29 ms·
Lily – Drone camera
- libc 11y agoI'm curious how it homes in on the tracker.
- mdpopescu 11y agoApparently based on the hand device.
- bradbeattie 11y agoWithout a human operator assessing risk, what's to stop the drone from accidentally flying into someone and cutting them up with its blades?
- superuser2 11y agoThere is typically not enough force in the rotation of the blades (they are designed to be very light) to do more than hurt a little bit.
- eclipxe 11y agoI can't speak for the Lily blades, but I have a couple of drones a little larger and the blades are harmless - they stop as soon as they detect obstruction and they are flexible/not sharp. It won't cut anyone.
- asdfa1234 11y agoI just got the DJI Phantom 3 and got hit by the blades after a collision. Sliced up my arms -- didn't require stitches, but 10 days later i still have evidence that the blades aren't totally harmless.
- sean-duffy 11y agoThere are plenty of gory images on forums of people who foolishly think this is the case and are proven otherwise!
- lsaferite 11y agoI have NEVER seen a controller that would "stop as soon as they detect obstruction" like you say. In reality the flight controller is likely to do the opposite. Once it detects that the current speed of the blade is not enough to provide the desired lift, it will INCREASE the speed. Telling people the blades are harmless is very irresponsible.
- jdiez17 11y agoThe electronic speed controllers we use in RC have a loop time of a few milliseconds and are fully programmable. Some of them are capable of sensing the current going into the motor. You can also monitor the voltage instead of/in addition to the current. It's easy to cut the throttle when there is an unexpected power surge. I personally haven't seen this technology in DIY multirotor parts, but I know that the AR.Drone has what they call "cut-out detection". They use it to prevent damage to the craft rather than humans, but the technology could be tuned for this as well.
- superkuh 11y agoThe most popular low end quadcopter, the Syma X5C, has this. The blades are flexible and stop almost instantly when obstructed. This is great for preventing breakage when you hit a tree. I've stuck my finger in there intentionally without even mild pain. If a $60 device has it I bet the multi-hundred and thousand dollar devices will not have trouble.
- Zombieball 11y agoI see multiple comments saying that the blades are harmless, but a quick search through google photos seems to imply otherwise to me. Not to mention the force of this thing dropping on your head after it clips a nearby branch, or has a system failure. I suppose the answer is that the owner needs to be responsible with its usage. The example footage seemed fairly reasonable use-cases (no bystanders).
- outworlder 11y ago'harmless' drone blades are the exception, if they even exist. Note that drones designed to operate indoors have some form of protection for the blades (Parrot drone, for instance). In addition, 'cheap' blades have sharp edges due to the manufacturing process. Some drone owners recommend sanding them to get rid of those, to minimize injuries.
- DarkUranium 11y agoI could think of a pretty much harmless blade design that MIGHT work (soft blades), but they'd be woefully inefficient AND they would only work for those super-ultra-light micro/nano drones. Anything else is not harmless. Even a tiny quadcopter can easily cut your skin, because the plastic is hard and sharp. Think of it as one of those plastic picnic knives, except not that sharp --- BUT rotating very, very fast.
- lsaferite 11y agoYeah, those blades are NOT harmless. They will cut you up on the thinner skin bit and do some serious bruising on the thicker skin. Also, anything around the head is asking for losing any eye or something else. I've been building and flying quads for years now and Anything over the tiny indoor ones commands a LOT of respect from me due to experience. The idea of these things autonomously following you is cool but a HUGE liability. Unless they have some major obstacle avoidance on board they you basically could never safely use this around other people and honestly you shouldn't even use it around yourself.
- eclipxe 11y agoVideo made me want to have a more active life. I thought "cool!" but then I imagined my video output would be hours of me typing, browsing HN & Reddit.
- javert 11y agoSomebody should do a spoof video of their marketing video that shows exactly that.
- cybrjoe 11y agoSame concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VudWv9pQNdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VudWv9pQNdE
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- frik 11y agoSomebody should make Office Space 2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/
- mpeg 11y agoHBO's Silicon Valley series is probably the closest thing we're going to get to Office Space 2. Which is good, because the series is genius
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rsync 11y agoOne 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 ?
- monk_e_boy 11y agoDuck tape and led torch (flashlight).
- pron 11y agoYou'd rather use an expensive, noisy drone that works for twenty minutes than a $15 headlamp that runs for hours?
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoSorry, what? How on earth would this be better than a headlamp, apart from the "look at my drone, my drone is amazing" part?
- Gracana 11y agoWell right now it's totally impractical, but if it floated silently, it would be pretty amazing. It could even light the path that you need to follow to help you navigate, and it wouldn't cause you to blind anyone you turned to talk to.
- Nadya 11y ago"We choose not to do these things because they are practical, but because they are cool!"
- CPLX 11y ago> "look at my drone, my drone is amazing" This is actually a fairly compelling reason to do things.
- Nadya 11y agoThat's really, really nifty. Was wondering when a "point and shoot" drone would hit the market. I really want one but I've grown wary of pre-ordering products that haven't been manufactured yet...
- blrsk 11y agoThank you Nadya! We are shipping in February 2016 and will be sending out frequent updates. Stay tuned at www.lily.camera.
- ericz 11y agoThat is one of the first videos I've seen in a long time where I've thought "wow we can do that now?"
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- blrsk 11y agoThank you! This is just a glimpse of what one can do with Lily. Check out our website www.lily.camera for more information.
- wingerlang 11y agoThe submission is literally a link to the website.
- jimboyoungblood 11y agogo bears. i just placed my order.
- Mithaldu 11y agoThis is some of the best marketing i've seen in a long while. Just in case it's not obvious: I'm not complaining or being sarcastic, this is honest praise.
- binarydogs 11y agoBrilliant video. Felt the need to watch it twice through in quick succession.
- irl_zebra 11y agoWow! Preordered, but used my AMEX in case it turns out to be VaporWare.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sc00ty 11y agoOut of curiousity, what does your AMEX card offer if this is VarporWare?
- exelius 11y agoAmex allows you to dispute charges very easily. Their dispute resolution process is slanted in favor of the cardholder rather than the merchant.
- shortstuffsushi 11y agoIs this a reason that many merchants don't accept AmEx?
- exelius 11y agoPartially, yes. But Amex also charges higher transaction fees, which come out of the merchant's profits. Between the two, and the fact that only ~20% of people have an Amex, many merchants decide Amex isn't worth the trouble.
- timdorr 11y agoRe: shortstuffsushi Generally, merchants don't take AMEX because it's expensive to do so. The fee rates are usually higher (~3.5% vs ~2.5% and there is a monthly access fee as well.
- raisedbyninjas 11y agoAdditionally, Amex provides both the credit as well as credit card processing for their customers instead of splitting the business with thousands of banks. So when a merchant exceeds whatever shadiness threshold is set by Amex they are banned from accepting all Amex cards vs. cards issued by $yourbank. So there is incentive for the merchant provide good customer service.
- darrelld 11y agoThis is cool. I've been dreaming about something similar. In my mind though it would be smaller and could hitch a ride on your shoulder.
- vvpan 11y agoThis is when these things will find their true purpose: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41blwh4qNWL._SL500_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41blwh4qNWL._SL500_.jp...
- 6502nerdface 11y agoI imagine that one problem is that if it's too small, it will be unstable in wind... So since they need a certain amount of weight for stability anyway, might as well devote it to big batteries (rather than being small and dense).
- darrelld 11y agoYou're right. I wait for the day when we can make the batteries smaller / motors more powerful.
- jnsaff2 11y ago#selfiecopter
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoLike a selfie stick, but way cooler.
- zellyn 11y agoThis is great. Now, we're just waiting for better batteries: stretching out 20 minutes of flight time across a day or even morning of skiing, kayaking, etc. is going to be difficult. I guess you can carry batteries with you.
- profinger 11y agoEspecially at the rate that batteries degrade. It'll be no time before you're getting 3-4 minutes per charge!
- timmaah 11y agoBattery is not removable.
- crimsonalucard 11y agoThat's horrible and possibly a deciding factor. I guess it had to be done in order to make it waterproof.
- mapt 11y agoI concur, you really need the possibility of multiple battery loads in order to get full value out of this stuff. Can you do non-conductive power transmission at reasonable weights and efficiencies? I mean, my toothbrush does it, but I can't speak to the charging rate.
- crimsonalucard 11y agoWireless power transmission can only be implemented using alternating current through induction. Very hard to implement this in any meaningful way for battery powered digital devices.
- IanDrake 11y agoThese are cool, but... 1) 20 minutes is great if your sole purpose is getting video, but not if your sole purpose is surfing (let's say). A surf session might be 2 hours. Taking a break to put your dead flying camera away in the middle of it isn't ideal. Still there could be work around for this at some point. 2) Air space. The real problem. If you're surfing (again) or skiing you'll annoy everyone with the sound of your drone. Still for the more adventurous who get to surf or ski alone, this does look pretty awesome, but will never be as ubiquitous as the GoPro.
- louhike 11y agoThis drone does not seem at all to be optimized for surf. It even says in the FAQ to be cautious when putting it in salted water. But yes, 20 minutes is really short, it's its major default. I suppose it was a necessary sacrifice to make this kind of product at this time.
- edc117 11y agoCharging base where it could land and somehow automatically change batteries (or switch with another drone?) would solve some of this. Hopefully battery tech will pick up a lot in the next 10-20 years!
- amelius 11y agoIt's waterproof, but still the lens will get wet. How did they solve that? Also, does it have built-in collision avoidance?
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y agoIn the video they looked apprehensive for a moment when lily landed in the river next to the kayak. Or maybe that was just me feeling apprehensive for them.
- hoopism 11y agoSerious question. Is this not a thing being sold already? The design is really nice and the video is really well done... the waterproof seems maybe a new thing. I have seen multiple promo videos for various drones offering same "follow me" feature. Here's one I found in few seconds https://store.3drobotics.com/products/iris https://store.3drobotics.com/products/iris The 3d mapping on this one is amazing.
- josefresco 11y agoI 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.
- alexcroox 11y agoThis is the big reason people don't buy these types of drones (this one certainly isn't the first of it's kind). It doesn't have obstacle avoidance or it will make a massive deal of it.
- agumonkey 11y agoIntel last keynote demoed very capable drones. They're showing it off, it won't be long until it hits the market. They named the components RealSense, a miniature kinect I guess. Nice demo at 4:55: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k&t=295 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k&t=295
- dharma1 11y agoNow shipping in mobile phone size - http://www.pcworld.com/article/2907352/intel-shrinks-realsense-camera-targets-smartphones.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2907352/intel-shrinks-realsen... Shame the dev kit only has Windows support.
- agumonkey 11y agoConfirms my thoughts, it really is a miniature Kinect-like kit.
- robotresearcher 11y agoRealSense uses projected IR and thus doesn't work outdoors. (edit: because short-range and little ambient IR are required)
- gambiter 11y agoI'm very impressed by the capabilities. I've seen 'follow me' drones before, but I don't know if I've seen any that are waterproof or as compact as this. And the smiling face on the front is a nice touch. It's still hard to part with my money (even at 50% off) when the ship date is next year though. I've been burned by various kickstarter projects that get delayed ad infinitum.
- brk 11y agoI've been burned by various kickstarter projects that get delayed ad infinitum. Me too. I've decided that there are no new things that I need so much that I can't wait until the thing is actually shipping. In many cases I've been quite happy waiting until a v2 release when the early bugs and quirks are worked out.
- Nadya 11y agoThis is exactly why I've grown wary of pre-orders. Even with huge savings for being "an early backer" - I've found I get more for my money (and sometimes anything for my money) if I wait until an improved "v2" ships a few months after initial release.
- bezaorj 11y agoFrom the FAQ: "What is your policy on refunds? If you decide to cancel your pre-order before Lily ships, we will provide a full refund to you."
- raesene9 11y agoAssuming of course that they don't run out of funds before they ship. This isn't a slight on this project specifically but there is a risk that any project which isn't yet in production won't get that far...
- jamie_ca 11y agoAnd if you believe that, read up on the drama with https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pirate3d/the-buccaneer-the-3d-printer-that-everyone-can-use/comments https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pirate3d/the-buccaneer-... TLDR; during development of the printer, a number of things have changed (including a noticeable reduction in print volume). Refunds were offered August of last year, and the vast majority of refund requests are still pending (and currently half a month behind their own deadline for the latest update. Not that I have any knowledge on whether the people behind Lily have better or worse communication and management skills, but just because they're happy to offer refunds doesn't mean they'll offer them promptly.
- cmstoken 11y agoWow. This is purely amazing! Definitely ordering one.
- Svenstaro 11y agoPlease leave the scrolling behavior alone already!
- ccozan 11y agoNice. We were doing sailing last week and was quite hard to figure the whole activity with a GoPro, because I was focusing only on what I was doing, but my fellows trimming the sails were not that much in the video. So I was thinking of a drone to film us from the side or above, but our skipper thought that no drone could handle the 15-20 knots with 30knts gusts winds we were sailing in.
- imaginenore 11y agoThere 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p5uDf9i_Yc
- dmix 11y agoThat'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...
- sean-duffy 11y agoPrimarily? I'd highly doubt that. Small multirotors and model aircraft like these are far more ubiquitous than the machines weighing upwards of 2,000 kgs which are used by the military.
- dmix 11y agoRegardless of form-factor the military is the primary player in the drones industry. The vast majority of operations and spending are classified. I was thinking more about the future applications of high-speed small drones when they become ubiquitous. Even if it is simply reconnaissance.
- baddox 11y agoI don't think multirotors are used for war, except perhaps for reconnaissance.
- imaginenore 11y agoDamn, that's impressive. I want to know the top speed and what kind of wind it can handle.
- snomad 11y agoJust idle speculation, what happens when 30 follow-me drones are on the slopes at the same time? Will they all be able to avoid each other?
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoThe minute drones like these start shipping they'll be banned from all ski resort faster than you can say pow. Also, with a top speed of 40 km/h this isn't able to keep up with anyone who's past the rookie stage skiing/snowboarding. So their marketing is very misleading, either by intention or because these guys don't know shit about skiing.
- grecy 11y agoAnyone going faster than about 40km/h isn't really doing anything worth filming anyway, other than ski racers. All the interesting stuff for filming on the slopes happens at relatively low speeds - park, moguls, jumps, butters, etc.
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoIf you're going any slower than 40 km/h the only thing you'll be doing in a terrain park is falling on your face. This [1] cable-driven terrain park "for children and adults" pulls you at 40 km/h. If you're looking at landing anything bigger than a 360 you'll need to be going closer to 60 km/h. Ski racers are not happy until they're going (a lot) faster than 90. [1] http://www.al.no/en/html/aktiviteter/vinter/ski_snowboard_cable_park/ http://www.al.no/en/html/aktiviteter/vinter/ski_snowboard_ca...
- grecy 11y agoI'm a level 3 snowboard instructor in Canada, and I would say I infrequently go over 40km/h. It's only when I stand still on a groomer and "go fast", or for the run-in for the L/XL jumps.
- 11y ago
- wellboy 11y agoLike GoPro, just 10 times better?
- naryad 11y agoRelated drone camera projects on kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?term=camera+drone&sort=most_funded https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?term=camera+dr...
- Zombieball 11y agoSome of these projects are crazy. They could be straight out of the South Park episode "Go Fund Yourself". These campaigns are essentially people just asking you to buy them a drone: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1430324424/drone-scouting-and-videography https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1430324424/drone-scouti... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1802912897/drone-build-mark-1 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1802912897/drone-build-... I wasn't aware campaigns of these sorts actually existed. Probably because I have always stuck to the front page of kickstarter.
- listic 11y agoKickstarter has fewer projects of this kind than the other crowdfunding platforms. I thought they are not allowing them completely, but apparently not. Yet in general, Kickstarter has higher quality content than other platforms.
- jreed91 11y agoI see someone like Gopro acquiring these guys
- ygmelnikova 11y ago"The new introspectiveness announced the demise of an established set of traditional faiths centred on work and the postponement of gratification, and the emergence of a consumption-oriented lifestyle ethic centred on lived experience and the immediacy of daily lifestyle choices." If my generation was called the "me" generation, how would you describe this generation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation
- 1ndex 11y agoLike GoPro, just 10x better?
- bennesvig 11y agoImpressive. One typo in the video. It should say 120 fps at 720p. When I saw the text I wondered why anyone would film in 720p.
- storitn 11y agoGood point but storage capacity is a reason to use 720p
- QuotedForTruth 11y agoYou're probably pretty unlikely to hit capacity when it can only fly for 20 minutes.
- baddox 11y agoI don't do anything particularly serious, but I always shot my drone footage at 720p. It's quicker to copy onto my PC and quicker to upload to YouTube, and YouTube doesn't give you significantly higher quality on 1080p than 720p anyway.
- codeshaman 11y agoWould be interesting if you could have a bunch of these shooting from different angles, positioned so that they don't shoot each other. Basically it's like having your own cameramen, so you can have spectacular camera angles without involving huge crews. This could be cool for TV shows, documentary and indie films.
- grecy 11y agoThe FAQ says they're working on having multiple cameras follow one subject.
- web007 11y agoReminds me of http://flynixie.com/ http://flynixie.com/ - this one seems a lot more robust, less "snap a quick shot and come back".
- bigtunacan 11y agoThis reminded me of the Sphero Selfie bot April Fool's joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaR4X2iJo6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaR4X2iJo6M
- efsavage 11y agoIf they had made this look like a Star Wars Probe Droid I believe the Internet may have actually broken.
- fideloper 11y agoWonder what kind of payload it can carry is :D (I imagine that was part of a trade off for battery life)
- aarondf 11y agoDid anyone else get nervous when he threw it off the bridge? "Come on Lily... power up, POWER UP!"
- ChuckMcM 11y agoOh goody more vaporware for HN :-(. I get the concept, the ultimate selfie movie, but I fear for the future of youtube's fails collection :-)
- sagivo 11y agothe next generation of selfie
- multibear 11y agoDoes this actually exist? Looks neat, but I want to know if preorder money is being used to develop the product that I'm preordering.
- joeblau 11y agoThis is my number 1 concern. There are so many vaporware hardware projects now-a-days that I'm hesitant to pre-order. I feel like I'd rather just wait because by the time this is eventually released, there may be 2-3 other products that do the same thing, only better.
- jkestner 11y agoIt's like Kickstarter, without the accountability of even the comments section!
- alphonse23 11y agoIt's finally happened, the robots are here. The future we were all promised!
- taternuts 11y ago20 minute flying time is pretty bad - kind of delegates this to a "We want this picture" or "We need this shot" type of thing, not "Turn it on follow mode and let's see what we get after our walk/game/session" which would be a lot more useful
- dharma1 11y agoThat's what the current energy density of lithium polymer batteries roughly is on a drone with this size props and weight. Not much that can be done aside from hoping for better battery tech!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sean-duffy 11y agoThe video looks cool and everything, but I don't really understand the mentality around these kind of hands-off 'follow me' drones. If you want high-quality aerial cinematography, you need a lot more than just an autonomous drone in your general vicinity. Does this thing really have the intelligence needed to correctly frame and compose shots?
- TkTech 11y agoWhy does it need to be high quality? Mom and dad aren't exactly pro photographers and they still enjoy taking pictures. Just look at the design of the thing, it's clearly more for play than work.
- sean-duffy 11y agoMom and dad probably aren't into extreme sports or spending $500 on toys either, though. Which is why I think in a lot of these new drone ideas are disconnected from their target audience.
- krschultz 11y agoWhat? Parents have been buying GoPros as Christmas presents for their kids to film their skiing down a blue square run at Stratton in droves. The last time I was at a resort like that it seemed like every other 13 year old kid had a video camera to capture their day. I don't want to see the drones flying at the mountain when I ski, but the blocker is definitely not lack of parents with money willing to blow it on stupid toys for their kids.
- wehadfun 11y agoAwesome website
- hougaard 11y agoThats totally the Mario 64 camera :)
- kentf 11y agoIf you live in or near Toronto, I have started a timeshare for a Lily - https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/lily-drone-timeshare https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/lily-drone-timeshare
- OoTheNigerian 11y agoYou may want to put a better description in your tilt page. You are assuming everyone visiting it know what that device is.
- kentf 11y agoIf you live in or near Toronto, I have started a timeshare for a Lily - https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/lily-drone-timeshare https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/lily-drone-timeshare
- bglazer 11y agoThis 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 (following, waterproof, nice camera) but no assurance that it won't suddenly break and kill someone. I want 99.9999% reliability and strong safety guarantees as a feature.
- themodelplumber 11y agoAgreed. I'd be satisfied with nothing less than a mid-air explosion into fine particulate matter upon engine failure. wipes drone gook off face
- rubicon33 11y agoThis is a big, big worry of mine. I'm considering doing commercial work with drones, and the major thing holding me back is the risk of injuring others with these things. The DJI Phantom, and Inspire, could kill someone if they fell from high enough. And I can tell you from personal experience, the software is simply not even CLOSE to bug-free enough for me to be worry free. The more I think about it, the more I think, the risk of flying these things in populated places just isn't worth it.
- themodelplumber 11y agoSeems like a good place to put Extreme Drone Crashes - Compilation 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9rnTk6FBzs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9rnTk6FBzs hehe
- nailer 11y agoReddit's defaults, for some reason, includes 'wtf' which frequently has gore pictures. One of which was someone whose face encountered a drone.
- 11y ago
- euphemize 11y agoThe max speed is 40 k/h - I'm no expert cyclist, but what happens when you go 60, 70, 80 down a long hill? Can the Lily catch up to you, and up until how far? What happens if it can't?
- dharma1 11y agoIt would get left behind. It looked like there is a little handheld GPS/wifi beacon used for follow me. My guess is RTL (return to launch) as a failsafe once you get outside wifi range
- mmrasheed 11y agoFinally a drone with elegance and purpose. A truly consumer oriented drone. Like it. Will wait for the v2.0 :)
- evo_9 11y agoIt'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 maybe go top to bottom in slightly under 20m but I'm flying and really pushing it the whole time, I wonder if the drone could even keep up in that situation (speed would be over 25mph almost the entire time). Pretty cool but I personally think there is much bigger market for a device designed to record kids playing hockey, basketball, soccer etc... imagine a tripod that tracks your kid, that would be way way more killer and useful for most people and probably a ton cheaper as you could use a smartphone as the camera. Technically it's impressive as hell, I just don't know about how practical is in actual use.
- JeffL 11y agoThere is a tripod that automatically tracks you. I get ads for it on YouTube all the time. http://www.gizmag.com/soloshot-automated-tripod/25453/ http://www.gizmag.com/soloshot-automated-tripod/25453/
- evo_9 11y agoThanks, that's an awesome product, never seen this before! Very cool. More info here: http://shop.soloshot.com/ http://shop.soloshot.com/
- baddox 11y agoI haven't been able to figure out how these work. GPS alone wouldn't give the resolution and responsiveness required. It doesn't seem to be CV-based either, since there's often no line of sight of the tracking device. Perhaps the tripod has two directional signal strength sensors so it can tell if the beacon is to the left or right, and move in order to keep the beacon centered.
- ceequof 11y ago
- basseq 11y agoThe FAA doesn't appear to have any guidance on automated flying: e.g., it doesn't say anything (at least in a 1m search) about a human pilot. (I was surprised by this.) So long as you stay within recreational use guidelines (e.g., don't upload videos to YouTube), you should be fine.
- titanomachy 11y agoWhy would uploading to YouTube necessarily be a problem? Most people don't make profit from YouTube uploads.
- dharma1 11y agoThere are a lot of drones that can do pretty much all of these things already, or you can build your own using an open source flight controller like ardupilot. The main job here (which they have done well) is turning it into a mass consumer product, easy to use package. DJI has done a pretty good job for prosumers on it but this is another notch up. Like the waterproofing! Video suggests a higher level of autonomy than I think they have right now (obstacle avoidance, automatic landing on your hand) but a year might be enough to cram it in there. I think we will see many more consumer drones like this.
- srameshc 11y agoVery cool. I always thought mounting a camera on a drone is the way to take photos when out but this is totally amazing the way it follows you.
- ape4 11y agoWhat if you throw it off a bridge only to realize that its out of charge.
- zxcvcxz 11y agoAre there lightweight drones that can fly continuously with just solar power? If not how far off are we?
- digitalpacman 11y agoTheir video of "actual footage" is 100% edited after they shot it. That is NO way actual unedited footage. Also. https://store.3drobotics.com/products/iris https://store.3drobotics.com/products/iris
- guruparan18 11y agoWhen I first saw, it reminded me of the 1997 Flubber house robot. For its size, Lily takes just video. It would be good if there is some more smartness and can be used indoors. Just like the house robot.
- rebootthesystem 11y agoI've been designing, building and flying model airplanes and later helicopters since I was ten years old. I've always flown in the context of a registered flying club and carry one million dollars insurance for my activity. I continue to be horrified by what is happening with these multicopters. People fly them outside of controlled environments and with a total lack of consideration towards others or their property. The vast majority of these things are cheap hobby-grade toys with laughable "safety" features. I own RC helicopters costing in excess of $3,000 and use a radio that costs well over $1,000. I still consider them dangerous toys not to be flown outside of club controlled environments. What sucks is this morons are going to kill somebody and this will ruin the hobby for those of us who have been responsible flyers for decades.
- sprkyco 11y agoWhile acknowledging the fact that drones being operated by "morons" do not amount to safe. Could you fill me in on what safety features a 3k copter offers over one of these smaller and arguably less threatening drones. Googled a couple "high dollar" copters most seemed to be in range of ~4kg range with large fixed carbon fiber blades as opposed to (in this particular case) a 3 pound object with collapsible polycarbonate blades. Honestly seeing this trend of "automated" drones the only human controlled factor of idiocy would be removed in part due to the automated nature of this drone, this would seem to favor a trend towards safer operations.
- rebootthesystem 11y agoI think you missed my point. Real model flight enthusiasts will only fly their birds at RC clubs. Clubs impose structure, safety rules, etc. In other words, even if you are flying total crap the probability of hurting anyone or causing property damage is greately reduced. To anser the other part of your question. A $3K heli has significantly better electronics and mechanics when compared to something like a DJI quad. And, of course, there's the fact that it has excellent autorotation with full control on the way down. Yet, again, the point is we don't fly over people, roads or buildings and we have far more experience flying than most drone buyers.
- dsap5432 11y agoPretty cool..! You need a british guy in your team that can pronounce Aluminum like Johny Ive and you sell like crazy.
- amolgupta 11y agowhat if you realize its out of battery after you throw it off. Starting the rotors before throwing would make the user feel more confident.
- ep103 11y agoIt 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 ranger station), broadcasting along the way if there is no cell signal available.
- comrh 11y agoA fun idea but in an avalanche the chances of you reaching your pocket before being entombed in snow is pretty low.
- bonestamp2 11y agoAssuming you were still alive under the snow for a brief period of time you could hit the button then.
- brador 11y agoAnd if you weren't it could detect your heartbeat through a smartwatch and know you're in trouble.
- catshirt 11y agoobviously this is a less general approach; but i'd think the software could detect with reasonable certainty when it's subject was suddenly covered by snow.
- flurp 11y agoA drone could detect loss of communication with the pocket device (snow or falling into the ocean should be enough to do that) and start some recovery/emergency sequence. E.g. stop + try pinging the device, if there's still no reply automatically call 911 with an emergency and GPS location. Is there a 911 REST API? :)
- pranade 11y agoAwesome stuff, guys!
- yuncun 11y agoHey Henry! We had calculus BC together at Westview. Congratulations, this looks great. -Eric S.
- GigabyteCoin 11y agoJust a personal gripe, but I hate it when websites don't work without the pointless www. in front of their domain. I just text a friend to visit https://lily.camera https://lily.camera and he'll never see it, because it doesn't exist.
- jcromartie 11y agolily.camera redirects
- adamzochowski 11y agohttp does. https doesn't.
- chrischen 11y agoWhile I agree they should make www redirect, its not pointless. If you serve sub domains or plan on serving them, www as your primary helps differentiate cookies.
- GigabyteCoin 11y agoPoint taken. But I doubt this sales page will be implementing subdomains anytime soon, if ever.
- dpark 11y ago> its not pointless It is entirely pointless to not redirect. There's no reason the URL posted shouldn't redirect to the www version.
- ricardobeat 11y agoList of previous similar products: https://www.airdog.com https://www.airdog.com http://hexoplus.com http://hexoplus.com https://store.3drobotics.com/products/iris https://store.3drobotics.com/products/iris http://www.airmind.co http://www.airmind.co
- OrwellianChild 11y agoThanks 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...
- r00fus 11y agoAmazing. 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.
- quotedmycode 11y agoIt is low because that's a preorder price. They need the money so they can order in bulk from the factory. In any case, I don't believe that's the entire cost of the unit, I think that's just 'put x dollars down to be put on the preorder list' and you just might have to pay the full amount later.
- rasz_pl 11y agoThey dont require a gopro, you can use $75 Xiaomi that is ~equal to 3+silver. Lily stated video parameters match xiaomi perfectly.
- minouye 11y ago
- alexchamberlain 11y agoI'm not a web designer: just wondering, how does someone go about designing a website with such animations as you scroll? I know there are a lot about these days; are they all custom, or is there some tool chucking all these out?
- vonklaus 11y agowith anything there are a lot of ways to do it. This is sort of a parralax type of animation. There are many librarys that handle this, but one way is to (at a certain place on the site) decouple the scroll from actually moving further down the page, and use it as the keyframe engine for the animation. This is a basic overview, but if you are interested google keywords like "parralax" and "parralax animation"
- jharig23 11y agoAt 10"x10"x3", you're going to need really big pockets!
- siavosh 11y agoDawn of the personal drone/robot/servants. I'm wondering if it's able to navigate around tree branches or corners without slamming into anything as opposed to the wide open spaces they show.
- CodeSheikh 11y agoCorrection Lily - Quadcopter camera It is annoying that everyone started calling Quadcopter a "drone", which is a very generic term. Flippin non-tech marketing peeps. -_-
- oaktowner 11y agoI don't think that's a correction. You are being more specific, but Lily is definitely "an unmanned aircraft or ship that can navigate autonomously"...which is what a drone is[1]. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/drone http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/drone
- CodeSheikh 11y agoSince you have referenced dictionary.com, a very authentic source for tech terminology, I would like to argue why a plane is not called "vessel" in everyday usage?! http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vessel http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vessel
- jjwiseman 11y agoI 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 cinematographic instructions like "Pan from me to tracker B" Especially in the extreme sports selfie video genre, hands-free operation would be a big advantage.
- crimsonalucard 11y agoReliability 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.
- jjwiseman 11y agoFor specific domains, like drone control, you can achieve much better accuracy then you typically see in "dictation"-style speech recognition. You can use a statistical language model that represents the things you're most likely to hear. For example, Google & Siri kind of need to be able to handle anything I throw at them: "What is Ke$ha's new album?" "What year was the Hardy Boys book 'Hunting For Hidden Gold' written?" They may use a language model that favors grammatical language, that is: "What is Ke$ha" is a more likely speech recognition hypothesis than "What hiss kush ball", but they still need a big model to represent that. For drone control, you have much more constrained language, which helps recognition accuracy significantly. The model can tell the recognizer that if it heard "Go <unsure> 100 feet" that the <unsure> word is most likely to be a direction like forward/back/left/right/up/down, and not "neutrino". It's a lot like the way that Norvig uses n-grams to illustrate writing a spelling corrector: http://norvig.com/ngrams/ch14.pdf http://norvig.com/ngrams/ch14.pdf Having a model lets you fix errors in the input. Having constrained language and a good model is often critical to creating a successful speech interface.
- jdiez17 11y agoInteresting idea. I think the biggest challenge would be to filter out noise (i.e wind blowing on the microphone). But in a limited domain such as this you can do aggressive filtering and get fairly good results in very harsh environments. Really cool idea. Now I have a strange urge to break out the ArduCopter.
- rblkenny 11y agoGreat, more trash in our fields and streams.
- redindian75 11y agoTweeted Lily support about Obstacle Avoidance. Sadly no - it doesn't steer clear of electric wires, branches and buildings.
- hustle600 11y agoI'm going to start building 'No Drones' signs and selling them to ski resorts in anticipation of how annoying these will be when every 13 year old has one.
- jmilloy 11y agoI can't help but imagine a time when, instead of smartphones or wearables, it's not uncommon to have a little drone that flies around after you.
- teklaperry 11y agoMy take on it: http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/robotics/aerial-robots/is-lily-a-drone-or-is-it-a-camera http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/robotics/aeria... and a few test flights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP8SnZ0A8S8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP8SnZ0A8S8
- akshatpradhan 11y agoThe target market is vloggers. They would love a device that automatically videotapes what they're saying as they're walking around Boston Common or somewhere else.
- MichaelTieso 11y agoShared on Facebook and sadly showed up as "Home page - Lily" with no meta description. If you're looking for more people to share and click, try fixing your meta tags so when people share it shows full a good teaser of the product is.
- todd3834 11y agoI have wanted this for so long. I wish it had longer flight time but I still orderd this immediately, before the trailer even finished
- DEinspanjer 11y agoAwesome, but my experience with current-gen pseudo-autonomous UAVs, these questions immediately come to mind: Can it follow you around the corner of a building without clipping it? Can it avoid bumping into a tree? Will it climb above the trees to follow you through a wooded area? Can it avoid getting tangled in an overhead utility line?
- gtirloni 11y agohttps://www.lily.camera/terms https://www.lily.camera/terms Purchaser agrees to stay clear of anything in the range of the UAV, or anything it could possibly collide with such as power lines, buildings, other UAVs etc.
- Zezima 11y agoWhere would we be without you? Reading the terms like we all should be doing!
- Grue3 11y agoAs if there is a place where it can't possibly collide with anything! Oh, your Lily divebombed into the ground? Well, you shouldn't have launched it near the ground!
- gtirloni 11y agoPerhaps I should have been more verbose. The information being asked is nowhere to be found through the official channels. The only mention of collisions and objects is in the terms document. I believe it's safe to assume the Lily doesn't have that and they made sure to add clauses that shield them against such claims (that it failed to avoid collisions). I just tried to contribute with relevant information and got two sarcastic replies in return. Well done, folks.
- roryokane 11y agoI read Zezima as being sincere, and Grue3 as being sarcastic towards the terms of service, not towards your helpful comment.
- EvanAnderson 11y agoA step along the way to the drone cameras from Bruce Sterling's "The Artificial Kid" coming to real life.
- Tloewald 11y agoThis seems kind of implausibly cheap for what it's offering.
- titanomachy 11y ago$500 preorder vs $1000 later. So either 1) they expect you to pay more later 2) they are selling the preorders at a loss (woo venture funding! do things that don't scale!) or 3) their markup will be huge (>100%) when they start making regular sales.
- csel 11y agoWhat happens when you have multiple lily's up at the same time? Is there any collision prevention?
- thrownaway2424 11y agoOne more way for narcissists to annoy naturalists.
- digisth 11y agoThis is a great step. Things I'd like to see: - Real obstacle avoidance so it can work in urban areas so people could do news / tour guide broadcasts like some people are doing on Periscope these days. Rather than holding your phone up in front of you (which gives you a pretty shaky video), you could just tell it to follow you while you talk to it - A sliding viewfinder that stays on your "face side" so you could see exactly what is being shot at all times. - The ability to stream the video to another device (like your phone attached to an external HDD) would make it so you could shoot longer form stuff - maybe even complete solo movies, like some of those Assassin's Creed-esque parkour videos.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- steven2012 11y agoSorry, but I'll believe it when I see it being sold in stores. This has Kickstarter syndrome written all over it. Meaning, a really cool idea and flashy video, but it's in "pre-order" and there's no guarantee when it will actually ship. And even when it does, I'd rather wait for reviews to tell me how good it works rather than trust a marketing video.
- edmack 11y agoI've wanted this for ages for run filming! Excited to see if tracking works well.........
- riq_ 11y agoNice concept, I want something like that... but it says "shipping Feb 2016"... lot of things can happen during these 9 months.
- genieyclo 11y agoReminds me of the Kino from Stargate.
- moe 11y agoI'm a bit worried about that "throwing start". What happens when the battery is low or when I give it a tad too much spin? "Whoops, did I just lob my $500 gadget into solid concrete?" Well, I suppose it probably has safer take-off modes, too. Can't wait until they shrink it down to tennis ball size.
- DarkUranium 11y agoThere exist plenty of tiny camera drones, except those aren't autonomous. An advantage is that crashes are less prone to damage (less mass => less momentum and kinetic energy), and if they do get damaged, repairs are [typically] far cheaper. I don't know about battery life, though, and that might be a large disadvantage of those. Also, fitting a GPS unit into one might be tricky.
- kelvin0 11y agoThis will truly revolutionize the selfie. I am joking!! Seriously this is truly going to sell like hot cakes. The film industry would probably love to use these more ... Good job guys!
- soheil 11y agoLove the demo video, any idea what company/person did this?
- thomasfl 11y agoThe most exciting new products on HN is hardware in combination with software. it used to be mostly software and websites.
- benpink 11y agoHere's a video of it being demonstrated for a Guardian journalist in Central Park: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2015/may/12/testing-the-selfie-drone-in-central-park-video http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2015/may/12/test...
- stevewilhelm 11y agoI predict Silicon Valley lacrosse, soccer, baseball, football, and swimming leagues will find it necessary to include language in their 'spectator code of conduct' bylaws that restricts the use of these kind of drones at tournaments and games. I suspect some sports will allow limited use during practice and scrimmages for training purposes.
- vladgur 11y agoSince this looks like a drone that automatically follows you, how does it negotiate with other drones that are around them. What if there is another person snowboarding on that slope with Lily? And he/she slides close to you?
- sunilkumarc 11y agoLoved the video. Really nice :)
- supercoder 11y agoReminds me of http://flynixie.com http://flynixie.com
- jmboling 11y agowhat happens when 10 skiers all release their lily cameras at the same time and womp it down a slope at variable speeds ?
- evan_ 11y agoThis looks cool but $999 is a lot of money for something I might use a couple times a year. Maybe I'll be able to rent one sometime.
- wehrkeoruw 11y agoHow fast can this go? Can I throw it out my car window and go down a street? A highway? What does it do when it's lost the homing signal -- hover? Land?
- bottled_poe 11y agoPerhaps a stupid question - but where are the collision avoidance sensors?
- gbajson 11y agoLily looks cool - but flies where it wants ;) Is it possible to control it manually using standard RC controller and RC modules (i.e. Frsky)?
- binoyxj 11y agoIf this Guardian video is any hint, this drone needs to be worked on to make it perform like advertised https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td5fZhGNz9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td5fZhGNz9M
- fuzzywalrus 11y agoI was ready to throw my money at this until I saw this. As a developer, I know the pains of alpha and beta demonstrations but this now seems more like a kickerstarter project than finished product. Getting this off the ground (pun intended) looks like its quite aways off.
- organsnyder 11y agoExtremely well done on the marketing. I watched the video with my 2- and 2-year-old boys. After we watched it a few times (we all wanted to watch it again and again), the 4yo was talking about the features of the drone ("It has a camera!" "It lands on your hand!" "It's waterproof!"), while the 2yo kept repeating "Want one!" "Want one!" (which I don't think I was saying out loud myself). I wouldn't preorder one at this stage (even if I had a spare $500 lying around), but this is one of the coolest gadgets I've seen in a while, and the marketing is top-notch.
- oneiric 11y agoIt seems like the propellers get close to each other. Usually quadcopter propellers are spaced out much more than this to reduce vibrations. Does anyone know if they do something special?
- guiomie 11y agoPotential acquisition for gopro?
- hienchu 11y agoI like ZANO more actually :)
- farzher 11y agoI found this in the Youtube video comments: > Currently, Lily does not have any obstacle avoidance capabilities. We have found that most outdoor activities do not need obstacle avoidance because Lily can follow the user's path. But again, there are no guarantees that Lily will not hit anything while it is following you. "no obstacle avoidance" o_O
- dang 7y agoThe submitted URL was https www . lily . camera. We've taken it out above because it now redirects to a porn site.