![]() To detect and avoid obstacles, the Skydio 2 uses an array of six 4K hemispherical cameras that feed data into an NVIDIA Jetson TX2 at 30 fps, with the drone processing a million points in 3D space per second to plan the safest path. The blue and black color scheme is far more attractive than you typically see with drones. It’s solid, and a little on the heavy side as far as drones go-it’s primarily made out of magnesium, which (while light) is both heavier and more rigid and durable than plastic. The Skydio 2 both looks and feels like a well-designed and carefully thought-out drone. The Skydio 2 is primarily made out of magnesium, which (while light) is both heavier and more rigid and durable than plastic. The offset props (the back pair are above the body, and the front pair are below) are necessary to maintain the field of view of the navigation cameras. And there’s a bunch of interesting extra video in there as well. Underneath each GIF is a timestamped link to this YouTube video (also available at the bottom of the post), which you can click on to see the an extended cut of the original 4K 30 fps footage. To fit them all in, these GIFs had to be heavily compressed. Note: Throughout this review, we’ve got a bunch of GIFs to help illustrate different features of the drone. But I found a nearby state park in which I could legally and safely fly the drone, and I did my best to put the Skydio 2 through its paces. Robots aren’t supposed to be this good.Ī week is really not enough time to explore everything that the Skydio can do, especially Thanksgiving week in Washington, D.C. Like, I was giggling to myself while running through the woods as the drone zoomed around, deftly avoiding trees and keeping me in sight. I had a pretty good idea what to expect, and I was absolutely blown away. ![]() ![]() Skydio sent me a Skydio 2 review unit last week, and while I’m reasonably experienced with drones in general, this is the first time I’ve tried a Skydio drone in person. Here’s an overview video just to get you caught up: A little over a year later, Skydio has introduced the Skydio 2, which is smaller, smarter, and much more affordable. Even three years ago, Skydio’s tech was way better than anything we’d seen outside of a research lab, and in early 2018, they introduced their first consumer product, the Skydio R1. We’ve written extensively about Skydio, beginning in early 2016 when the company posted a video of a prototype drone dodging trees while following a dude on a bike. But the week I’ve had with this drone has left me feeling like its fundamental autonomous capability is so far beyond just about anything that I’ve ever experienced that I’m questioning why I would every fly anything else ever again. To be clear, the Skydio 2 is not without compromises, and the price of $999 (on pre-order with delivery of the next batch expected in spring of 2020) requires some justification. When you see this technology in action, it’s (almost) indistinguishable from magic. It’s able to fly autonomously at speed through complex environments in challenging real-world conditions in a way that’s completely effortless and stress-free for the end user, allowing you to capture the kind of video that would be otherwise impossible, even (I’m guessing) for professional drone pilots. Skydio’s newest drone is an exception to all of this. Those expectations include things like “unstructured environments are basically impossible” and “full autonomy is impractically expensive” and “robot videos rarely reflect reality.” Over the last decade, I’ve spent enough time around robots to have a very good sense of what kinds of things are particularly challenging for them, and to set my expectations accordingly. Let me begin this review by saying that the Skydio 2 is one of the most impressive robots that I have ever seen.
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