We’re not sure if this is a bad idea or a brilliant one, but the more we think about it, the more it starts to make sense. PhoneDrone,
which launched on Kickstarter earlier this week, is basically an
exoskeleton attachment that turns your smartphone into an autonomous
quadcopter drone.
Sounds
pretty stupid at first, right? Who in their right might would willingly
put propellers on their smartphone and allow it to fly up into the air?
I’m a drone-happy hobbyist myself, and if there’s one thing I’ve
learned from the experience, it’s that no matter how skilled or cautious
you are as a pilot, you’re eventually going to crash. Gravity will
always win in the end, and so from that perspective, yes, PhoneDrone is
most definitely a bad idea — but if you look at it from another
standpoint, it’s also kind of brilliant.
The
problem with most drones, and the reason that it’s tough to find a
decent one for less that 500 bucks, is that they generally have a lot
of tech under the hood. Tear open any card-carrying consumer-oriented
drone and you’ll likely find GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi radios, a
high-resolution camera, and an on-board computer.
And
all these technologies are typically what makes drones so expensive.
Instead of building that tech into the PhoneDrone directly, xCraft
designed a system that leverages all the sensor tech and computing power
you already carry around with you inside your smartphone. Using this
approach, they were able to create a drone that only costs about $250.
In truth, xCraft is just providing the drone body, battery, and control
software — your phone provides everything else.
But
this system isn’t without its own set of shortcomings. If you want to
get the most out of it, you’ll need a second smartphone. PhoneDrone can
fly autonomously using your phone as its brain, but in order to utilize
the craft’s auto-follow functionality or manually control its
flightpath, you’ll need a second device on the ground.
xCraft
has already raised over $65,000 in pledges on Kickstarter, and still
has well over a month to reach its $250K funding goal. All the
early-bird-backer rewards have been snagged at this point, but if you
back the project now, you can still get your hands on the base model
PhoneDrone for $250. If all goes well, xCraft expects to finish
production and begin shipping sometime around November.
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