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Snap launches its first drone
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- FpUser 4y agoI do not like when it becomes a puzzle and multiple clicks to find tech specs. Also I really dislike this "lasts longer" style description of a battery life / flight time. I would very much prefer X minutes when hovering and no wind as a rough measure.
- nathan_gold 4y agoI find it interesting how people always judge products based on their v1. Yes it has flaws, but early adopters will put up with it, and future iterations will be much better. I think we need to ask ourselves whether, if some things improved, this is a good idea. And I like it.
- lewisflude 4y agoWeird scrolljacking, just made that page feel a bit sluggish.
- dopamean 4y agoSeriously. I thought it was my computer at first.
- jmull 4y agoHonestly, until I saw this comment I didn't realize there was anything past the first screen... I had tried scrolling before but now I realize you have to keep scrolling even though nothing is happening. Jankiest scroll-jacking I've ever seen.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fredley 4y agoYou thought the e-scooter debris in historic cities was bad, if these take off they'll be clogging up historic monuments in a European capital near you soon. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tourist-drone-incidents-rome-pisa/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/tourist-drone-inciden...
- deanc 4y agoWhat on earth is this pivot? From ephemeral messenger into camera sunglasses and a drone?
- fredley 4y ago> Snap Inc. is a camera company. > We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. https://snap.com/ https://snap.com/
- hacker_newz 4y agoA camera company with terrible camera quality.
- rabuse 4y agoI don't get how so many people are praising this garbage product in the comments. It's $230 for cheap crap everything; battery, camera, plastic.
- Crabber 4y ago>We contribute to human progress by empowering people to live in the moment How is every social media company so painfully self-unaware? Is this just a "it's impossible to get a man to see a problem he is paid not to see" kind of situation or do snapchat employees genuinely believe that they are helping people "live in the moment" by developing an app that encourages the exact opposite?
- spelunker 4y agoThey're just trying to find ways to increase engagement on their app, I think it makes sense.
- Karawebnetwork 4y agoIs it really a pivot? They are all about letting people share video stories made using their ecosystem. They pushed the software (filters, etc.) as far as they could so now they are pushing the hardware. You can't code a "first person view" or a "third person view" filter. So glasses & drones it is.
- dmarchuk 4y agoI'm a bit surprised they don't mention Snap anywhere on the site except for a link in footer (something like "by Snap"). Generally I would expect much better experience from a single page website promoting one product.
- moritonal 4y agoI looked through (edit, most) their site, and can't find any... specs? Nothing about the length of each flight (but it proudly says it can do 5-8 flights). Nothing about the video encoding, or photo-quality, how many people it can track or how it handles crowds. Even the basics like, what phone's does this support, BLE-5 ect? With no information elsewhere and not actually being able to puchase the device, is this acutally "launched" or just announced?
- kart23 4y agoyou can buy one by clicking the shop button. it says it’ll only ship in 12 weeks though.
- judge2020 4y agoHad to go to 'pixy support' at the bottom, but it still doesn't tote the length of each flight. https://support.pixy.com/hc/en-us/articles/5039928089236-Pixy-Tech-Specs https://support.pixy.com/hc/en-us/articles/5039928089236-Pix...
- raylad 4y agoMax flight time is 60 seconds according to a settings screen in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LwntvUVUV8&t=22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LwntvUVUV8&t=22s
- throwaway413 4y ago
- chrisshroba 4y agoSay what you will about Snap, I'm all for fun new electronics, and I've often wondered whether a product like this could be viable. Excited to see how it does!
- mNovak 4y agoTo dive straight into the low end is viable only for a large corp that can subsidize it and/or the massive marketing blitz. I highly doubt they're making money on the $250 price tag unless they sell several million. Anyone else has to start at the high end / specialty, and work their way down.
- no_time 4y agoHuh? If you take a look on aliexpress you can find drones that are better in every measurable metric (except ease of use) for half the money. This thing probably has an insane markup.
- mattnewton 4y agoInteresting that the Snap branding is pretty buried on the page, seemingly only in the about section at the bottom. The design language seems like it's snap, maybe that made it obvious enough?
- badwolf 4y agoSimilar to Spectacles.com
- andrewgioia 4y agoI think this is such a fun/playful idea, kudos to Snap! Their first hardware product pretty much bombed but this is oddly one of the first consumer tech toys in a while that I've felt I wanted. I can definitely see this being a fun thing to bring out in the backyard or to cookouts/parties, especially as a dad with young kids too. A couple things I'd be a bit worried about: * Battery life would need to last long enough to use this on and off for a few hours. If it's like 15 mins then no way. * Would there be an audible hum in the video it records from the 4x propellers?
- RC_ITR 4y ago>Would there be an audible hum in the video it records from the 4x propellers? 100% yes and this is why every drone video ever has music over it.
- lacraig2 4y agoThey might be able to pair the video from the drone with the microphone on your phone and get something reasonable (if the drone is far enough away).
- firmnoodle 4y agoIf they can put a dog nose and tongue on a video with AI, I would guess maybe removing the sound of the drone is possible.
- powcontech 4y agoAI is not even required, it would be quite easy to filter out the frequency of the noise from the rotors using technology that has existed for decades if not almost 100 years, indeed Butterworth was designing his filters in the 1930’s
- jjkaczor 4y agoIf I were a drone manufacturer of this type of camera drone, I would release free/downloadable audio profiles/captures of my drone operating at different speeds, to allow filtering to remove them based on the flight profile... (Maybe keep a log of propeller speeds, sync'd to the video)
- jkestner 4y agoNot to be confused with the Pixy vision sensor. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/254449872/pixy-cmucam5-a-fast-easy-to-use-vision-sensor https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/254449872/pixy-cmucam5-...
- paxys 4y agoInteresting product, although nowhere does it say what the flying time/battery life is, which doesn't give me much confidence.
- nharada 4y agoLooks like each flight is 10-20 seconds and you get 5-8 flights[1] which is like 90 seconds of flight? Additional batteries are 20 bucks so I guess they're going with making it easy to swap batteries rather than giving it a long flight time. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/28/23043011/snapchat-pixy-drone-hands-on https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/28/23043011/snapchat-pixy-dr...
- mNovak 4y agoThe camera quality doesn't look great, even in the promo videos. You'd think a software company can put on some some decent color balance at least. Also the video is very wobbly because it's such a small platform and no gimbal. That can be fixed in large part in software too. I suppose they're going for the artistically constrained angle, more like a disposable camera.
- krashidov 4y agoI feel like this is the worst part about Snapchat. Everything you record in SC looks like shit. It’s so bad that I feel like it makes Snapchat feel cheaper on the social media hierarchy
- djkoolaide 4y agoCompletely agree, and I can always tell when someone reposts a Snap video to IG.
- fullstop 4y agoIt's far worse on Android since they are creating the video from the "preview" window surface instead of directly from the camera interface.
- alephxyz 4y agoI keep seeing that claim pop up here and on Reddit but their app has been using the camera2 api since at least 2019
- windowsrookie 4y agoYet for some reason it's still worse quality than an iPhone. I switched from an S21 Ultra to a 13 Pro Max and snapchat has noticeably better quality on the iPhone. I just wish they would allow you to use the ultra wide and telephoto sensors as well.
- eruleman 4y ago
- sydthrowaway 4y agoSite looks like garbage on Safari, just like the app I guess.
- dwighttk 4y agoWould like something like this where I didn’t have to use Snapchat. (I didn’t scour the site, but the few minutes I looked at it did not lead me to believe this would work without Snapchat. Interesting how much they seem to hate text.)
- jqvincent16 4y agoA DJI Mini SE[0] would give you 2.7k video, longer range, better performance, gimbal stabilized video, longer flight time, and GPS stabilized flight for about $50 more. The Mini 2 upgrades the camera to 4k but is a little pricier. [0] https://store.dji.com/product/dji-mini-se-tm?vid=105351 https://store.dji.com/product/dji-mini-se-tm?vid=105351
- azinman2 4y agoCan I operate without a controller? One is pictured in each image.
- jqvincent16 4y agoThe Mini SE requires the use of a controller. It's small and folds up. I didn't look into it enough to see if Snap's offering requires a controller or just uses a cell phone.
- dwighttk 4y agoThe video makes it look like you don’t need a controller, it just floats around and maybe you can tweak things with your phone, but who knows what the non-marketing version will be like… first off I know it will be loud (they didn’t have any drone sound in the video)
- azinman2 4y agoAll of snaps marketing suggests no controller. That’s the part that I actually care about - I’m willing to have lower video quality and smaller battery if it’s easy to use in a regular social moment.
- bobkrusty 4y agoanyone know resources Open source drone??? without camera. Thanks.
- mips_avatar 4y agoI think it's interesting how much the FAA's 250 gram rule has impacted drone manufacturing. Even if it was technically possible I couldn't imagine a company like SNAP launching a drone like this in the previous regulatory grey area of drones.
- sofixa 4y agoThe EASA also makes a distinction between <250g drones >250g drones, in terms of registration and permissions required. However drones remain pretty hard to use across the EU, they're strictly forbidden in most places (cities, natural parks) and for the rest you need explicit permission from the county's aviation authority ( and sometimes even more, e.g. in Portugal if the coastline is visible you also need the Coast Guard's permission). Apparently lots of tourists are unaware and are getting fined for that, there was even a few cases recently where oblivious tourists crashed their drones in historical buildings.
- tgv 4y ago> for the rest you need explicit permission from the county's aviation authority That unfortunately won't stop people who think they need this thing because all the cool instagrammers and tiktokers have it.
- sofixa 4y agoYep: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/tourist-crashes-drone-into-rome-monument-piazza-venezia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/tourist-crashe...
- lekevicius 4y agoPixy weighs just 101 grams. They could have easily gone for a more practical battery life (it seems it's around 5 minutes currently?!), but for some reason chose not to.
- 8bitben 4y agoIf you do anything with this drone that is commercial or non-private in nature, you still need a Part 107 certificate from the FAA to fly it. I expect that would include many influencers who wouldn't otherwise be flying drones at all.
- foolfoolz 4y agoi have drones. drones are hard to use. the killer feature of snapchat is that it’s easy to get content up. you have to keep posting new content cause it decays fast. phones are especially good at taking photos and videos and making them accessible. you may go somewhere or meet someone and within a few minutes have 5+ pictures you want to post. or a couple videos you think would do well. you may have them posted within 1 minute of taking them drones you have to set up. find a space for them. link them to your phone. tell people to get ready for the shot. make sure the location is good. probably do this 3-4 times cause it’s really hard to get a good camera angle the first time. or the timing right. all of this means even getting one “post worthy” image or video might take you 20 mins. or even an hour. or as i’ve done many times you spend an hour or more messing around with it and don’t like the footage and throw it all away
- hernantz 4y agoSimilar exp with a gopro
- foolfoolz 4y agogopro is this on steroids cause the image quality is so high and file sizes so big you can only really process them at home on a desktop. so do all this work and then take it home, upload to computer, and then maybe process it. i still have hundreds of gigs of footage i haven’t had the heart to throw away yet but also likely won’t review again proud owner of gopro karma and like 5 gopro cameras. the karma drone i have a fraction of the amount of content from compared to the cameras because it’s that much harder good example of this is skiing. i would bring my gopro with gimbal and get amazing quality stabilize footage or hold my phone in my hand and get good quality but not amazing. of the videos i watch or share, like 95%+ are from my phone. accessibility is huge
- schimmy_changa 4y agoI think the idea here is that snapchat is trying to solve that user issue drones have. If they can make using a drone as simple as TikTok made posting a short edited video, then they succeed here. There are lots of people who want to take drone images, but don't know how to start / what drone to buy / etc. This could (I give it a 30% chance) solve the problem. Another analogy could be the polaroid camera that 'democratized' casual pictures - this could be the equivalent 'democratization' for drone photography.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoThis looks and feels like a rebranded drone from any random Chinese drone producer... is there anything novel about this other than Snapchat integration? Some of the promo videos have terrible stabilization. Guessing this will fall even flatter than their glasses.
- nharada 4y agoEase of use and product design are certainly novel, not to mention marketing the product to a customer outside the traditional drone consumer segment (i.e. tech focused/interested adults).
- micromacrofoot 4y agoYeah I suppose it would be interesting if the new market latches on, but I've seen a number of selfie-drones that more or less follow the same form-factor (albeit, less yellow) and have similar features.
- olafura 4y agoRefreshingly 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.
- mrtksn 4y agoI was very surprised to hear the rotor buzz. Most drone promo videos pretend that when the motors spin, it makes moody beats sound.
- serf 4y agoI 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 4y ago[deleted]
- mrtksn 4y agoThey have plenty of videos, here is one without any music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpz8Q2spioo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpz8Q2spioo I was positively surprised, despite the music. Some time ago I was very annoyed by all these "drone projects" on kickstarter or concept artist sites about drones following you all day as personal assistants, for example. IMHO, drone noise is just as limiting factor as the battery life and products should have it on their promotion materials, even if it is for a split second.
- andkenneth 4y agoAnd that's pretty much the idea - they expect you to put music over whatever you've captured anyway.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- vmception 4y agothis drone could fill a BIG niche! drone manufacturers have been obsessing over the gadget enthusiast audience and that means neglecting the ability to do simple-but-manually complex things such as launch->detect you->frame you->follow you. If they really do that and add in motion gestures with automatic upload to the Snapchat app interface, that's killer!
- jvanderbot 4y agoWhy is this pictured outside? The last thing I think anyone wants is a high-pitched quad flying around each campsite / trailhead. Come to think of it, I cannot think of any place I'd like this to be operated. Perhaps concerts until they start falling on peoples' heads.
- usrusr 4y agoNobody likes a crowded beach. A video clogging your flash and/or bandwidth is a small price to pay for the solitude created by the buzzcam. (in reality, the total amount of annoyance dealt out will be severely limited by battery capacity)
- gffrd 4y agoI look forward to hating my park, beach, and ski area visits!
- testmasterflex 4y agoI don’t think this will be a huge hit but it looks very cool!
- dsalzman 4y agoI like the playful design. Reminds me of the Minolta Weathermatic Type A[1] with its flat yellow body and picture setting control knob on top. Looks fun [1] https://www.aperturepreview.com/minolta-weathermatic-a https://www.aperturepreview.com/minolta-weathermatic-a
- radiojasper 4y agoAll in all, it's a $250 toy that can hold 5-8 minutes of battery and has a terrible camera on top of the unavoidable hum from the rotors. I'd say it's a fun little gadget, but I can't see this gaining much traction.
- standeven 4y agoMy thoughts exactly. It's a cool first-gen product with typical first-gen issues. Hopefully the next version has a better camera, stabilized footage, and software to remove the hum. Then it would be very compelling.
- chimen 4y agoJust what the world needed. Another annoying device out in the sky to fly over your fence, in your yard, in the park, cinemas, public places, restaurants, concerts, at the beach or...in your face.
- spiderice 4y agoWe must be living in different worlds. The number of times I've been annoyed by a drone is.. 0. The rare times I even do see someone fly a drone I think, "Oh cool, someone having fun fly a drone". I think learning to enjoy life and not getting smugly annoyed by the tiniest of inconveniences is a trait that people need to practice.
- whimsicalism 4y agoI lived by a popular park in SF and started getting annoyed by them, especially since it felt privacy invading because there was nowhere else that could look into my 3rd story window. Don't think it should be banned or anything though.
- mitchdoogle 4y agoIt's possible the previous poster lives in a place with more tourists than you do
- marstall 4y agocue 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 singularity. Devices like this camera will connect to the internet & ingest your personal timeline. They will respond by themselves to your friends' posts, mimicking their trends, one-upping their flexes, out-cooling them in a constantly accelerating arms race. Our role in this algorithmic glammering will shrink to nothing as deepfakes expand in scope and become so much interesting than reality. in the end our bodies will become irrelevant, as we watch our "selves" and our "friends" enact reality in a second, much better, universe.
- cupofpython 4y agoand actual reality will have world peace* *all disturbances automatically nullified** immediately **nullification may include death
- the__alchemist 4y agoWhat do you mean by that?
- cupofpython 4y agoif people care more about the imagined world than the real world to the degree described in the comment i replied to, then there is no need for our real bodies to actually do anything other than exist. We only need imagine what we'd like to identify with, and the system will handle the rest. We could each be the supreme leader of our own world as far as we can observe A bunch of bodies existing in reality with minimal real-world activity would be a form of peace. Real world activity would be a disruption to that peace, and also unobservable to the imagined world since all content is mediated. So anytime a persons behavior does not fit into the imagined world system, they could be killed and no one would care or even know. Maybe everybody is just told that person had a heart attack or whatever. it's akin to the dangers of not having a free press but with all of those dangers hyper-industrialized
- robszumski 4y agoNo mention of Skydio so far...this seems like a big intrusion on their turf, although their drone is much more capable because it's full size.
- dukeofdoom 4y agoDji mini 2 is superior to this in every way for not much more money except for the tracking. The new version 3, coming out is rumoured to have active track.
- jarofgreen 4y agoYou can use https://flylitchi.com/ https://flylitchi.com/ for tracking.
- ryan_j_naughton 4y agoThis product is illegal right next to Snapchat's HQ in Venice Beach. You can't use drones on the beach in the state of California due to rich people being concerned about the paparazzi spying on them
- fishpen0 4y agoHonestly as someone living in Cali, I appreciate not dealing with the constant buzzing noise from 10 different tourists flying drones within earshot of me while I'm enjoying the beach. Nothing ruins a vibe like BBZbzbzzbzzzZzbzbzzzzzzzZzzzZz
- HigherPlain 4y agoPrivacy concerns are for everyone, not just rich people. Please don't bring culture wars into this.
- Nextgrid 4y agoI don't think he was justifying or approving it, he was merely stating the reason.
- tren-hard 4y agoSuper cool little fun product. I like that Snap tries to be different and take chances on hardware. Their glasses never really took off but they still iterated on it and did a second version and I’m sure some of the lessons learned there were applied to this product. I’m curious to learn about how it does indoors.
- Brystephor 4y agoThere's also a third version of spectacles too.
- omot 4y agoThis is sooo cool.
- dvt 4y agoI don't understand anyone that's bullish on SNAP. It's been my least-used social media app for years (except for FB proper, I still use IG daily), and doubly so now that TikTok is so addictive. Their glasses were a terrible flop, and this will probably be worse. There is absolutely no cohesive vision. Are you a software company, a hardware company? A social network? I guess this is what happens when an app that was mainly used for sending nudes in high school goes meteoric with Silicon Valley money. This is probabbly what would've happened to Flappy Bird if the owner hadn't shut it down.
- trhway 4y agoWhere did they find a beach where drones are allowed to fly? especially given that the video seems to be shot in SoCal. I mean if you have you own private beach then of course a small drone would be a nice addition to it :) With civilian drone use pretty much de-facto banned, the military seems to be the only blossoming domain. One can imagine how a soldier sends a small drone to look around the corner and/or into the windows of the higher floors in a city battle like Mariupol. I remember seeing bunch of years ago guys in Stanford testing very small drone which would be parked by wrapping itself around your arm, and flying/following you on command.
- badwolf 4y agoOh! This is something I've been wanting for a while. I'm excited to try it out and see how it works out.
- sithadmin 4y agoThis seems like it's begging for an FAA smackdown. Drones under 250 grams are exempt from registration, but are still subject to other restrictions. This thing seems to make autonomous flight decisions, so it can't possibly comply with FAA rules requiring a pilot in control. Is it smart enough to avoid flying over people or cars? Probably not. Betting it will also happily let users send it off into no-fly-zone airspace, and that it doesn't have any kind of a manual killswitch to force a landing if it decides to do a 'flyaway' malfunction.
- ForrestN 4y agoThis is one of those moments where the thing itself as it exists now doesn't excite me, but you can already tell the next several iterations (maybe by a different company) could start to get really exciting. Having a little, quiet drone following you that can record things or communicate information to you via voice commands or beam live video to your phone might be really useful. No more getting lost! Just head up and see where you are. "Hey drone, pay for my coffee." "Hey drone, where's my dog?" "Hey drone, take a picture of us." "Hey drone, harass that person if they come within 20 feet of us, and take a photo of their face." "Hey drone, lead the way to the Hilton hotel." I'd love a little flying computer!
- TecoAndJix 4y agoJust like LapTrap from the ClueFinders kids games! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ClueFinders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ClueFinders https://cluefinders.fandom.com/wiki/LapTrap#:~:text=LapTrap%20is%20a%20personified%20computer,Rugged%2DTerrain%20Laptop%20Equipment https://cluefinders.fandom.com/wiki/LapTrap#:~:text=LapTrap%...).
- throitallaway 4y agoThis won't happen until there's serious advancements in battery or anti-gravity technology. This snap drone's batteries are rated for flight times in the single digit minutes.
- matsemann 4y agoSome of these shots can easily be replicated with a 360 camera (InstaOne, GoPro MAX etc) mounted on a pole. Not as hip, perhaps, but makes tracking drones seem a bit unnecessary in many cases.
- jpatt 4y agoI think this may be the first casual consumer drone on the market compatible with the FAA's Operations Over People guidelines released last year: https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/operations_over_people/ https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/operations_over.... Before this, all flight over people required a waiver by the FAA. Drones under 250g, like the DJI Mini 2 would qualify as a Category 1 craft, allowing non-sustained flight over people and vehicles, but there was an element that the craft not have exposed blades capable of lacerating human skin, which the DJI Mini 2 fails. Pixy is 101g and looks to have an enclosed rotor design: https://support.pixy.com/hc/en-us/articles/5039928089236-Pixy-Tech-Specs https://support.pixy.com/hc/en-us/articles/5039928089236-Pix...
- hacker_newz 4y agoThat color is just awful.
- alex504 4y agoPlease kill me
- alexk307 4y agoFor 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.
- azinman2 4y agoI asked elsewhere but can the DJI be easy to operate like this? Just hit a button, have it capture the moment, then it’s done? I don’t want to pull out a controller. Also at this price point $100 is meaningful. Many people go for whatever is cheapest.
- rexf 4y agoYeah, DJI is much more capable, but their drone pairing process (remote, drone, and app) is very painful & confusing.
- Brystephor 4y ago$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 learning curve and that has value.
- dymk 4y agoPeople 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.
- ahmed_ds 4y agoI kinda feel sad for Snap for even trying. I remember Snap was one of the very first meme stock. They failed with their camera spectacles. They failed to keep up with computer vision compared to TikTok and shift towards Gen Z. They failed to come up with a decent creators monetization system. Recently I read that they are signing MOUs with entertainment companies that involved AR tech. And now they are involved in making drones. Drone is a super hard market to enter even with some industry experience, case in point Gopro. Snap really shows how much the entire social media as an industry is struggling. Snap's future is bleak, it would be interesting to see how long they last.
- darkwizard42 4y agoHuh? Snap has really buckled down and gone from a forgone conclusion to having record quarters of revenue growth and monetization. They have repeatedly focused on digging in and trying new things. Spectacles wasn't a ground-breaking idea, but it was a GREAT innovative shot which was hard to copy by FB at the time. Similarly this is another great innovation hard to have others copy. Is it niche? Yeah probably, but it shows they are looking at ALL the interesting areas. For what it's worth, Snap has been ahead of the game on AR filters and AR tech for a while. Releasing this doesn't imply they aren't also doing work there.
- ChrisArchitect 4y agoYeah, many would think so, me included, but I also recognize strange as it is, there is a whole younger generation that it has been the defacto communications app for like 4-5 years now, so that's something to ride.
- crowbahr 4y agoI mean this in the kindest way possible: I suspect you're out of touch. Snapchat is used by more than 90% of 13-24 year olds in the USA and Gen-Z increasingly prefers it to any other form of communications social media. The ephemeral, personal nature of snap has been enormously popular with the youngest generation, and there's no sign of it stopping. Latest Q1 reports show daily users up 18% annually, 2 million more than forecast. Are they looking for more money? Yes, as is their fiduciary responsibility as a publicly traded company... but that doesn't mean they're flagging.
- shisisms 4y agoWon’t there now be 1000s of flying selfie sticks bumping into each other? Looks beautiful. Feels like dystopian comedy.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoThis 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 they'll plaster it all over without a care for your privacy. I must have seen a dozen videos of "creepy old man naked in the woods near our children" or some similar phrasing when it turned out every time it was just some hippie nudist who thought he'd have a bit of peace and quiet being outdoors, far away from the city. But you can't go anywhere these days without these gopro morons filming your every move.
- rabuse 4y agoWhat makes you think this will be even remotely successful?
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoBecause 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.
- achow 4y agoWSJ has good review including how it works: https://www.wsj.com/articles/snap-pixy-review-dont-call-it-a-drone-or-a-selfie-stickeven-though-its-both-11651165460 https://www.wsj.com/articles/snap-pixy-review-dont-call-it-a... https://archive.is/zW515 https://archive.is/zW515 Excerpt: Turn the Pixy’s dial to one of its four flying modes.. Hover: Here, the Pixy reverses a couple of feet and floats in front of you like a hummingbird. In the Snapchat app, you can customize, up to 60 seconds, how long you’d like it to capture video Reveal: Like a traditional drone shot, the Pixy reverses and flies upward to reveal your scene. My favorite of the bunch, it won’t fly more than 30 feet away from you (you can shorten that distance in the app) and it only goes about 15 feet up in the air. Follow: The Pixy will follow you around very, very slowly. Orbit: The Pixy will reverse to 5, 8 or 15 feet (whichever you set in the app) then make a full circle around you before flying back. There are two cameras on the Pixy: One points down, stabilizing the drone and detecting your hand, aka its landing pad. The other faces outward, tracking you and capturing video and photos. Flight patterns are preprogrammed so it doesn’t rely on any additional sensors for navigation or collision avoidance.
- ketzo 4y agoThank you for this! Based on their quick video, I wasn’t quite sure of the control scheme. Four basic modes with a little bit of extra control seems ideal for this kind of product.
- 542458 4y agoThe downwards camera for stabilization and landing is a cool idea. Did they come up with that, or has that been done before?
- skybrian 4y agoIt's a common technique.
- ohyoutravel 4y agoSkydio has something like six cameras around it for this purpose, in addition to the main, gimble camera for footage.
- woeirua 4y agoThis is a pretty good sign that its time to short SNAP. This is so far outside their core competency, and in such a crowded market, that they must be desperate to try this.
- ram_rar 4y agoI wonder how are they able to call it Pixy. Isn't the word trademarked? https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:d0tzkl.2.9 https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:d0...
- meetups323 4y agoDescription of Mark: The mark consists of the letters "PIXY" in a stylized font, with three partial circles representing smoke blooms over the letters.
- jkeat 4y agoLink doesn't work, here's another reference: https://alter.com/trademarks/pixy-88492464 https://alter.com/trademarks/pixy-88492464 > Camera containing a linear image sensor; Cameras; Motion-activated cameras; Optical sensors https://pixycam.com/ https://pixycam.com/
- bodhi_mind 4y agoThere is a pretty "permanent" NOTAM around Disney World that applies to >"...INCLUDING UNMANNED AND REMOTE CONTROLLED AIRCRAFT, ARE PROHIBITED WITHIN A 3 NMR OF 282445N/0813420W OR THE ORL238014.8 UP TO AND INCLUDING 3000FT AGL." I wonder if this will be enforced if people try to bring these to magic kingdom. https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_4_3634.html https://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_4_3634.html
- BryantD 4y agoYes, it absolutely will. Here's a story about this: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-bz-disney-magic-kingdom-drone-20200605-sxkopgamqfganfnurnacu4otre-story.html https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-bz-disne...
- dymk 4y agoThe 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 can only run for a few minutes per battery charge.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- flatiron 4y agoTotally 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.
- GoodJokes 4y ago
- bobkazamakis 4y agoIt sure would suck to have to engage in some kind of discussion with my own children.
- tdhz77 4y agoAtticus is that you?
- flatiron 4y agoWhat does this have to do with my comment? Or are you saying it should be a gift to go “some people smoke but you shouldn’t smoke because it’s breaking the rules and yes they are breaking the rules and no I can’t make them stop” is really fun. A blast.
- 4y ago
- ryeights 4y agoPlease no! Drones are a public nuisance; I would really prefer for them to be banned from all public outdoor areas.
- WesleyHale 4y agolike their glasses, there's a limited supply and then they're not produced for a while. I think it's taken them around 4 years to do two iterations on their glasses.
- whywhywhywhy 4y agoWhen 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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- elilev 4y agoCan someone please explain to me how this is a $50B business
- blululu 4y agoIs this a serious question? Snapchat has 300 Million Daily Active Users with a user base that skews affluent and young (globally). That's ~$1.50 per user which is relatively low monetization rate compared to rivals.
- iamleppert 4y agoIt’s basically suicide to compete against DJI.
- holler 4y agoI don't think they are competing against DJI. Did you watch the promo video? It's very clear who their target demographic is and it's not people who would buy a DJI.
- iamleppert 4y agoYeah but if it’s even remotely successful DJI will have an identical product on the market and undercut them like they have done with every other drone.
- a5aAqU 4y agoKids are going to be flying those up to peek in your windows and skylights soon.
- camtarn 4y agoNot these ones. There's no controller so you can't fly them anywhere - they just follow a predetermined flight path.
- a-dub 4y agoneat tech. although i think i prefer toys for children that encourage appreciating things that are created or earned rather than simply possessed.
- void-pointer 4y agoPeople saying that this can’t compete with DJI are missing the point. This product knows its target market (hint, not the people who browse HN) and, based on my initial first impressions, I think it’s nailed it. Forgive me for a slightly contrived analogy, but if a DJI Mavic is a DSLR, and a DJI Mini is a portable point-and-shoot camera, then Pixy is a Polaroid. It’s certainly not got the highest picture quality, doesn’t have good altitude or range and the 30s flight time sounds laughable, but it’s a nice looking, approachable device that looks like it could be used by anyone to take videos they currently can’t with the devices they currently have (the mode dial is a brilliant idea.) I think this thing will sell very nicely. The big question for me is whether the Pixy wireless streaming to the phone allows exports out of the Snapchat app, if it does then all the biggest TikTok stars will buy one immediately and it will explode in popularity.
- pedalpete 4y agoCompletely agree with you. Not only that, but Snap (it seems) have done a great job in limiting the features so it only focuses on their core users use case. They didn't go for a skydio "follow me when I go for a run" they don't have a flight path. Though you likely could get the drone into trouble if you tried, a 30 second clip is enough for it to start flying, you move a few feet away, it follows you with a very close range, and then it is ready to land again. A great example of constraints making a better/simpler product.
- rexf 4y agoYeah, the use case is pretty clear. It allows non-technical people to easily & quickly take a selfie video. I'm disappointed in the video quality, but I'm looking forward to the extreme ease of use. Press 1 button and watch it go.
- Aperocky 4y ago> It allows non-technical people to easily & quickly take a selfie video. As a DJI mini 2 owner I have to say it doesn't really get easier than that. But DJI mini 2 has 4K resolution, 30 minutes flight time, can fly miles and are only $200 more expensive.
- dmix 4y ago$250 seems like a steep price point.
- politician 4y agoCan I use this as a spotter for my howitzers? Asking for a friend.
- InfoSportd 4y agoI wonder if it can take 360 panoramic pictures The Orbit flight path seems that it looks at you. I would like something that looks outward. Contacted support but the rep couldn't answer my question.
- InfoSportd 4y agoOrbit mode looks inward at you. Can it also look outward for a 360 panoramic view?
- teeray 4y agoThis will get interesting from a regulations perspective. How much does it weigh? It looks like it might be sub-250g, which would exempt it from Remote ID and registration of flown under the recreational exemption. If not though, you’ll need to stick a big old broadcast module on the top of it next year. Where this drone is more like a stickless selfie stick, I can see people using it during things like Stadium TFRs, flying over crowds inadvertently, etc.
- TheRealNGenius 4y agosite is utterly borked on safari
- bspear 4y agoGotta respect them for trying new things
- nemo44x 4y agoI really like the direction of these guys. Making things fun and playful in the social space.
- rvz 4y agoVery interesting to see how not one commenter has even mentioned the company that Snap acquired that made all of what you see possible: CTRL Me Robotics [0] was the one behind all of this and made it possible for Snap to build their own drone. That's what Snap was doing after making all those acquisitions. Now you would wonder what they would do with their other companies that they acquired. I would not underestimate Snap's ability to innovate and their complete silence and secrecy to ultimately surprise commenters here about what they have built. As usual, this was unsurprising. [1] After you see who Snap has acquired, you can look back at such wild predictions like this one [2] and just dismiss them immediately. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/27/15704906/snap-ctrl-me-robotics-acquired-drone-cameras https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/27/15704906/snap-ctrl-me-rob... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24019745 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29020626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29020626
- kennywinker 4y agoMy city has banned drones within city limits, for pretty good reason I think - the noise alone is enough to make them a plague on any busy public space. This kind of cheap quick to deploy device could permanently change people’s expectations and lead to bigger drones everywhere. With that in mind, I will personally be harassing anybody I see using one of these.
- phist_mcgee 4y agoShockingly poor website, it feels very sloppy and unrefined.
- robbiemitchell 4y agoThey focused on something obvious: influencer videos are filmed by someone else. What if you didn’t need someone else? Most drones are aimed at people who want to fly something. This is for people who want to be filmed. Totally different UX and priorities.
- Aperocky 4y ago> influencer videos are filmed by someone else. What if you didn’t need someone else? This is a solved problem though.. in much higher spec (and not that much more expensive). Suppose you're an influencer I guess you can shell out a few hundred more for a proper drone. > Most drones are aimed at people who want to fly something Also if you're talking about the largest drone maker on the market (DJI, >50% market share). This is not true, they are literally flying cameras, the whole point of those drones are to take pictures and videos. They don't stick a 4K resolution camera, 3D gimbal stabilization on a 250g drone because customer wanted to 'fly something'. They do it because it is used to make footage (I own one).
- robbiemitchell 4y ago> I guess you can shell out a few hundred more for a proper drone. But who flies it? > They do it because it is used to make footage (I own one). But doesn’t that involve you flying the drone to make footage by looking at something else? What’s interesting about this Snap drone is that it’s pitched as something that will just stare at you so you can make fancy selfies. I could be missing it, but I don’t think this is how most drones market themselves.
- Aperocky 4y ago> But who flies it? It does follow mode, follows you automatically, even in a circle if you wanted it to. Also this mode is not exactly new.. Almost all DJI drones have it, also, the drone would avoid obstacles if it detects anything while following.
- pkdpic 4y agoFinally, our species can take more selfies! Sometimes I think my favorite part of the future / present / whatever is how dystopian and utopian it is at the same time with stuff like this. I sincerely love and hate everything about this. <3
- fastball 4y agoIt's been a long time since I've seen a product page for a hardware product that had approximately zero tech specs listed anywhere. What's the battery life? What's the image quality? etc.
- donthellbanme 4y agoWe all know who this is marketed to. My hope is the females of the world decide selfies are narcisstic, predictable, and shallow. They refuse to watch programs like the Kardashians, and selfies will just die out like disco. (I guess there's nothing wrong with getting ahead with your physical looks. I watched my sister pretty much write her ticket in life do to how photogenic she is.)
- wiz21c 4y agoI won't work there : "We contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together." Do they really believe that ? Can't they just say they sell a fun toy to those who can afford it ?
- kavir 4y agoI really like that Snap is pushing the envelope with hardware devices. This push might make drones mainstream. There are obvious issues like how light the device is and how well it would do under windy conditions. Or that the image is not stabilized on a gimbal. But this is definitely a step in the right direction.
- Traster 4y agoWhat on earth is this from a business perspective? Take a social media company that's more successful than twitter and start producing commodity consumer electronics. Yeah, fuck scale, screw network effects, let's get into that market. Maybe one day they can be as valuable as gopro. And by as valuable as GoPro, I mean 45x less valuable than they currently are.
- fennecfoxy 4y agoWell they certainly know their demographic. Design looks terrible though, completely encased in plastic like that? They could cut so much weight from it.
- mescaline 4y agoI’d love to see how Snap justifies stealing another company’s brand! Check out the Pixy cam.