High-flying drones appear to be on an even faster innovation track than traditional technology.
In the space of a few years, prices have fallen like rocks as the capabilities have skyrocketed. They're quickly packing in sensors and features once thought the sole purview of pro-level flyers.
Extreme Flyers Micro Drone 2.0 already made a mark by being one of the tiniest drones -- it basically fits in one hand -- to carry a camera. Admittedly, the camera was pretty low-rent, only capable of 640p video.
Micro Drone 3.0, introduced on Tuesday via a new Indiegogo campaign, upgrades the hardware and capabilities on multiple fronts. It has an early bird price of $125, but may cost $150 or more when it finally goes on sale.
Still tiny, Extreme Flyer's new drone is the first of its size to feature a user-controlled gimbal equipped with tiny servo motors that will let pilots control the angle of the camera attached to Drone 3.0's belly.
Additionally, Drone 3.0 will, according to company representatives, work with live-streaming apps Periscope and Meerkat and Google Cardboard VR headsets. These capabilities could add a whole new dimension to consumer-grade drone activities.
In addition to these cutting edge updates, the tiny drone can store HD video in an on-board micro-SD card, stream video directly to your smartphone via ad-hoc Wi-Fi and offers a simple, two-finger smartphone control interface. It can fly up to 300 ft. away from your smartphone, which is fairly typical, but Extreme Flyer also claims that it can fly in 45 mph winds. That would be a considerable feat for such a tiny flyer.
If you don't like the way Micro Drone 3.0 looks, you can spiff it up with 3D printed accouterments, though I'd worry that they’d mess with the drone's flight capabilities.
Micro Drone 3.0 sound impressive, especially compared to some drones that cost $400 or more for similar capabilities, but we won't really know how good it is until we get our hand on one.