from Hacker News

Xiaomi unveils the Mi Drone

by jrnkntl on 5/25/16, 2:13 PM with 30 comments

  • by dogma1138 on 5/25/16, 2:54 PM

    That's f-n huge, the big drones we were getting so far like the DJI Phantom are also Chinese but they market them selves and charge people like they were made in Switzerland and designed by clones of Wernher von Braun.

    If Xiaomi gets into the game we can expect many more high quality Chinese drones at reasonable consumer prices.

  • by grownseed on 5/25/16, 4:37 PM

    > a remote control that uses your Mi smartphone as its viewfinder

    This seems like a strange limitation, unless of course this is just trying to push Xiaomi's other products, which wouldn't be so surprising considering this article is essentially an ad.

    I hope the prices remain the same upon release, as I've been wanting to get one of these for a while.

    Does anybody know of inexpensive drones that can be used just for hacking? Ideally, I'd like something with a remote API, a bit like the AR Parrot Drone 2, though it doesn't need to be as good (or expensive) as this would just be for experimenting.

  • by owenversteeg on 5/25/16, 3:39 PM

    From what I can tell they're crowdfunding [0] it (???) Why would a large company with presumably plenty of cash crowdfund something like this?

    Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something, or maybe it's to drum up publicity for their crowdfunding site, but it just seems very confusing to me.

    [0] http://home.mi.com/shop/detail?gid=186

  • by dvcrn on 5/25/16, 3:14 PM

    First they took on the smartphone market, then GoPro, now drones. I, as a consumer, am very excited about this. If the first test results show it's capable and the quality decent, I will instantly order one.

    Go Xiaomi!

  • by flatM on 5/25/16, 3:03 PM

    I used to be bullish on Xiaomi. Not any more. They seem to get into any hot sectors very quickly, but never manage to grab a big piece of pie and keep it. I wonder if Xiaomi has spreaded itself too thin.

  • by auvi on 5/25/16, 3:53 PM

    not to nitpick but there's a typo 'gimabl'. I wish 21st century people could utilized the spellchecker.