Aerix Drones is bringing miniature drone racing to your living room, front yard

By Luke Dormehl Published May 5, 2017

As summer approaches, you’re likely keeping an eye open for entertaining group activities that will push your house party over the edge in terms of greatness.

One possible idea — miniature drone racing! If that sounds appealing, then popular dronemaker Aerix Drones want to help. With your party-hosting success in mind, it’s launching the Aerix Nano FPV Indoor Drone Racing Package, a kit containing everything you need to get your very own Tiny Whoop-inspired drone racing circuit up and running.

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The kit comes with a pair of high-quality, first-person-view goggles, a ready-to-race drone, the necessary charging apparatus, and a series of glowing neon — or optional LED — race hoops for you to speed through.

The racing drone boasts four beefed-up motors for maximum speed and agility, plus an onboard 5.8ghz video camera and transmitter for putting you in the pilot’s seat. (That’s where the goggles come in). The tiny drone can travel at 25 miles-per-hour, although it looks a lot faster when viewed through its built-in miniature camera.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

“The biggest challenge with tiny drones, especially tiny racing drones, is balancing power and flight time due to the weight of the batteries required to power the drones,” Robert Morrison, founder, CEO and head designer of Aerix Drones, told Digital Trends. “The 17,500kv motors we built the Nano FPV Drone with provide a perfect balance of power, speed and flight duration.”

By asking players to fly through 12-inch glowing racing hoops, the setup not only replicates the look and feel of larger-size drone racing courses, but also lets users customize their own tracks — including adding in friendship-destroying obstacles.

Right now, the only real limitation is a 3- to 4-minute flight time per battery, although Morrison said the team is working to improve on that time.

You only get one drone with the kit, meaning you’ll either be taking in turns to complete the course in time trial-type racing, or else you’ll have to buy multiple kits to get a maximum of eight drones racing against one another.

Shipping is set for May or June. The kit will set you back $250, although Aerix is currently offering a special pre-order price of $195.

Former Contributor

I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…

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