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DRONES ARE BIG business. It’s a growing industry and while the legalities around it are still being worked on, the popularity of drones as toys is quickly growing.
One company that is involved in this sector in this is Parrot, a French company that’s one of the bigger players in the industry. Alongside its collection of drones, it has a number of mini drones including the Parrot Rolling Spider, an affordable version of its collection.
Yet while it’s cheap (relative to other drones), what’s the quality like?
Build
The Parrot Rolling Spider is a small quadcopter, one that could just about fit in your hand without the wheels attached. It has a plastic build, but despite this, it’s actually rather sturdy. It would survive a fall or two, but you wouldn’t want to put it to the test too many times.
The front has two LED lights shaped like eyes (there are stickers included if you want to give it fangs or shark teeth and jazz it up a bit) to let you know it’s on, the right LED doubles up as a charging notification, turning red while you have it connected to your computer.
The drone is lightweight, meaning it’s easy to carry, but it also means that if there are moderate gusts outside, it’s going to be blown off-course slightly.
It’s not a big deal as it’s sturdy enough to survive a few crashes, but you wouldn’t want to be flying it in a small space in case a random gust directs it towards a wall.
[image alt="Parrot Drone & controls" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/12/parrot-drone-controls-630x420.jpg" width="630" height="420" title="" class="alignnone" /end]
Controls
When you first start up, the controls may come across as a little confusing but are surprisingly intuitive.
The drone connects to your smartphone (iOS or Android) via Bluetooth meaning the max range you can fly it out would be roughly 15 to 20 metres. It can also reach an altitude of five metres for those wondering.
Lift-off only requires a button press and it zips into life straight away. Using both a D-pad and tilt controls, your left thumb controls altitude and rotates the drone while your right thumb moves it (while tilting). It works well in practice and unless you’re incredibly reckless, you should have no problem moving it around.
Pro controls are a little more advanced, giving you complete autonomy of the drone. It allows greater maneuverability but if you’re not used to the basic controls, you’ll likely crash it again and again. Thankfully it’s sturdy, but you want to give yourself a lot of space when testing it out.
[image alt="Parrot Drone Gif 1" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/12/parrot-drone-gif-1-630x348.gif" width="630" height="348" credit-source="TheJournal.ie" class="alignnone" /end]
In-Flight
The first thing you will notice is the noise. It’s not deafening, but if you’re hoping for a subtle flight experience, you won’t find it here. The best way to describe it is it’s like a swarm of bees as the four rotors spin very quickly, and you’ll certainly feel it when you stand close to it.
However, you quickly forget about it as you zip around and take it in whatever direction you wish. It’s rather fast which may catch some people out if they’re being careless, but the inbuilt sensors make it rather difficult for the drone to spin out of control. On the off-chance it does, it still manages to keep itself stable, even if you let go of the controls.
The altitude of the drone does change a little bit randomly – sometimes it will rise or lower without warning as it adjusts itself – but overall it’s great at keeping its composure.
Landing it is also a button press away, which causes it to drop rather dramatically if you’re doing it from a height(which by the way, you shouldn’t do).
Hardware
The spider wheels are really there if you want to drive it – or give it extra protection when flying – but to be honest, you probably won’t use them. They’re fun if you want to drive up a wall and stick to the ceiling (acting a little like suction cups), but it’s likely you’ll discard them in favour for the drone itself.
You wouldn’t notice it by looking but there’s a built-in camera located at the bottom of the drone, allowing you to capture anything underneath it. While it’s a fun idea, the quality is rather low and it’s difficult to aim, meaning you’ll likely forget about it while you’re flying around.
Considering how many features there are, there’s usually a drawback and it’s a pretty big one: the battery life. One fight will last roughly eight minutes before it does an emergency landing and it’s disappointing when you’re getting into the swing of things.
What’s even worse is charging the battery can only be done via your computer (there’s only a USB cable for it) and takes roughly an hour and a half to go from empty to full capacity.
[image alt="{ product_id: 0900, media_date: 2014-12-16T084539+0000 }" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/12/product_id-0900-media_date-2014-12-16t0845390000-630x472.jpg" width="630" height="472" caption="A%20photo%20taken%20from%20the%20mini%20drone." class="alignnone" /end]
Summary
The Parrot Mini Drone Rolling Spider is enjoyable to fly, and one that you will get the hang of pretty quickly. However, the battery is a weak point – both when it’s in use and when it’s charging – and keeping an eye on battery levels does take away from the experience.
Still, the pros greatly outweigh the cons and it’s incredible fun to pilot, and kids will definitely get a kick out of it. It may only be for a few minutes, but they’ll be an enjoyable few minutes.
Pros
- Sturdy build.
- Powerful hardware.
- Easy to pilot. Different modes for beginner and advanced users.
Cons
- Only 8 mins of battery life per charge.
- You can only charge it via your computer.
- Bottom facing camera is tough to aim and image quality is grainy.
The Parrot Mini Drone Rolling Spider is available in Apple Store (€99), PC World (€99), Currys (€99) and Vodafone (€129).
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No one seems interested in the basic function of farming, creating food.!Any suggestions on what we should eat when all the rewilding is complete!
@Tommy Lennon: Nearly all the food we produce is exported though, so rewilding vast swathes of land wouldn’t affect our access to food.
@Tommy Lennon: Heather!! This hogwash is really going overboard. 5.2 Million people have to eat something!!
Few years ago they couldn’t give away enough money to reclaim land, bogs were drained, ditches bulldozed to make fields bigger now give more money to put it back, what next
@Andy Murphy: it’s as if priorities can change over time.
Mad, Ted!
@Ciaran Foster: or money changes hands ?
Totally agree. I bought the book from Eoghan back in December as a present but could not stop reading it.. great eye opener when walking around any nature area and looking at our human shaped environment.
Bought the book. Eoghan knows what he is talking about, we should listen
Lord save us from this stuff, so we return good farmland to the so called wild bush,
I have known so called farmers like this and they were to lazy to work their land and produce food, this was their cop out for not working their inheritance farm,
The boyo who wrote this article seems like one of them.
@Ned: You sound bitter. Were they “to” lazy to learn to spell also?
Every day I read or hear about another demand from the “Green Agenda”. Previously I would have considered myself environmentally conscious but I have rapidly become less so due to the polarised views presented.
More tree planting, ditch fertiliser (go organic) , drop bovines and ovines 20% in favor of grains and vegetables. Pay farmers to do so. Targets met… Simple..and it will be done.
Folks, do yourselves a favour and read his book.
Great book, highly recommend!
I’ve no problem to pay farmers to rewind their farms
But let’s house the homeless fix our health first eh?
We should change our approach to land use. A farm should be an inclosed area where sheep / goat / cows won’t go outside to graze on every little tree sapling. Same for sikka deer that has gone out of control in recent years. Nature and biodiversity has no chance in this country atm.
There are 8 Billion people on this planet that have to be fed every day and this idiot wants us to grow weeds. Enough of this nonsense. No matter what we do on this little island it will make little or no difference to global warming. We’re not the cause of the problem, but we could help alleviate the consequences.
@Liam Dunne: well we are the cause of the problem, rich countries like ireland are the ones who consume the most and produce the most carbon per capita, we still contribute to the overall problem
@Liam Dunne: It’s not about global warming, it’s about biodiversity. Read the article, then try reading some books.
We need all houses to be carbon neutral…citizens deserve at least cheap/free heating.
I’ve noticed a lot of hedgerows getting torn out of grazing fields near me over the last 2-3 winters.
It makes little sense, the farmer only gains a few square meters of space. Then any farm animals in the fields lose shelter from the elements during wind, rain & heat.
And of course nature loses its last piece of wilderness on the edge of the field.
Is there some sort of subsidy to do this sort of work or why is it being done?
So you want us to pay farmers to not work on the least viable part of their land. Sure.
@Dan Dare: they would need money to maintain fences to keep deer, sheep & goats off the land while it recovers.
Kill an extra quarter of a million cows a year and rewild as much land as possible . What will people eat if this goes ahead ? And there is no point in saying that we export most of what we produce as if that makes its consumption somewhere else on the planet irrelevant
Unbelievable, I grew up in a large farming community. Farmers are so so wealthy. The new generation of farmers are splashing the cash, massive mansions, big 4×4′s, new cars etc. Some small farmers may struggle a little like the rest of us. But the cash the big dairy guys are rolling in is unbelievable!
have your say