DJI Neo drone

Okay, so I have resisted the whole drone thing for long enough.

I was watching a vanlife youtuber who was comparing 3 drones and this was a cheap version that is basically for people who just want to tinker, use it for 5-10 mins and fly it into things and not have it break - or wound you. Oh ans be <£200. oh and be very light, so it is under the weight for requiring you to do the online drone license exam thingy (not that that is too difficult, more common-sense than anything else).

I also kind of need one now for some things I want to do myself, so whilst I was in an Amazon Prime delivery location, purchase it I did.

It arrived.

It is small! It is quite robust. Those blades are well covered / protected.  I bought the extra gimble protector cover too - as I did see that was a thing to get - there is NO obstacle avoidance on this device, so it will fly into things, so well worth protecting the camera.

It did take a bit of faffing about to get the App to install onto my ZFold 4 device (Android) - why the faff? well, the software is not on the Google Play store. Hmmmm... rings some alarm bells there, but y'know, whatever.  I eventually got the download directly from DJI, it's a whopping 800mb app.

It did install onto my ZFold 4 device, but it does complain about wanting to quit/wait - and then the screen layout / UI is kinda corrupt for viewing the app, it is NOT built for this phone at all!  After writing this I shall install onto my old Oukitel WP18 "brick" device and see if that is better.

Anyway, after a firmware update (it requires both Bluetooth & WiFi connecting to it), I followed the instructions to press the power button TWICE and hold for 2 seconds.

The app has a few features that I could use.  One was "follow me" mode - which is what I did in the video below.  Basically on the app you can see that it puts a bounding green box around you as a person to "follow" and then it does it's best to do just that.  It's a bit creepy as it does stay at around head height and it does slowly follow you. Yes, I know that is what it is meant to do, but it is a bit weird having something doing that.

It does remind me of back in 1990-ish? When myself & Phil were thinking of how to put 2 frisbee's together and a couple of radio controlled wheel motors inside with a TV camera to float down the University corridors to freak people out - lol, yes, we were attempting to "invent" a drone back then - the tech. just wasn't available - this device ticks all those boxes & more.

So how does it work out?

I will need to purchase more batteries, the 3 charger pack looks ideal, but from next months paycheck - I can see that being very worthwhile.

The video quality is pretty good

There seems to be quite a bit of interest on YouTube and this guy seems to like using it for the past few months & has lots of tweaks / changes that he recommends - I'll check them out tomorrow:

I did try out the "follow me" and recorded 30seconds of video - equated to about 300mb - which blogspot doesn't like as there is a 100mb limit.

I also tried out the manual controls, which was a little odd from the phone screen - but I could see how it worked & after a few sessions I can see it being easier to use - I was just more cautious that I was flying it indoors!  it did unexpectedly land itself as I brought it down too close to the ironing board - it assumed it was my hand!  Again, that was a 300mb video.

If I can share here, I will - the quality is actually really good and it is very stable.

I can see this being used a LOT this year - I'll take it with me tomorrow at the camp site and get some footage - although there are a lot of tree's there is a huge open space field too, so will give me some practice, so long as it's not raining!

That is when the 15mins battery life will kick-in, it's about 1hour to recharge.  that 3 pack of batteries is sounding more appealing now :-D