Today, Beijing-based PowerVision made its ovoid camera drone, the PowerEgg, available to international customers via pre-order on the company’s website for $1,288.
Customers who pre-order a PowerEgg will also get a backpack designed to fit the drone, its charging station, decorative stand and remote controls along with their orders. The company says the backpack is valued at $200.
Drones have taken many forms from the pocket-sized mutli-rotor drones made by CyPhy Works, to fixed-wing models that look like paper airplanes on steroids by Parrot and others, to the 4,100 four-seater airplane flown by remote control instead of a pilot, currently being developed by Aurora Flight Sciences.
The PowerEgg may be the only one to adopt an ovoid shape. The egg “hatches” four arms with folding rotor blades. In other words, the PowerEgg is a very pretty, foldable quadcopter.
But the PowerEgg also includes a long list of intriguing features, including a 4k camera and 3-axis gimbal setup that allows it to shoot 360-degree panoramic images.
It also allows real-time HD video transmission, so a user can send images mid-flight to their social media accounts from a good distance.
The PowerEgg is compatible with both iOS and Android devices.
And like other camera drones, the PowerEgg can operate in “selfie mode,” following a user with the camera trained right on their face, or automatically capturing complicated shots, like a perfect orbit or corkscrew, which would be hard to do with manual flight controls.
Putting the PowerEgg over the top (if this works as promised) PowerVision has also created a remote control for its drone called the Maestro that lets users, especially neophytes, maneuver the drone with gestural controls. Twist the Maestro in your hand to the left and the PowerEgg flies left. That kind of thing.
For that reason, the company is billing the PowerEgg as a drone for the whole family, including younger users. But to PowerVision officially, that means kids 14 and older.
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