The point of this is to mess around with this cheap one and see if it will work well for area recon and such. I am not expecting much from it, but to see if it make sense to spend more money down the road on a more expensive one. I have no idea if this is designed to carry a very small payload or not. I will find out more when the amazon truck deliveres it tomorrow. I will try to keep this post updated if people are interested.

$45 drone


Pics


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Interested!

Figured why not. $49 plus tax and same day delivery. I needed to order it within 51 minutes at 7am.

ETA got it, assembled it and it rose 1.2m inside and started heading to the wall. Hit wall and decided to try tomorrow outside.

“Loiley Drone for Adults with Versatile Function”

I am also interested in knowing what you think of it and how it works.

Funny how they talk about 25 years in the drone business. What a complete lie.

I'll be interested in hearing how well it operates. These small, cheap drones are good for taking to classes with kids. I bought some of those Sky Viper ones that have a real (if limited) Pixhawk in them. Kids liked them and I could show them what a real GCS looks like even with the el-cheapo drone.

ETA: OP, once you get it and fly it some, let us know how it does in the wind. That seems to be one of the few complaints with mostly positive reviews. It makes sense since it's a very lightweight unit. Down here in Corpus, it's windy pretty much all the time so it might not be so good here.

O.S.T.

For $49 as a first drone can't seem like too much of an "investment" to checkout & learn about drones.

Bigger_Hammer

Kinda what I figured. I’ve put fireworks up that I’ve spent that much on so if I get it back for a second run, bonus.

I bought a DJI Mavic Mini 2 a number of years ago - slightly more than $49, but it's awesome.  The smaller drones, i.e., less than 249 g, are not likely to be able to carry much.  For that, you have to go to the bigger ones.  The smaller ones do excel at recon.  I can send mine up 100' and you can't hear it and it's so small, it's extremely difficult to see.  It's rated to have a range of 3-5 miles, but I've only sent it out 1.5 miles.  The images it sends back are pretty phenomenal.  

If you want to drop presents to undesirables, then get a bigger drone.  If you want to spend good money, get a drone w/ IR.

If SHTF, and I had to travel, I'd definitely send it out in front of me to check pathways, over hills, around corners, etc.  Or as mentioned, send it 500' up and just keep watch on an area.  Some words of caution for this use, don't have it leave or return directly to where you are controlling it from, use a circuitious route so people can't follow you back.  If you are concerned about people tracking the signal, don't ever fly it from your house, BOL, etc.  Go a ways away and fly it.  

..you magnificent basterd, now I wants one.  

What’s the Range?     I watched the vids and read the reviews, but nobody mentions it?

You should definitely install the App for a $49 drone on the phone that you use to check your bank accounts.

I have an old work iPhone that my old work let me keep when I quit. I plan to use that.

Pics added to OP. I have the battery on the charger. Not sure when I will get a chance to try and fly it.

Drones are one of those things I always recommend starting off a little more so it doesn't negatively color your experience. The DJI Mini series can be had for $200-300 and, like night vision, there really is a baseline threshold for usability below which it's almost not worth bothering with.

Especially for beginners these have features that make life easier, GPS and vision position hold, stabilized gimbal, HD video streaming, and sometimes obstacle avoidance. These are often friendlier to new operators than the cheaper ones. People are worried about crashing the expensive ones but they're much more forgiving (you can go "hands off" if you get confused and it'll just hold position) so you're less likely to crash it in the first place.

Hope you find your passion for them though they're really cool and useful too!

Big copy on all of the above. What a colossal piece of shit. Those $20 tiny helicopters you could buy at the gas station years ago were of better quality. This thing will not begin to hover no matter what. Not at 3’ or 30’ inside a building. I’m not going to even bother taking it outside.

I am going to try to fly mine tonight at my daughters soccer practice. Hopefully it's better than yours.

Mine would dive hard to one direction or another. Recalibrated numerous times, checked the blades, screws, exc. Mine was completely uncontrollable.

Let us know how it goes!  

If you're not satisfied, check out facebook marketplace, you can usually find a used DJI Mini or Spark for around $200 and your experience should be night and day better!


I just ordered a little Fimi mini v2 drone, it's basically one of the many mavic mini clones. It still has the stabilized camera and USB-C recharging, but doesn't have the geofencing, can optionally be controlled with just your phone and no controller (limited distance in this mode, a few hundred feet, but that's plenty to poke up above the treeline and get your bearings), and will display its GPS coordinates (ostensibly for "SAR" purposes, not JDAM purposes ).  So basically if I plan on using the drone I'll bring the controller so I get the full range, if I don't plan on using it I'll just bring the drone to lighten the load.

Flew fine, I just need to learn how to controller it better. The damn thing can do a flip. I didn't mess with the camera. Also, I was using controller that came with it and not a cellphone.