Mini drones may be kind of fascinating to some of us, but the things are notoriously difficult to keep hovering in one place, plus they're not known for shooting great video. Chinese startup Ruiven claims to be out to change that, however, with its new Kudrone. The tiny quadcopter shoots at a maximum resolution of 4K, it can pivot 360 degrees to shoot panoramic stills, plus it's equipped with GPS.
To start a flight, the Kudrone is simply thrown up in the air. It can then be controlled manually via an iOS/Android smartphone app, in which users see a real-time 720p video feed from its onboard camera. Communicating with the phone using Wi-Fi, it has a range of 100 ft (30 m). Its GPS module helps it to "know where it is," plus it's equipped with infrared and sonar sensors that allow it to automatically hover in place, and to land with the press of an onscreen button.
The drone can also reportedly be set to a Follow mode, in which it flies along with the user by tracking the GPS coordinates of their phone.
Footage and stills are stored on an onboard 16GB memory card, so any glitches in the video transmission shouldn't be recorded. The copter's flight time, however, is just eight minutes per charge of its removable 650-mAH lithium-polymer battery. Two of those batteries are included, though, so the flight time is – sort of – more like 16 minutes.
The Kudrone is currently the subject of an Indiegogo campaign, where a pledge of US$99 will get you one … assuming it reaches production. The planned retail price is $189.
It can be seen in action, in the video below.
