Once it leaves your hand, you can control it with a few hand gestures.
Everyone loves taking selfies, even if they don’t like to admit it. And if you’re looking to take those snaps of yourself to the next level, DJI’s new, cutesy Spark drone may be just for you. The company’s latest drone is designed to fit on the palm of your hand and can be controlled with motion gestures, letting you take some over-the-top pictures and videos without much effort. You can wave your hand to have move it up or down, right or left and pull it toward or away from you, while a quick gesture that resembles you taking a picture will trigger the camera’s selfie mode. The only drawback to this is that the Spark can only go up to 10 feet away from you, and that’s where the Spark’s companion app and remote control come in.
The smartphone application will make the overall experience better, as it increases the drone’s maximum reach to about 300 feet when you’re controlling it this way. Not only that, but the app will let you choose between a few different shooting modes: QuickShot, Dronie, Circle and Helix. QuickShot, for example, turns the Spark into a camera operator of sorts, as it’s main goal is to take cinematic videos of you. The feature locks onto a subject, follows them for around a minute and then turns that footage into a 10-second clip that you can share with your friends.
Meanwhile, the analog remote lets you have control of the drone for roughly 1.3 miles, though it doesn’t feature a built-in screen like the model included with its sibling the Mavic Pro. DJI says the idea with the Spark was to make a drone that was all about simplicity, which could help it in its quest to reach mainstream audiences. Up until today, the only drone really like the Spark has been Zerotech’s Dobby, but that drone depends on a smartphone to control it.
As far as specs go, the Spark features a 12-megapixel sensor (1/2.3-inch), mechanical stabilization and a GPS GLONASS sensor, as well as a 3D depth-sensing and vision-position systems that can detect objects and environments for up to 16 and 96ft, respectively. All in all, the Spark has the potential to be a great little drone, but we’ll have to put it through its paces before we can fully judge it. You can pre-order it today starting at $499 in a variety of different colors, such as sky blue, metal green, alpine white and lava red.
If you want to spend a little more than that, DJI also has a “Fly More” bundle, which includes the Spark itself, a set of propellers a charging box and the analog remote control.
