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Light drones are great, but how far away are we from quiet consumer drones? I'd love to not have every hike ruined by some wannabe videographer.
by cush 3y ago
Light drones are great, but how far away are we from quiet consumer drones? I'd love to not have every hike ruined by some wannabe videographer.
- ben7799 3y agoThe mini is pretty damn quiet. At 50ft of altitude people don't hear it. AT 100ft of altitude people don't even see it. I've flown one hundreds of times and other than other drone owners no one has ever said a thing or noticed. The drone owners notice and come over to talk drones.
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoThe others do not say a thing because they are polite probably :)
- enlyth 3y agoI got a proper bollocking when checking out some newly built houses with my drone, one of which I was thinking about buying. The lady thought I was trying to film her garden, probably warranted since I took off not far from her residential house. I've learned to stay further away from people while flying since, which the rules dictate anyway.
- loeg 3y agoI've been annoyed by drones lots of times and never talked to the operators. It's not because I didn't notice.
- bragr 3y agoPerhaps but I fly my Mini 2 regularly, and people have a hard time finding it in the sky even when I point it out to them at 100ft. At 200ft it might as well not exist. They are so small and light, they just don't put out the dBs like bigger drones.
- trust_bt_verify 3y agoBeing able to spot a small white object in the sky and hearing it are very different things. I put drone operators on the same level as those who hike with speakers blaring. No one is being hurt, no laws being broken. Just inconsiderate considering a large part of the experience for most in nature is the serenity.
- Cannabat 3y agoThe mini is undetectable over 100ft or so. other drones will interrupt the peace, but this one is far less likely to.
- IshKebab 3y agoNah they definitely aren't as bad. People using speakers in public are actively choosing to annoy people when they could have used headphones. There's no headphone equivalent for drones. Drones are also way way less common than shitty music players.
- ryantgtg 3y agoAlmost everyone I encounter who is carrying a speaker is not hiking by themselves. That is why they are not wearing headphones.
- ashton314 3y agoPeople who hike with speakers blaring are a strange breed that I’m likely to never understand. Like, why listen to music in the first place while hiking? I’m out here in the woods to get as far away from civilization as I can. I don’t need $latest_popstar dragging me back.
- jbm 3y agoI've never done this, but if I was trying to be charitable; in bear country, I assume making noise to avoid startling the animals is best practice.
- ben7799 3y agoIt's a question of what you got annoyed by, the point was a 100mph home built FPV drone is dramatically louder, and the way they get flown makes a lot more noise. I've been annoyed and not talked to people too, but it was never the noise, it was blatant violation of the law flying over crowds, etc..
- Foivos 3y agoI have noticed that it really depends on the wind direction. If the wind blows from the drone towards the people, you could hear it at 50 meters. Plus, when there is a lot of wind it makes much more noise in its struggle to fight it. Otherwise, unless it is directly next to you, you can hardly hear anything. My biggest crowd are children and pets. They always seem to be amused by the drone.
- photonbeam 3y agoLots of people avoid confrontation
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoDefinitely this. This summer a guy was flying a drone over a popular park area where lots of people were swimming in the river; it was extremely annoying. I'm pretty sure the drone was above the legal weight limit too, and as I have a UAV license, I'm well aware that it's illegal to operate a drone directly above other people. I spotted the guy with the drone controls but decided not to talk to him about it, because I couldn't be certain that someone as inconsiderate as that wouldn't necessarily react violently.
- nicbou 3y agoThere's the "if you're breaking this social convention, I'm not willing to figure out how many others you'll break" problem.
- okdood64 3y agoI like this one. Thanks.
- andersrs 3y agoOf course! Only drone owners have working ears. Could it be that everyone notices but they just don't want to speak with some rude drone dude.
- broguinn 3y agoI had the same thought seeing the hero videos on this page displaying beautiful mountain scapes and vistas - I wouldn't want to be the person disturbing this space with an intrusive drone.
- snoman 3y agoAre the hikers considered intrusive, or just the drones?
- greycol 3y agoYou'll hear plenty of hikers complain about hikers if they are also creating unwanted noise (usually from portable bluetooth speaker).
- palata 3y agoEven sometimes it's annoying to be near hikers who just speak loudly. Sometimes you just want to be in the nature and enjoy it quietly :-).
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoSome places you have to apply for a permit (few of which are issued) to make sure there aren't too many hikers at once. So I think it's both.
- mk_stjames 3y agoI'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. I read over their product page and, like always, I'm absolutely amazed that these things exist now and can capture such amazing video and photography at their price point. I'd love to get one to use. But I won't buy one, because every time I go out now to the beach or on a hike, I see people with things like these and I just cannot stand them. I hate the ridiculous noise, I hate the fact that these people are filming things in the middle of streets and sidewalks and trails and generally putting themselves in the center of everything and inconveniencing everyone else just to 'get their shot'. I hate the idea that I am potentially being filmed by some random kids with a high speed camera on the drone hovering out over the park bench I'm resting on. And because I hate these things, I will not buy one, because I do not want to turn into the annoyances that I feel, no matter how cool the tech looks. That... or... I'm secretly afraid that I'd buy it and not actually have anything cool to film and it'd sit in a closet and be another $800 paperweight device. But let's go with not wanting to be an another annoying 'Main Character Syndrome' person and just be quiet and peaceful when out and about.
- mrtksn 3y agoShould't be too far away, the commercial drones of Zipline are supposed to be super quiet. Here is video demonstrating the tech: https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU?si=_x9vSAygUSHq4ZQw&t=832 https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU?si=_x9vSAygUSHq4ZQw&t=832
- amelius 3y agoEven if they are 10x more quiet, then if there are 10 of these drones flying around we're back at square one.
- jacquesm 3y agoBoth fortunately and unfortunately that's not how sound works. If the drones are far enough away from each other that you don't get interference between them soundwise it doesn't matter if there are more of them. But if they do then two quiet ones may re-inforce to the point that they sound much worse than a single larger one.
- amelius 3y agoAre you saying that sound conduction doesn't behave linearly?
- doix 3y agoWikipedia is actually a pretty good source for this [0]. tl;dr it's not as simple as one drone makes X noise, so 2 drones make 2x noise. For that to happen, the drones need to be making noise at the same frequency and be perfectly in phase. Also, if they were perfectly out of phase, they could cancel the noise from each other out (this is how noise cancelling headphones work). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference
- amelius 3y agoThat's a long article. My intuition says that if a sound source produces a number of Watts per square meter, then those numbers should add up. In fact that's what it says here: https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/richard.baker/BasicAcoustics/5_addition_of_sound_intensities.html https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/richard.baker/B... Of course assuming uncorrelated noise, as a crude approximation.
- dylan604 3y agoI'd love to have my photoshoot not ruined by some wannabe hiker. it plays both ways
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoActually, we're authentic hikers. We're wannabe drone hunters.
- cush 3y agoIf you’re looking for somewhere outdoors without people may I suggest you not choose a hiking trail…
- bunabhucan 3y agohttps://www.ll.mit.edu/sites/default/files/other/doc/2022-09/TVO_Technology_Highlight_41_Toroidal_Propeller.pdf https://www.ll.mit.edu/sites/default/files/other/doc/2022-09...
- q87b 3y agoAt least then you know that you are being watched and recorded by some creep with a drone. It is disturbing how society tolerates these pretty-secret surveillance devices just because they can take videos that look like those documentaries on TV, yay...