Xiaomi recently announced their entry in the drone arena with the Mi Drone. After making its presence felt in the smartphone industry, Xiaomi plans to do the same in the drone industry.
But Xiaomi has to face veterans like DJI, Parrot, Cheerson to name a few. What is so special about the Mi Drone? Check out below!
#1 Long Flight Times: The Mi Drone has a 5100mAh 5s LiHV battery, which Xiaomi claims can provide a flight time of over 27 minutes. This is a lot as compared to most other FPV drones on the market.
Even the DJI Phantoms don’t come with flight times as long as this, despite costing more than 2x the money!
#2 Camera (Plus Stabiliser): The Mi Drone is available in two variants, the 4K and the 1080p. The 4K model has a 12.4 megapixel Sony sensor, with an Ambarella image processor and can shoot 4K (3,840 x 2,160-pixel resolution) at 30fps.
Whereas the 1080p model has a 16.4 mega-pixel Sony sensor and an Ambarella image processor and can shoot 1080p video at 60 fps.
Both the variants have a detachable gimbal mount and provide corrections for up to 2000 vibrations/sec, which for the lack of a better word, is insane for how much they cost!
Night Footage:
Here’s the difference that the powerful gimbal (stabiliser) makes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpMhizSFsd4
#3 Geolocation Sensors: The Mi Drone has both GPS and GLONASS for location tracking and maneuvering of the drone. Hovering is a cakewalk due to the onboard location sensors, and it also means that the drone knows at each point where exactly it is flying.
#4 Smartphone Connectivity: The controller is a nifty piece of hardware with a holster for your smartphone which can be used as a viewfinder for the drone.
#5 Long Range FPV Video Feed: Xiaomi states that the 4K variant provides a control range of up to 2 kilometers with live video, whereas the 1080p variant offers a control range of up to 1 kilometer with live video. With this, Xiaomi is gonna give all the drone manufacturers a run for their money!
What’s more, the controller of the Mi Drone comes with an attachment for a smartphone which can act as a viewfinder (aka FPV monitor) for your Mi Drone!
Take a look at some pictures of the Mi Drone. Click to enlarge!
#6 Waypoint Flying (Planned Flights): Also known as Route Planning or Mission Planning, this allows the flight plan to be designed before the drone takes flight. This allows the Mi Drone to follow a predefined path thus eliminating the use of a controller.
What it also means is that you can sit back and relax while the Mi Drone does the flying and filming, without you having to move a finger!
#7 Point Flight & Surrounded Flight: Point flight allows the user to pin point a location for the drone to fly to, whereas Surrounded flight allows 360 degree coverage of the area. This can be controlled via the mobile app.
In other words, you can use these two modes when you want to either (i) film one particular point or (ii) film around one particular point of interest!
#8 Return to Home, Auto Take-Off and Landing: The press of a single button on the controller commands the drone to return to its starting point.
That isn’t all; the Mi Drone will return to home in various other situations as well, for example when its low on battery, or when the link between the controller and the drone is broken.
Auto take-off and landing:
Auto-Return to Home:
#9 Lightweight, Modular Design: The Mi Drone is extremely lightweight and modular. The complete drone can be disassembled to fit into a backpack. In fact, Xiaomi will itself offer a backpack for the Mi Drone at a mere $15.
NEXT UP: Xiaomi Mi Drone Unboxing Video!
#10 The Price: The last, but definitely not the least, price is a deal breaker for many of us. But DEFINITELY not this time!
Xiaomi has priced the the 4K variant at $460 and the 1080p variant at $380. These prices are less than half the prices of the majority of professional drones out there.
Conclusion
All these features combined, the Mi Drone is a gem on paper. At this price point, there is hardly any other company that offers as many features as the Mi Drone.
It wouldn’t be unfair to say that Xiaomi has officially entered the drone industry with a bang with the Mi Drone!
