The announcement came alongside a few new features for the 3D Robotics Iris+, such as the ability to have the quadcopter follow a GPS-equipped watch. One of the key differences between the Iris+ and last year’s Iris is “3PV Follow Me” mode, which keeps the drone’s gimbal-mounted camera trained on a user carrying a GPS-equipped Android phone or tablet.
This feature now works with smartwatches, and users can tell their drone to follow you, lead you, or circle around you from their wrist. In this video, you can see Branson wearing a Pebble smartwatch, but the “follow me” feature will soon get supercharged when it allows users to stream live in-flight video from the mounted camera to an Android Wear smartwatch through the DroidPlanner app.
If you’ve got questions about working with Branson, or drone photography in general, you can ask 3D Robotics CEO Chris Anderson at Structure Connect this October in San Francisco.
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Alan is serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and a drone enthusiast. He co-founded DRONELIFE.com to address the emerging commercial market for drones and drone technology. Prior to DRONELIFE.com, Alan co-founded Where.com, ThinkingScreen Media, and Nurse.com. Recently, Alan has co-founded Crowditz.com, a leader in Equity Crowdfunding Data, Analytics, and Insights. Alan can be reached at alan(at)dronelife.com