Gaby Follow's accompanying UAV started crowdfunding on November 8 at a starting price of 1899. One month later, the crowdfunding amount will reach 1.32 million. Its JD and Tmall stores will be online at the end of the year. Interested friends may follow the accompanying Wechat and wait for the latest news from the manufacturer We Love to play computer games already first time With the real machine, we will now bring you the first experience.
Industry background
The whole story can be traced back to the "competition" of upstream chip manufacturers for the UAV market. Now, the UAV chip platform is far more than we expected, and Intel, Qualcomm, Italy France Semiconductor and other major manufacturers are involved. After Qualcomm's efforts in the consumer UAV market, its UAV development platform based on Snapdragon 801 was launched this year.
The unified development platform of chip manufacturers can significantly reduce the technical threshold of UAV flight control and positioning, and improve the efficiency and speed of new product development of third-party manufacturers. The advantage of using a highly integrated platform from mobile phones is that it can significantly save circuit area and has a huge performance surplus, leaving room for manufacturers to differentiate.
In this context, almost all products based on Qualcomm Snapdragon platform have their own distinctive selling points, including the small zero degree Dobby pocket UAV, the zero point infinite Hover Camera of the folding mesh box type, in addition to the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV and the Alpha CAM UAV of Shunli intelligence.
The Gabe Follow accompanying UAV we experienced this time is quite special even if it is placed in these different categories, and its special points/selling points are quite many: small and light body, four-wheel drive vehicle type removable top/bottom cover, elastic material frame, flexible quick release paddle, dual 18650 battery cell power supply, long endurance, complete set of outdoor portable accessories and cost performance ratio.
Appearance and workmanship
The packaged version of the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV is packaged in a gift box. The machine is in a portable box, and the rest includes two sets of spare paddles (8 in total), two sets of batteries and chargers, and bright green and yellow covers.
Standard 5V/2A charging head
Officials also provide charging heads that support Qualcomm Fast Charge 3.0, Two 2500mAh batteries can be fully charged in 70 minutes
Hexahedral view of fuselage
Gabe's Founder Wang He is a designer, so it is obvious that the industrial design of Gabe Follow's accompanying UAV is different from that of similar products. Gabe Follow The whole body is chrome plated on the bright side of gun gray, which has a quite obvious bright metallic feeling. Different light and shade will show different light and shade, and the shape is cool.
The gray version of the full bright gun case can display different colors and textures in different backgrounds
The logo is on the top of the fuselage, and the ultrasonic sensor and optical flow positioning camera are on the bottom. The upper and lower covers can be removed. The top is a whole heat sink. The latter has a special design. The four corners have parts that extend out of the cover, which are used to import and export air flow to improve heat dissipation efficiency.
The rear of the fuselage is a paddle switch, and the bottom battery compartment is full of grids for weight reduction and heat dissipation.
In front of the fuselage of this version is an angle adjustable camera and dual LED status indicator. The manufacturer said that the latter would be replaced with a binocular obstacle avoidance camera in the upgraded version, I can't help but look forward to the price and performance of the upgraded version. After all, the UAV that can be plugged with optical flow+sonar positioning+binocular obstacle avoidance camera in such a small body is only Dajiang's Royal for the time being, but its price is relatively high.
The upper and lower covers of the fuselage and even the middle frame of the fuselage are provided with neat heat dissipation grids. There are mirco USB interfaces and TF card slots for debugging on the right side of the fuselage.
The arm is a very simple double pole support. The only exposed screw in the whole machine is used to fix the motor. Below it is a translucent support with elastic and cushion pads.
Flexible materials and flight safety
The Gabe Follow accompanying UAV uses a flexible frame as a whole, which can bend both the translucent propeller and the arm significantly.
Propellers that can be installed without tools
It can be grasped with bare hands without causing damage, but non professionals (especially children) should not imitate
The former greatly facilitates the disassembly of rotors, and can also fly off during impact to avoid injury. The latter is used to buffer impact energy and protect fuselage components. The workmanship and industrial design of the whole machine give people a sense of "durability" very similar to Nokia ” , fall or hit the ground during flight, and the flying battery can be revived after being put back.
Colorful shell
In addition to the special chrome plated case with polished surface, there are many kinds of cases available in bright green, yellow, pink, etc. The official said that more color cases will be provided later.
Bright green shell
The color shell has grooves similar to the surface texture of golf balls and openings for heat dissipation to reduce wind resistance
In addition to the cool and exquisite detachable structure, the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV is also very compact. 3D 160mm X 160mm X 50mm, The wheelbase of the rack is only 199mm, and it can also be removed with one hand in the unfolded state. In addition, the density is lower than expected, and the actual feel will be lower than expected.
It can also be seen from the internal structure that the designers are "crazy" about weight reduction, heat dissipation and structure simplification, in return 273g Takeoff weight. You know The two 18650 batteries themselves are already 100g. When the batteries are not installed, the machine is incredibly light.
The lighter body weight is almost a benefit without harm for UAVs, and the most important improvement is that more space and weight can be reserved for batteries to improve the endurance. The second is to reduce the inertial damage during collision, protect the machine and also protect the surrounding objects and people, and then reduce the baggage burden when users take it out.
Portable package and replaceable lithium battery
The suite version of the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV comes with a hard "accompanying" portable bag and a handle, which looks a bit like the toolbox of the four-wheel drive car in those days. There are grooves inside to fix the UAV, charging line, battery and cover, and the positions of the battery and cover can be changed at will. Apart from the batteries in the body, the portable bag can also carry three groups (six) of 18650 lithium batteries.
Here is an interesting design. The portable bag comes with the function of "propeller sorting". As long as the cover is closed, the propeller wings can be aligned automatically.
The most special setting of the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV must be that it uses the 18650 lithium battery. The official battery has a single capacity of 2500mAh and provides 7.4V voltage in series. Compare the common Customizable shape The biggest advantage of the 18650 lithium polymer battery is its versatility. It does not need to customize the charging interface. It can be charged with an ordinary charger. It is much easier to maintain and use. The 18650 battery can be used directly, which greatly reduces the cost of purchasing batteries in the later period. However, the 18650 batteries on Xtaobao are mixed, so it is recommended that entry-level users use original batteries.
In order to respond to the change of power supply, the battery compartment of Gabe Follow's accompanying UAV is also a bit like a four-wheel drive vehicle, which can replace the battery and continue to fly in about 10 seconds. In terms of charging, Optional The fast charging charger adopts type-C interface, which can be used as a universal mobile phone charger. Under the standard of fast charging 3.0, it can fully charge two 18650 2500mAh batteries 70 minutes It's really crazy.
Benefiting from the advantages of 18650, Gabe Follow's accompanying UAV can certainly be the UAV with the lowest cost of continuous flight. None of them: according to the official 20 minute endurance calculation, the portable bag with three sets of spare batteries can fly all day while charging.
Chip platform and camera
It is estimated that the performance photography part will make many users feel particularly familiar. Qualcomm ® Snapdragon ™ Flight ™ Platform, using Snapdragon 801+Sony IMX214, Peripheral configuration includes 2G memory+16G storage, and supports up to 64G TF card. Its CPU part It is a 4-core 2.3GHz Krait400 architecture, and the GPU is Adreno 330. As a baseband maniac, Qualcomm's flagship chip in 2014 already has a large number of digital interfaces such as 5G WiFi, GPS/GLONASS dual star positioning, such as I2C, SPI, URAT, etc., which can easily access a large number of sensors required by existing UAVs.
After all, this is the SoC originally used in mobile phones. If it is placed on the entry-level UAV platform, the CPU and GPU will have considerable surplus in computing performance. The DSP it carries is the 600MHz Hexagon QDSP6, which has abundant image analysis and processing capabilities, and also makes it possible for the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV to have functions that require high computing power, such as visual tracking, gesture photography, etc. The optical flow sonar fixed point, round point flight, automatic homing, path planning and other functions that have begun to be popular are also declining. But we tested early, and the test machine was only open at that time Support for adjustment around distance Flight around point function.
In terms of camera, it is an ultra wide angle lens with F2.2 aperture, equivalent 14mm focal length and 117 degree angle of view, the highest support 4208 * 3120 (13 million pixels) resolution photo shooting and the highest 4K@30FPS Video of. Although the EIS electronic anti shake and ultra wide-angle lens with low requirements for shake control are used, due to the size and weight constraints, the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV does not add a PTZ or optical anti shake structure, which is a pity.
Flight and app
Gabe Follow accompanying UAV flight suit
Multi color LED lights on the front are used to show different machine states
The portability of small UAVs is already impeccable, and Gaby Follow's accompanying UAV uses a mobile phone as a remote control. A portable bag can go out with the UAV, backup battery and charging kit, and the overall weight is only 700 grams. The machine does not need manual compass or other calibration, as long as the battery is installed, it can fly. It supports one button takeoff and landing. Because of its small size, with a little practice, it can achieve the loading effect of hand takeoff and landing.
Gaby Follow's accompanying UAV app The background is real-time image transmission, It adopts a hidden rocker design similar to mobile phone games, which will only be displayed when touched. This makes its interface similar to the photographing application, which mainly focuses on photographing related parameters. In order to prevent accidental touch, the main interface only puts one key start/drop and winding function keys, and the advanced follow function is put together with the setting item. In particular, it provides the sensitivity setting of the rocker, and supports the somatosensory mode.
The machine defaults to the American hand (the left rocker controls the up, down, left and right spins, and the right rocker controls the front, back, left and right on the plane). For users who are accustomed to the physical rocker, this operating feel will take some time to adapt. This app not only looks like a game, but also the actual experience is very similar to a game, especially after it is adjusted to the somatosensory mode. The virtual key recognizes the pull distance after touching the screen. In addition, the virtual remote control is not fixed, but can be called out in full screen. It is difficult to sense the "strength", and the efficiency of blind operation is low. Instead, it is suitable for direct operation by looking at pictures.
For beginners, the somatosensory remote control mode will be more practical. The mobile phone is flat, and the horizontal movement/up and down operation mode is controlled by leaning back and forth, which is very intuitive, with almost no learning cost.
Actual performance
One touch landing is very simple and stable
After a simple practice, you can perform the "stunt" of taking off and landing on your hands
The machine is equipped with optical flow positioning function. When there is no operation, it will enter the hover mode by default, and can automatically return to the original position after being dragged manually.
The machine maneuvers well. After adjusting the climbing sensitivity to 0.4 (i.e. 40% output), the climbing speed is acceptable.
The shortest winding distance can be set to 1m
After falling apart due to misoperation, you can take off immediately after installing the parts back. Even if the battery flies out, it will only take about 10 seconds to restart it. If the Snapdragon 801 mobile phone could be started so quickly that year, it would be moved.
summary
For many users, the purpose of UAV is more to taste new things and take simple aerial photos, and they happen to be a group of users with the highest requirements for cost performance, portability, safety and durability. Perhaps because of this target user orientation, the Gabe Follow accompanying UAV has adopted a unique flexible rack and 18650 battery combination, in exchange for excellent fall prevention/safety performance and endurance. Even the tool kit can be placed in a small backpack, which is light and can be replaced and maintained at low cost Battery Experience. In terms of ease of mind and low maintenance costs, Gabe Follow's accompanying UAV will never find an opponent.
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