Developed by Meng Qiu “MQ” Wang, CEO of Zero Zero Robotics, the Hover Camera has four propeller blades, a camera on the front, and follows you around without any required remote control.
The flying camera, equipped with a 13-megapixel camera on the front that shoots 4K video, is enclosed in a lightweight carbon fiber chassis. Weighing only half a pound, the Hover Camera does not require an FAA drone registration to fly.
Its carbon fiber enclosure protects the device’s blades from swiping anything, and the foldable design makes it simple for those on the go. The Hover Camera, battery, and charger all fit into a small protective case.
“We wanted to build products that are portable,” MQ said. “It's very light. This is significantly smaller than any other drone devices out there on the market in this class. The main design consideration is portability, user-friendliness and safety.”
The camera features auto-follow mode, where its software tracks people’s faces, locks them, and then follows them while maintaining a couple of foot’s distance for safety purposes.
The Hover Camera’s most notable feature is, of course, its ability to autonomously follow a person and record video of them, but users can also control it manually with an app using gestures. Swiping the screen with two fingers up and down controls the altitude; a one-finger swipe up and down moves the camera’s gimbal; a swipe left and right with a single finger controls yaw; and a swipe left and right with two fingers shifts the device left and right.
Along with the 13-megapixel photos and 4K resolution, the Hover Camera comes equipped with electronic image stabilization to smooth footage out. On the bottom of the device is a 3-megapixel camera and a sonar system that works to track its position and surrounding objects, ensuring it does not crash.
The camera also features a “360 Pano” mode, where the device spins 360 degrees while hovering in place. It has a battery that is easily swappable, lasting approximately eight minutes during flight time. As that is rather short, the Hover Camera will come with four batteries for up to 30 minutes of flying.
Expected to launch by late summer 2016, the Hover Camera will be priced roughly less than $600. Thus far, Zero Zero Robotics has raised a total of $25 million in investor funding to produce the Hover Camera.
Source: Mashable
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