On Wednesday, San Francisco based Vantage Robotics announced a new entry to the consumer market, the Snap. Available today for preorder, the Snap drone is a quadcopter sporting a 4K, gimbal stabilized camera, collapsable design and built in prop guards.
“People are the most interesting subjects for any video, so we wanted to make a flying camera that was actually safe to use around them,” said Vantage Robotics’ CEO Tobin Fisher the a release. “Whether you’re a professional photographer or athlete, or simply looking to capture the moment in a unique way, Snap fits in the smallest backpack and provides beautiful 4K imagery, without weighing you down.”
Fisher cut his hand on a plastic drone three years ago and was subsequently inspired to build the safest UAV possible.
The product he and his team have introduced looks like it may fit right between the current prosumer drones of DJI and the toy-grade drones of Parrot.
The Snap has the 4K camera mounted on a gimbal of the Phantom 3 professional and the size and smartphone controls of the Parrot Bebop.
Though, as demonstrated by the announcement video, Snap can also be controlled by pairing the system with DSM controllers and Bluetooth gaming controllers.
Also featured in the video are Snap’s autonomous camera commands like zoom, orbit, and virtual wire tracking. You can see the video in it’s entirety below.
The Snap provides about 20 minutes of flight time and is available for preorder now on Vantage Robotics’ website. When the Snap ships (target date is in Spring 2016) it will retail for $1295 but, if you preorder between now and September 22, you can get the Snap for $895.
This $1295 price tag is right on par with DJI’s high end Phantom 3 so the Snap will really have to deliver a competitive product when it launches next year. Fisher doesn’t think this will be an issue… he foresees Snap becoming the safest and easiest drone of its kind.
Do you think Snap will live up to Fisher’s vision? Let us know in the comments!
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
[…] [via: Drone Life, source: Vantage Roboics] […]