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Lily – Drone camera

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Lily – Drone camera

#271

Post by r00fus »

nck4222 wrote: post #185
sigmar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 25 mph is not all horizontal, and any downward movement would mean less power drain from the drone. Though I'd definitely agree that the battery life is a pretty big problem. I'm sure they will also sell a Lily branded external battery that can be kept in your backpack and used to recharge it.

Maybe, but the FAQ states the current battery isn't replaceable. So it seems more likely they'd have to come out with an entire new unit in order to have external batteries. It doesn't seem like something they're interested in for the launch.

Removable batteries would likely also hamper the ruggedness (IP67 rating).

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#272

Post by crimsonalucard »

jjwiseman wrote: post #256

I applied to YC with a speech interface for drones, one application of which would be hands-free operation of selfie drones like this. E.g., if you're mountain biking you probably don't want to take one hand off the handlebars and try to press the button on the remote that means "Switch to leading shot". Instead, you'd just talk into your earbud: "Switch to leading shot" or "Climb to 100 feet", or more complex cinema…

Reliability needs to be way higher then what we're currently seeing with google now and siri due to the inherit danger of what ur controlling.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#274

Post by r00fus »

OrwellianChild wrote: post #257
ricardobeat wrote: post #212

List of previous similar products: https://www.airdog.com http://hexoplus.com https://store.3drobotics.com/products/iris http://www.airmind.co

Thanks for these! Prices/status for reference: Status Release Price ----------- --------- ------------ AirDog* Pre-Order Q3 2015 $1,295 HEXO+* Pre-Order Sept 2015 $1,299 IRIS+* Available Now $750 Mind4* Kickstarter Failed $900-$1,489 Lily Pre-Order Feb 2016 $519-$1,019 *Note that all but Lily require a $300 GoPro camera. Price ranges are for Pre-Order vs. Post-Ship pricing. EDIT: Found Lily release date...

Amazing. Lily is like half the price of the rest. Where did you get the $ price? Right now it's $500, no real options, right?

The price just seems unbelievably low compared to all the other options.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#275

Post by DirtyAndy »

evo_9 wrote: post #139

It's impressive, no doubt, but I wonder about the actual utility of the device. My main concerned is the 20m battery life/record time - that is pretty limiting. If I were to use this to record myself snowboarding (like the video shows), that would be a problem. Here in Colorado a typical blue rated mountain run is easily 20m from top to bottom, esp. if you aren't gunning it the whole way. When I ride alone I can mayb…

A bigger issue to me is what do you do with Lily after it has run out of battery. I don't think I want to carry it for the rest of the day on the ski fields, mountain biking, trail running or anything else, it is fairly cumbersome. And I wonder how tough it is when it is in a back pack and I fall and land on it.

Very cool device and it would have a lot of practical uses, but not sure it will ever be that useful for the masses.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#276

Post by Zigurd »

evo_9 wrote: post #139

It's impressive, no doubt, but I wonder about the actual utility of the device. My main concerned is the 20m battery life/record time - that is pretty limiting. If I were to use this to record myself snowboarding (like the video shows), that would be a problem. Here in Colorado a typical blue rated mountain run is easily 20m from top to bottom, esp. if you aren't gunning it the whole way. When I ride alone I can mayb…

20 minutes should be plenty for skiing, and should cover more than one descent in most cases.

The airspace is going to be pretty hilarious at Killington on a weekends if half the people with GoPros upgrade to drones.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#277

Post by rsync »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #66
rsync wrote: post #36

One feature (or use case) that I would like a follow-me drone for is path-lighting. That is, let's say I'm going on a walk in the dark and I don't want to use a flashlight or wear a headlamp - I've thought of a drone flying 8-10 feet up, a few feet ahead of me, shining a light to light my way. Since the Lily people seem to be here answering HN comments, I wonder, how far off is your product from doing that ?

Sorry, what? How on earth would this be better than a headlamp, apart from the "look at my drone, my drone is amazing" part?

I am inclined to use a headlamp for this almost always.

However, if you are walking with one or two other people, their light depends on the direction of your head. And also on your relatively close proximity to them.

I dunno. It has occurred to me several times.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#278

Post by outworlder »

Istof wrote: post #205
stinos wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One motor suddenly failed Maybe drones need to start to incorporate parachutes to slow down the fall in case of problems like these, or maybe even airbags to ease the crash. Not that it would make it 99.9999% reliable, but it should be better than nothing. And also won't completely thrash your drone when it crashes. edit seems nine_k already commented with a similar idea

Quadcopters can also be saved if only one motor fails using only the 3 other motors and an algo: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/new-algorithm-can-save-a...

Patent-pending.

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#279

Post by dharma1 »

lsaferite wrote: post #261
Phlarp wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you have redundancy in the powertrain, getting redundancy from a flight computer is relatively straight forward. At that point 3 rotors on one side of the craft or multiple computers have to all fail simultaneously to cause a real loss of control, and even then algorithmic changes can be made to the flight computer to allow semi-controlled landings with multiple prop failures.

I would think a multi-FC voting system, like what the shuttle used, would be the way to go for FC redundancy. Mix that with a dual power system and 6 or 8 motors and I think you get MUCH better redundancy and fault tolerance. And while you are at it perhaps a disconnected drogue chute that deploys if a watchdog signal is lost. Not something that is large, just enough to slow the decent to non-dangerous speeds.

that would be a much safer setup but don't see these consumer drones implementing all that!

Re: Lily – Drone camera

#280

Post by legohead »

evo_9 wrote: post #139

It's impressive, no doubt, but I wonder about the actual utility of the device. My main concerned is the 20m battery life/record time - that is pretty limiting. If I were to use this to record myself snowboarding (like the video shows), that would be a problem. Here in Colorado a typical blue rated mountain run is easily 20m from top to bottom, esp. if you aren't gunning it the whole way. When I ride alone I can mayb…

My rock climbing friends and I have been watching the drone market. 20m in rock climbing just wont cut it at all :\
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