so today we're checking out the skydio 2 which is a drone that promises to fly itself autonomously because of some fancy technology that it has built in at first i thought eh it's a gimmick not interested but enough people have told me it's actually pretty awesome so i went ahead bought one and we're gonna be going over the things i love about it some of its limitations and the issues i've had with it but before we do let's check out some footage that it got completely on its own of our buddy oscar [Music] [Music] now me personally i was completely blown away at how well it was able to keep up with oscar at those speeds with all these obstacles i mean if you fly a lot of drones you know how hard it is to fly backwards while tracking a fast-moving subject especially when there's obstacles all around you but this thing is set up with cameras all around it to really be able to navigate its environment the way this thing tracks and flies and avoids obstacles it's really amazing but i'll give you a little spoiler it's not quite perfect all right so finally we have received the skydio2 got a little letter skydio2 represents over 5 years of work by our team to build a drone that has enough autonomy and intelligence to make flying drones more useful more fun and less stressful for everyone now this skydio2 has been out for a little while but this is designed to fly autonomous autonomous how do you say that autonomous um autonomy yes autonomously it doesn't even come with a controller well you can get a controller but i was like this is the future drone we don't need a controller here does it just follow you around well apparently you can carry this beacon around and it just follows you around so even if it loses you visually it has some sort of signal to tell it to keep following you but what if like you wanted to fly it out somewhere honestly i don't even know how to use this thing at all i guess the battery just kind of snaps in whoa it's magnetic and there's no latch i don't know if i trust that i mean it sure as hell makes it easy but i don't know there's a little trust issue i have dylan you want to tell us about today's sponsor our sponsor today is i don't know who is it all right maybe we don't have one i don't know there was someone on the comments i was saying i'm starting to think dylan's really only here to do the sponsored segment so if we don't have a sponsor then will i just start to disappear you can go home yeah here i got you a gift of course we need some future glasses to go with our future drones hey it's those glasses from like two episodes you feel super cool right now i have hella friends man what are you talking about you actually control the drone with the glass you go and fly over there nuclear strike i'm gonna throw all this crap on the charger and uh let's go out for a little flight not gonna lie i feel pretty [ __ ] cool right now so this is the usb type-c charger and it just gets sandwiched in between the two batteries magnetically of course very cool now this here is the beacon now there's three different ways to control this thing with the phone app which i'm not expecting much range out of and then the standard two-stick controller for more of that traditional manual flight experience but the beacon it's really unique because you can throw it in your pocket it shares the gps data with the drone so if it loses side of you or loses track of you it knows where you are and eventually it'll come back and find you all right so now i have it so it's gonna track me from the front so now i don't even need this vlog camera anymore i could just vlog like this when i put this beacon in my pocket let's see what it's going to do if i turn and there's a pole right there please don't hit it and oh my gosh okay okay i'm getting so freaking nervous you're here let me show you it's just barely dodging those tree branches apparently it knows oh my gosh all right i'm slowly starting to understand how this thing works and let's pick up the pace a little bit man this thing actually hauls all right dylan you're up you know those video games where you have like the sidekick that's like a robot that kind of follows you around you should try to imagine that it has a machine gun on and you're trying to get away [Music] are you impressed dylan just like the sci-fi movie you wanna try to lose it in this parking lot carrie holy crap it's really on you it actually like skipped over me to keep catch up to you oh wait it slowed down did i get away nope holy crap i can't believe how well it's following you right if this was any other drone it probably would have crashed like 10 times and would have lost this way long ago can i hit it that was a little delayed i could have definitely hit it yeah the important thing is that it hasn't crashed yet all right here i'm gonna have it stay on the left of me because there's no people on this side and let's see if i can just go and have it dodge these trees while it's flying sideways which is honestly pretty difficult and sketchy to do i'm sure you see the foreground trees but there's also trees behind it too so it's weaving and it's impressive okay i'm not gonna lie this is really impressive isn't it it is i mean oh wow it is having no problem staying up with us and you know a lot of other active tracks or whatever as soon as there's foreground and if i were to hide behind a car for a few seconds he'll totally lose me but here it's holding on to me just fine i mean i'm starting to gain some confidence in this thing it definitely takes time to gain confidence like doesn't it seem like at any moment it's going to crash yeah let me go ahead and position it more that way here so this is pretty easy the only thing i'm adjusting on here is distance and the angle i want you know it's going to go in between these trees right here yeah no problem oh my god it just like goes so fast straight towards objects doesn't it yeah it really makes you think it's about to crash but then at the last second you'll know how to maneuver around it right i'm really surprised how well it's flying considering how windy it is right now i got some cars coming behind me so i'm gonna just make some space and have it go to the right of me i accidentally hit the left so i probably went all the way but there now i can get it over where i can visually see there's nobody over there it took me a couple flights but i'm starting to learn how to trust this thing yeah that's cool this controller once you get used to the beacon it's pretty handy i just kind of generally tell it hey go on to my left and then i can see that there's no one really in front of me here so let's go in front now and uh get that angle while it dodges that tree just see how close it got to that palm tree and it's just like i know look i'm vlogging with no hands can't you just do that with a tripod honestly i'm having a pretty good time flying this thing well i'm not even flying it it's just kind of flying itself and uh yeah i dig it what if this was just how i vlogged every day just hey let's go here and ride and then we just vlog like this pretty convenient right [Music] they actually don't say do not hand catch they actually said in a tutorial like this is how you hand catch it all right so this is going to be one of the trickiest environments i think with all the little twigs and leaves one thing to keep in mind is that it's not that quick at booting up you have to turn it on it says it's sinking gps so finally it says it's ready to launch i have this uh really skinny stick here and i want to just kind of leave this over here and see if it's gonna hit it on its way up oh definitely did a little maneuver didn't it yeah it did so i could just do manual steering can i just crash this straight into this tree no it goes around it i'm going to try to fly it into this little branch right here it won't let me do it right now i'm literally just trying to fly it around and crash it into things but it just it won't crash it's really solid in terms of its obstacle avoidance i haven't even heard the propeller touch anything yet you would think i would be able to at least clip one of these thin little branches around here so if you want to wack it with a stick it'll let you do that dude you're so close to the propellers you're about to scratch your lens it doesn't really back up it just like goes up higher like away not not not backwards all right let's try to find the thinnest stick we can all right this little stick right here oh oh oh hey whoa it just landed itself on the case that's kind of crazy it literally just went back and found the case and just landed itself oh low battery i like how it just did it on its own we're over here looking for sticks is it because it took off from that is why i think it's a combination of return to home and then if it's coming down for a landing and it sees that shape on the top of the case it's designed to land on it the website has some really good tutorial videos which if you decide to get this definitely check that out before you go flying but it says that if i generally land and it detects that case it should lock onto it and land so let's try that out oh yeah see so it detects that case right there and just perfect i got it so it is possible to crash yeah i i've never felt so accomplished to crash a drone but basically what we did is we went around and we all looked for the skinniest stick we can find and i planted it right here in the dirt where it's going to be hard for it to see it blends in with everything else i had to fly it straight towards it and it eventually clipped it and was taken down so that generally answers my question about how hard is it to crash this thing and how good is the obstacle void is i would say it's by far the best obstacle avoidance i've ever seen and the the way it dodges obstacles and the way it tracks with the beacon it's insanely good but you can still crash so you do have to be kind of careful still does it still fly and we're good again i like how you're backing away now i think also at faster speeds it's probably a bit more vulnerable now it is also an option to just get the drone by itself even without this beacon so you just control it all from your phone so let's check out this app real quick and i'm gonna take off and i have my basic controls down here on the bottom so i can see all of us and i can have it swing to the right and adjust the height as well but at least in my experience i can't get too much range out of this this feels so wrong to fly a drone backwards because that's the easiest way to crash it does give me resistance when i try to fly through somewhat tight spaces it does definitely require a decent size opening before it wants to fly through it which is totally understandable but yeah i mean this is the type of flying you can do with your phone and of course you can have it do some tracking for you i'll have a track frank here and now it's just getting him but since he doesn't have a beacon it's pretty easy to lose it so already it lost him so if you need some serious tracking definitely definitely get that beacon if you double tap somewhere it'll fly to there so let's go right there it's just going to fly right over to there it's fun and cool now but give it like 10 years and it's gonna be hunting us down okay so right now i'm at 4k 24 but i have the option to go 4k 30 48 and 60 and looks like i can't use hdr when i'm on 24 as soon as i hop into 30 the hdr option turns on so one thing i did need to do is adjust the height floor to disabled if you have it turned on it'll stay at least eight feet above the ground which is probably safer but then it does seem to have a really hard time getting through tighter spaces and following you it's gonna lose you much faster so i have that disabled here we also have our shots like vortex droney and rocket let's try rocket because right above us is a bunch of trees just going up man it's getting up in there i mean this is the only drone i would ever trust to do a rocket in a place like this now this brings us back to our ride with oscar we've done enough testing we've built confidence in it and we just told him go for it and this thing was no joke there was no holding back it stayed up with him perfectly fine and i told him you can just go ahead and ignore the drone don't worry about crashing it or anything like that and it 100 delivered now if there's anything i didn't love was that the tracking is so quick and responsive that every time oscar jumps there's this jerky nod that happens but if i just warp stabilize it out a little bit here's how that looks dude it's keeping up with you pretty good isn't it yeah it was a narrow path that i was coming down to like that shot where i got it from the front yeah and then it gets over these trees and catches up to you i mean it makes it really dynamic because sometimes if i have somebody recording me it looks like i'm moving slow but it gets some cool shots in there for sure yeah it did really good honestly i know how to operate a drone but some of my friends don't sometimes we want to get shots where we're all kind of riding and it makes it really difficult to have to pass it to somebody that doesn't know how to control it if they're sitting there they're going to lose range pretty quick so they're going to be like oh lost connected to the drone so we went ahead and got all the shots we wanted and never at any point was i really concerned about the drone crashing i mean sure we have proven that it can crash into a thin twig but generally i've noticed that anytime there's a thin twig usually it's in a bundle or a bush and it's very easy for the drone to see it now on the ride back there was a part of a trail that had all these cables going through it and you know i avoided flying it there for that reason on the way up but on the way back we were just like you know what let's push it and see what happens and of course hit these cables right here coming off the side which is no surprise we were pushing our luck there so we weren't really disappointed it was kind of to be expected but the drone is still fine but the main takeaway from this is stay away from really thin things that are out there by themselves but once you start training yourself to look out for different things that could be a problem for the skydeal it's actually not so hard so overall even though it did crash on this ride it was something that we were expecting after doing some of these tests i will say the skydio is very very cool i actually really enjoyed using something that really prioritizes the autonomous flight it definitely took me quite a bit of time to really trust in the drone but once i did i was able to just get it up in the air and then just do whatever for 15 20 minutes and really stop worrying and stressing about the drone up in the air but there was a point where the sky deal got kind of confused here and i think it's because my gps signal was really weak because i was right next to the cliff and then at a point it flew off i think the fact that we were right up against the cliff really threw it off because it was getting like the gps signal and it wasn't sure if we were at the top of the cliff or at the bot i'm not sure but at least i wasn't too concerned about it crashing into anything i just was wondering where the hell is that thing going it took a second for it to realize oh there we are and then it stuck to us pretty well afterwards but when we were walking alongside it seemed like it had no problems and again also when we were up top it seemed perfectly fine but yeah what do you think dylan dylan's gone he's in vegas right now he's partying what vegas i didn't hear anything about vegas he's been gone for a couple of days already how about sam i haven't seen him in a minute sam he's still working on that netflix show he's uh moving up in the world doing some special stuff yeah unlike other people i know what why do you look at me like when i'm looking over here i'm looking at the screen yeah i'm on that screen yeah i know so i'm stuck with your ass it's all good i don't eat much oh okay well frank what do you think of some of these shots i was just impressed on how well it avoided all the trees and how well it followed us it really does what it's supposed to do and that is to track you and to avoid obstacles yeah and i don't think there's anything else there's nothing else like that no but i think what i feel like i'm missing right now is that manual control but i think once i get this controller it should help with that something like this would replace my mavic but i need to hold on to the controller and fly with the controller and see how that feels first before investing in it so buy the controller and i'll come over again i mean the camera quality also seems not bad right i mean it's good it's good enough for me some people would want to push the the quality a little bit more and get more out of it but i think for an average user like myself i'm okay with this uh you should also keep in mind that this isn't a drone that should really be flown in the dark right around this point is when i started getting messages on my beacon saying oh there's not enough light so land soon but that makes sense yeah because it can't see the trees and the poles around it i mean if i'm operating the sticks i'm never flying sideways or backwards this fast with these many obstacles around these aren't easy shots to get here and you go ride your boosted board yeah yeah no no no i would i would use it i would use it yeah have you ever used active track to chase yourself on a boosted board i have and you can only really just go in a straight straight line and make sure there's nothing in the foreground yeah yeah and also and you're always kind of like looking back yeah exactly you don't trust it as much as this there's this example they have on their website with next to the dji and of course you know it's on skydio site so they're going to make the skydeal look really good but this is a pretty accurate representation of what the dji would do i mean i have no doubt that it would get stuck here and if it didn't get stuck here you'll probably get stuck right here around this turn right it's very easy to go underneath the drone and have it lose you oh here's a little example of some of the technology that is going on you can see it's actually building out this 3d map with some fancy nvidia graphics thing technology in there is just insane and this drone's been out for a while you know i just have been very slow to review things that's just my channel now i just review things that have been out for a really long time i guess the question is who is this really really for if you want this drone to follow you and not worry about it it's for you this drone is for you how about if you were trying to get those cinematic images and i think that with the controller you're going to be able to control it the way you want but there is less camera controls i mean what the air 2 has a one inch sensor so you're probably going to get the better sensor you get 10 bit out of it in a log setting it also collapses smaller the mavic 2 versus the skydio yeah the skydio being fixed it definitely is a little bit harder to transport but you don't also have to carry a controller either this is all just through the phone now usually whenever i hear oh you're going to control a drone with a phone app i'm like ah no not again but this was decent because it's not so much trying to use these little button controls to try to fly something on your phone you're just telling it hey fly here oh do this track dylan now here it does lose dylan here for a second now if he had the beacon on him it would have definitely kept towels on him but yeah you can escape it pretty easily when it's just visual so beacon is something i would 100 recommend going into price a little bit though the starter is 1349 where you only control it with the phone i think the beacon is really what makes it and i went ahead and bought the sports which is 17.99 and that comes with some extra batteries and a beacon in that case that's the thing though with this price point you can get like a high-end drone that is true like something with a really nice camera on and all that but it won't have the tracking abilities yeah i know nothing i know has this track nothing has yeah do you think there's gonna be a skydio three with like a one inch sensor and like a really good controller yeah that'd be tempting or in a lower price range like for example mavic mini is well 400 drone so that is a good beginner drone but at the same time you really have to learn how to use it you have to know how to use the sticks and it takes a little bit of training and if you fly backwards or sideways you can hit a tree or anything very easily you know you have to be very conscious of where the sensors are on something like a mavic and i do think i am going to go ahead and get the controller too because then i could get a little bit more of that smooth control you know with the phone or with the beacon you're kind of stuck with these hard buttons like turn to the left you can't do a smooth pan it's gonna go right now the 36 mile per hour autonomous speed that's pretty impressive i mean you could go cycling or mountain biking and you'll probably be within that speed range but once you get onto like you know the motor sports then you might just leave it in the dust and we have a 23 minute battery life now that is one thing i have noticed that it is a shorter battery life now 23 minutes that's still not bad but i think we've gotten kind of spoiled with the 30 35 minute flight times we get out of some of the dji's but i mean i guess it all makes sense i mean how much computing power is this drone doing and we also have a 3.5 kilometer range which in most cases it's plenty but again i think a lot of the dj drones go way further than that and sound fifty percent quieter i would say it was decently it's pretty quiet yeah yeah i was surprised about that for me whenever i'm going out and flying i'm very cautious of not trying to disturb everyone that's trying to just hang out there so the sound is a big factor in that 3.5 that's with the controller correct oh it must be because if it's the phone with just this wi-fi yeah it's you can still see the drone as it's the phone's losing signal but overall i'm pretty excited about this like now that i'm starting to learn a little bit more about its limitations and when i can trust it and when i shouldn't trust it i'm starting to really enjoy using it and and they mentioned that it's a stress-free experience that they were trying to do and i think they've done that you know any drone that i take off and you know if it doesn't have this level of technology in it there's some stress involved and here is the part of the video where we're like awkwardly trying to figure out what the best way to end it is um frank you got any ideas bye-bye
2021-10-14