Lily is the world’s first throw-and-shoot camera. Simply Throw This Camera Drone in the Air and It Flies Itself. Simply Pre-Order Lily now and get 50% discounts which is $499 only – It’s a drone, sure, but mostly it’s a flying camera. And at $499 if you PRE-Order (or $999 after).
Meet Lily, The Throw-and-Go Flying Camera – The consumer drone industry is increasingly positioning itself as a maker of flying cameras, not autonomous robots. The goal is a sort of self-aware GoPro that you will allow anyone to be their own aerial cinematographer. Today a startup called Lily is trying to move a step closer to that future with a drone that you can literally just toss into the air and then ignore, leaving it to pilot itself.
The first product from Lily Robotics, a five-person company co-founded by a couple of recent Berkeley grads with funding from Silicon Valley heavy-hitters like Ron Conway. Lily is a self-flying drone that is always following you, following a certain set of commands. It follows a small circular tracker, which you can have in your pocket or on your boat. With one tap of the tracker, Lily can execute some nifty camera moves, all while staying focused on you. The camera inside, Bradlow says, is roughly equivalent to the GoPro Hero 3: It can shoot 1080p video, or 720p up to 120 frames per second—there’s some tech inside that will detect when you hit a jump while snowboarding and automatically kick the camera into slow-mo. It’ll also shoot 12-megapixel stills and it can make a cool 360-degree panorama. It can fly 25 miles per hour, is totally waterproof, lasts up to 20 minutes on a charge, and has range up to 100 feet. Bradlow says it could move faster and have more range, but the point isn’t to map agricultural landscapes—it’s to take pictures, or have the Lily chase you down the slopes while you carve some powder.
The Lily was created by Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow, who met while studying computer science and working at the UC Berkeley Robotics Laboratory. To follow its subject, it relies on a small GPS tracker that the user carries in their pocket or wears on their wrist, but the drone also incorporates computer vision technology that can recognize its owner and use algorithms to more precisely frame them within a scene. The tracking device also records audio that syncs with your video, something no other drone offers, as the rotors would typically drown out sound.
Lily Camera flies itself and follows its owner – “Cameras right now are limited by the skill of the human operator. Most of the time that means non-professionals getting less than ideal shots,” says Bradlow. “With a flying camera, you can get amazing shots and angles regardless of who is using it.” For example, sensor data from the tracker can automatically trigger a slow mode or burst mode when it senses you going off a jump. It shoots in 1080p at 60 frames per second and captures 12 megapixel stills.
Lily Robotics has unveiled Lily Camera, a self-flying drone designed to autonomously track and record its owner. Once it’s thrown into the air it begins automatically following and recording its target, which is anyone in possession of the accompanying GPS tracking device. Its camera captures 1080/60p HD video and 12MP stills, and the device itself is waterproof to 1 meter underwater.
A companion app offers some control over Lily’s in-flight behavior and shot composition, but the drone flies itself without input from a pilot on the ground. Its non-removable battery is good for around 20 minutes of flying time, and requires about two hours to fully recharge. It maintains a minimum altitude of 5 ft / 1.75m in flight, and doesn’t exceed 50 ft / 15m.
Lily Robotics was born in UC Berkley’s robotics labs, and has to date raised $1 million in venture capital. The camera is available internationally for pre-order now for $499 USD. Once it comes to market, the price jumps up to $999. We’ve asked Lily for an estimate on shipping dates and will update this story with that information, and we’re looking forward to trying out the camera once it ships.
In terms of hardware, the Lily was built to mimic the attributes of an action cam, with a polycarbonate hull that can withstand a hard crash. For extra protection, the camera is internal, not mounted on an exterior gimbal. It’s rated as waterproof to IP67, putting it on par with the recent Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. The pitch here is that you can drop it off the side of your kayak or let it float next to your surfboard while you wait for the moment to have it launch, follow, and film you. The construction has some trade-offs. To keep the waterproof ability and extend flight time to over 20 minutes, for example, the creators decided to forgo a battery you can swap in and out, so you have to charge the entire unit.
Lily camera: new drone uses GPS to follow you around – It’s a drone, sure, but mostly it’s a flying camera. And at $499 if you pre-order (or $999 after), it’s a pretty expensive one too. You can tweak the default settings using either the companion app or the small tracker, but you don’t have to know a thing to get it to work. You can’t take over the piloting if you want to—there is no manual mode. It’s not the future of drones; it’s more like the future of the point-and-shoot.
But Lily does work: you hold it in your hand and tap Take Off, or just toss it up into the air, and it floats up and hovers above you. I took a spin, tapping Follow in the app, and Lily chased after Ho as he ran away with the tracker in his hand. I hit Spiral and the Lily spun in a wide circle around Ho, the camera trained on him. The whole time, live video streamed to my phone. It looked good, certainly better than I could have done myself.
The tracking puck includes not only a GPS receiver but also a barometer and accelerometer. That allows Lily, for example, to register if you get airborne while snowboarding, which tells Lily to capture a burst of photos of your awesome actions. The tracker also features a microphone, so the audio on the movies is of you, not the whirr of the rotors overhead — or of nothing at all, as most drones tend to shoot silent movies. The puck features buttons that allow you to bring Lily in closer or farther or trigger Lily to automatically fly in a circle around you. “You wouldn’t be able to get that manually with an RC drone,” said Balaraesque.
Lily’s not a DJI competitor, and it’s not trying to take down the super-powered Solo from 3D Robotics. It’s not complicated, and in a couple of years it won’t be expensive either. It’s not the future of drones; it’s more like the future of the point-and-shoot. And it can get shots your selfie stick couldn’t even imagine.
Date: 12th May 2015 to 15th June 2015
Available at Lily Camera Online Pre-Order Portal
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