Facebook Partners with DJI for Live Drone Streaming

The annual F8 conference is the time of year when developers within the Facebook community get together to see what’s in store for the future. There have been plenty of headlines so far, but one in particular will be of interest to drone enthusiasts. It concerns Facebook Live, a streaming capability that was, until today, exclusive to smartphone users. The idea is that you record something on your phone, and anyone, anywhere in the world, can stream it live.

During his keynote speech today, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is opening up its API for Facebook Live. This will eventually allow users to stream live video from any device. This is where things get interesting, as now drone users all over the world will be able to stream flights in real time onto the social media platform. Zuckerberg demonstrated the new concept using a DJI Phantom drone. The Chinese drone manufacturer is one of several launch partners for the new look Facebook Live, and it surely won’t be long until competitors take advantage of Facebook streaming too.

DJI users will be aware that live-streaming has been available since back in 2015 with the release of the Phantom 3. However, that capability only works with YouTube. With Facebook, pilots now have another way to gain exposure, publicity or just share work amongst their friends.

It’s not just manufacturers that stand to benefit. Drone video service company Cape has also announced that it’s ready to stream videos live onto Facebook.

Cape helps families and adventurers relive their ski vacation memories by capturing their runs with drones and sending them professionally edited videos of their experience. The integration with the Facebook Live API will allow Cape customers to broadcast this same live footage from the Cape app directly to Facebook, so that friends and family can watch them in real-time.

Cape CEO Jason Soll said, “Cape prides itself as being a visionary and leader within the consumer drone industry and integrating with Facebook’s live-streaming capabilities is the next step in our mission to bring next-generation drone experiences to consumers. We are extremely proud of our collaboration with the Facebook team and hope that our integration of this new technology excites our customers – and other developers – around the world.”

“Integrating with the Facebook Live API is a natural extension for Cape,” said CTO Thomas Finsterbusch. “Watching the video live stream from our drones today at the F8 conference was not only extremely rewarding, but also a demonstration of our team’s commitment to advancing the possibilities for drone video technology. It was great working closely with the Facebook Live API team to get our drones streaming to Facebook.”