Drones are taking off (literally and figuratively), and each year it seems to find them improving in leaps and bounds. Of course, drones aren’t the only area of tech under development — augmented and virtual reality are also big buzzwords right now. So — is it possible to combine the two?
Of course it is — and that’s what Queen B Robotics has done. The company has come up with a drone, called the Exo360, that has a total of five cameras, enabling it to capture footage in 360 degrees, which can later be viewed on a virtual reality headset.
The drone itself comes in two versions, a standard, and a Pro. The main difference is that the standard Exo306’s cameras are 1080p while the Pro version offers 4K cameras. In both cases, four of the cameras are located on the end of the drone’s four arms, and one is located under the main body.
During the flight, the user can stream footage from one of the four cameras — it’s only after the flight that the footage can be stitched into a 360-degree video, a process that takes between four and five minutes.
Apart from the cameras, the specs on the drone aren’t spectacular, but they’re not bad. The drone has a flight time of 18 minutes on a single charge and can handle itself in winds of up to 15 miles per hour. The drone weighs 1.8kg, and has a battery with a capacity of 6,600mAh.
Another cool feature of the drone is its low price. While you would expect it to run into the multiples of thousands of dollars, the standard version of the Exo360 costs $1,000. The Pro version sells for $1,400. Those are the Indiegogo prices, and the prices will go up after the Indiegogo campaign is over.