Blogs

The Plexidrone launched on Indiegogo at the beginning of October and successfully cruised past it's initial funding goal of $100k within the first week of it's campaign. Like all successfully crowdfunded drone campaigners, the DreamQii team have been quite creative marketing the virtues of their creation and proactive in generating press for their campaign.

The primary USP they are using to differentiate the Plexidrone from the competion is the 'swarm' feature. To quote the campaign video "You will definitely find no drones that you can control using a swarm technology. It's completely new, something you wont find anywhere else". ArduPilot does however offer something like that. It's other unique selling points include an integrated speaker aimed at replacing/augmenting the role of the status LEDs, as well as retracting legs, a clip based payload attachment system and navigation lights.  The Plexidrone also features removable arms with some form of quick connection attachment for compact stowage and easy setup, and (perhaps the best USP of all) it also comes with a rather neat looking custom carry pack.

In terms of smarts, it appears that the flight controller they are using has much in common with ArduPilot, however, if it is (which it obviously is), they don't appear keen to make it known when quizzed on the matter.  The Bluetooth telemetry bridge also appears to be very similar to the one developed by Jeff Taylor and launched on Kickstarter last year.  It will be interesting to see how much their app, which will be available free on both iOS and Android, has in common with Arthur Benemann's DroidPlanner, or whether they get their iOS app out before Helico Aerospace Industries do.

The front facing ultrasonic sensor is an interesting addition. Based on the video and the delicate wording used to promote it, it appears that the proximity feature may simply offer an audible warning to the pilot or people in close proximity with the aircraft (of an immanent collision in the forward direction), however the website states that Plexidrone has Obstacle Avoidance effective up to 6.5m (3m on the tech specs), so it seems a little unclear what it will be able to do.

Interestingly, while initial press and some of the product images on the campaign page show what appear to be quality SunnySky motors, proper threaded mounts and snazzy props, the production unit appears to be wearing Turnigy 2830/11 1000kv motors, old-school collet style adapters and cheaper props.

In terms of performance, it is a little on the heavy side for it's size, weighing in at a sturdy 1.3kg with a modest 3S 5Ah battery, yet flight time is claimed to be up to 35-minutes (which seems about twice what one would expect from the selected configuration, even without a payload attached).

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this project tracks and whether it gets big like Pocket Drone, Hexo+ and AirDog.  Other discussions on the Plexidrone (including comments by one of it's creators) can be found here and here.