AR.Drone QuadCopter API available

[Erich_F]

Dude CNet and others are reporting it should be around 500 if not less.

You seem to forget that this is not a 450 gas heli nor it is a brushless electric. It is just a hyped form of coax with vid tech on it and a basic computer to judge lean and recalc rotor speed.


And Parrot at the CES reported it would be 15 min most of flight time with a one hour charge.

Dude, CNET is pretty much worthless when it comes to pricing, especially for things they have no clue about. Actually, CNET is pretty much worthless for just about anything.

There is no such thing as a 450 Gas Heli....well, OK there was one, but it didn't work out so well.

You're right though, it is a pretty basic aircraft. Walkera makes the UFO series that's about $200 with a radio system. The Videos released by Parrot on this AR.Drone do seem to be a bit chopped to make it look like it performs better than it actually does...especially the part about flying around the park from the inside of a living room :icon_eek: Would I pay $1200 for it...prolly not. Just buy the Walkera thing and slap a cheapo video system on it and go, like you said before.

 

[soulpatch]

Hell Walkera's Chinooks will stay in place once up with very little movement one way or another once you dial in the controls.

Oh and I said CNET and others. I do not trust CNET either but when at least 5 different CES threads pop up and they are all clamoring about the 500 or so price then I start to go with it. Though honestly I would be suprised if it was that much.

 

[christim]

I almost started a new thread on this as I just came across it via Digg. I wasn't sure if it counted as news, apps, or accessories though. A couple of searches on the forum here and I found this thread.

How cool is this?

Digg pointed me to this site with a video show how much control they have over this thing.
Macworld 2010: TUAW attacks San Francisco with the Parrot AR.Drone

I visited their FB page and posted a request for android support. Maybe if we all do someone will get the message?
Parrot | Facebook

Sourcecode?
Parrot AR.Drone - Game Developer Zone - Start building iPhone and iPod touch applications compatible with AR.Drone!

Android question on their forum:
https://projects.ardrone.org/boards/1/topics/show/11

Of interest from the above link is the following bit of info:
We have released a quick'n'dirty demo app for controlling an AR drone with an Android phone.

 

[Mechcondrid]

ok just saw this when i got home tonight ive already been working on a port of the app the main hicup ive been having is that its designed for the xcode system and i can only do so much with vmware running mac and i have no prototype to test on ive been trying to haggle my way with the devs of this beast to send me one for "temporary Development and marketing purposes", and in laymen terms: send me one for free with no support and i get you an entire Android customer base, but so far its been not much communication to me from them and from what i can tell its that they have and overwhelming demand for prototype kits, which are btw going for US$1200 a pop but come with tech support and as far as i can tell a final product when testing is done.
so unless someone wants to raise $1200 for a prototype kit in return for free copies of the app and possibly other perks this isnt going to be quick in coming, sorry guys doing all i can

 

[soulpatch]

Dude CNet and others are reporting it should be around 500 if not less.

You seem to forget that this is not a 450 gas heli nor it is a brushless electric. It is just a hyped form of coax with vid tech on it and a basic computer to judge lean and recalc rotor speed.


And Parrot at the CES reported it would be 15 min most of flight time with a one hour charge.

Dude, CNET is pretty much worthless when it comes to pricing, especially for things they have no clue about. Actually, CNET is pretty much worthless for just about anything.

There is no such thing as a 450 Gas Heli....well, OK there was one, but it didn't work out so well.

You're right though, it is a pretty basic aircraft. Walkera makes the UFO series that's about $200 with a radio system. The Videos released by Parrot on this AR.Drone do seem to be a bit chopped to make it look like it performs better than it actually does...especially the part about flying around the park from the inside of a living room :icon_eek: Would I pay $1200 for it...prolly not. Just buy the Walkera thing and slap a cheapo video system on it and go, like you said before.

So it has been reported now that this unit will be sold for 299 in September and while I have yet to see anything about Android support that is supposed to be noted tomorrow at E3 according to the rumor mill.

Here is one of the blogs on the item

The Lost Forum • View topic - AR.Drone for iPhone: now THIS is cool !!

The facebook page for Parrot also have many notes about Sept release and 299 price tag....

 

[RW-1]

Until it hits the buying market, it's vaporware.

But would be nice for the Droid.

 

[ferlessleedr]

They've stated on their forums that the problem they are having with Android phones is that the device is controlled through an ad-hoc wireless network it creates and Android is configured not to accept ad-hoc networks. So if a) Google removes that restriction, b) somebody develops an app that removes that restriction or c) somebody finds a way to configure the drone to be controlled through a wireless network created by a droid (my Moto Droid 2 can do this, I dunno about others though) then there isn't going to be much progress. The problem is on Google's end, at least for now.

I, for one, have hope. Google is full of nerdy folk who will think that this is the Cat's Pajamas. I would say notify them of the problem and ask if there's anything they can do on their end, or if they can talk to the drone's software designers about working together.

TRH

 

[soulpatch]

They have run it on the Drone before so THEY changed how their system works to not allow Google OS to work. SO I am not sure why they would not release a workaround since they have done it before.