Time for wave of drones
Meet Spark, the new mini drone you control with hand gestures
SPARK, the mini camera drone you can launch from the palm of your hand, could become the hottest top-end tech toy under the Christmas tree in Australia this year.
That’s certainly the hope of DJI, the world’s leader in civilian drones, following the launch of a drone that can be controlled by hand gestures alone.
Sydney’s Luna Park proved a fun launching pad for the $859 device, which will start being delivered in Australia from June.
The drone is particularly designed for first-time users, though with a 12-megapixel camera and some cool flight modes it will also appeal to professional photographers, video bloggers and wannabe YouTube stars.
DJI, which has 8000 employees, a quarter of whom work in research and development, are no slouches when it comes to drone wizardry.
The company last year launched the Phantom 4, which has its own Obstacle Sensing System autonomous flight modes.
But the Spark, which is the size and weight of a can of Coke, is clearly aimed at bringing the world of drones to the masses.
After launching off your hand, Sparks locks on your face and hand, though in our testing it was a little hit-and-miss when it came to following gestures.
You can wave your hand to the left and the drone will follow, along with up and down.
A quick hand wave will send it away into the sky to set up a selfie shot.
That was probably where it struggled the most.
You can then frame your face with a selfie symbol of sorts and it counts down to take a shot from above.
The beauty of hand gestures, according to DJI, is it allows people to better enjoy the moment they are trying to capture, rather than playing with a phone to control the drone.
But for more precise controls you can use an app.
Some of the modes include QuickShot, where Spark will fly along a pre-set flight path while recording a short video and tracking a subject along the way.
Four QuickShots are available: Rocket, sending Spark straight up into the air with the camera pointed down; Dronie, flying up and away from your subject; Circle, rotating around the subject; and Helix, spiralling away from a subject as it flies upward.
Check out more on Spark, including videos and photos: https://tinyurl.com/y8ebxhqj.