely successful?

Because people love taking pictures and video clips of themselves and this makes it a lot easier to get shots from different angles. It's perfect for the self-obsessed crowd, for social media influencers, travel bloggers, etc. There is already a competitor and I'm sure future products are going to be improved in terms of sensing, autonomous flying and image quality. I'm not saying Snap is going to be market leader, just that such drones are going to sell.

Also autonomous flying has been in the works for other applications for years, now it's simply trickling down to the cheap consumer level where it can get sold to people who've never operated a quadcopter before and a going to buy this as a fun disposable gimmick.