Wow! Preordered, but used my AMEX in case it turns out to be VaporWare.
Here's a hands-on video with a prototype: http://resourcemagonline.com/2015/05/hands-on-with-the-lily-...
Lily – Drone camera
391–400 of 496 posts
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#392This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…
I wonder if it could it be possible to have a canister of compressed hydrogen that will inflate a balloon large enough to slow down the fall, if the acceleration goes beyond a certain threshold, like .5g or something?
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fall into camp 3. I have a DJI Phantom that I crashed into my neighbor's yard due to my own incompetence and inexperience. I'm not arguing for draconian policy measures. I just want manufacturers to focus on and market reliability and safety features. It's a win-win for users and manufacturers. Manufacturers are clearly aiming for these drones to be everywhere and for everyone to own one. With many, many people fly…
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the point you are trying to make. The problem I have with it is, it seems by your own admission, you're somewhat hypocritical. You'd like for someone else, a la the manufacturer, to provide a guarantee that you can be lazy and not take precautions so that you don't have to worry about a $1300 radio controlled vehicle that flies doesn't hurt someone else? I only mention the gener…
I hope that most people flying these things show the same level of care and consideration that you do -- but as the barrier for entry lowers, I doubt that will be the case. I am concerned that as the number of careless casual users increases, the public outrage will be directed at the technology itself rather than the inexperienced pilots.
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are definitely drones that can fly way faster than 30 knots, but they are not waterproof, and the ones I've seen are rather dumb, they don't follow you. Here's a drone that can fly at 100 mph (87 knots): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p5uDf9i_Yc
That's oddly scary to watch for some reason. I'm not sure why? Maybe due to the fact drones are primarily used for war at the moment...
Drone is way too generic of a term. Do you know of any military application of a multicopter?
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#395I wonder how this handles obstacles. The trails we ride are not wide open ski slopes, or rivers, often times they are tight/wooded trails. Would like to see how it handles "close following". Lastly, the part in the video where the guy just tosses it into the river was definitely mind-blowing.
Yeah. I kiteboard and I would love to make some images using Lilly. But I'm pretty sure eventually Lilly may crash into the lines or kite.
Ugh thinking of that gave me shudders. Kiting is dangerous enough without these things flying around, I would definitely give someone a piece of my mind if they started flying a drone in a busy spot.
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#396I wonder how this handles obstacles. The trails we ride are not wide open ski slopes, or rivers, often times they are tight/wooded trails. Would like to see how it handles "close following". Lastly, the part in the video where the guy just tosses it into the river was definitely mind-blowing.
> I wonder how this handles obstacles.
According to the creators v1 doesn't handle obstacles at all due to time and cost. I'm sure a later version can be made to do so; I feel like it should be far easier to do in a 3D space versus a flatted space like ground vehicles.
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't imagine that propellers play nicely with kites...
if you could but a beacon of the leading edge of the kite and setup a NO GO zone between the remote and the kite's beacon that would solve that issue.
Sounds good in theory, but in practice kites can move really fast when manoeuvring or doing tricks. No guarantee that the drone would always avoid you successfully. You'd have to stay aware of where it is and where it's going, which would probably interfere with your kiting significantly.
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love Mythbusters to throw the biggest drone you can get into a jet engine. Pretty sure nothing, but some good entertainment would happen.
No need. A Canada Goose[1] can take out an engine; a flock can take out an airliner.[2] There are many drones larger than the geese, so I would expect this to be a distinct possibility. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_goose [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549
> usually weighs 2.6–6.5 kg
Flock of drones is unrealistic too.
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#399It would be cool if the remote in your pocket had a "Call 911!" button. So like, if I was out snowboarding, and saw an avalanche coming, I probably wouldn't be able to call 911. But this little drone is a good deal above me and the avalanche/murderer/shark/whatever, it could call 911 for me, and when they recovered it, it would have video of what happened to me. It could even fly towards a preset location (known rang…
I thought they already had these specifically for avalanches, minus the drone. Some sort of tracking beacon that you can carry around, that will lead them to your body.
They do, and if you ski the alpine backcountry without one then you must have a death wish.
Avalanche safety is one use case where, as with defibrillators or hospital pagers, I think people will continue for a long time to use simple, rugged, and purpose-built devices with very low probability of failure rather than introducing a million new failure modes by using e.g. a cell phone or flying drone.
Re: Lily – Drone camera
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wonder if you can buy a few and tell them to follow each other.
You could probably just duct tape the tracking device to another drone. Looping them together like ants would be cool! :D.
Tape the last drone's tracker to the first drone, and launch them all at once. I'd pay to see that video :-)