Spy Camera Sky Drone

Brand: Parrot
Manufacturer: Parrot Inc.
Model: PF725101
EAN: 3520410026423
Category: For Men
Price: n/a  (53 customer reviews)
Dimension: 11.40 x 16.10 x 15.40 inches
Shipping Wt: 9.70 pounds. FREE Shipping (Details)
Availability: In Stock.
Average Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
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Product Description

The Parrot Bebop Drone & SkyController bundle allows you to fly further, higher and pilot with the most advanced immersive controls. Please download the latest firmware ,the latest version can be downloaded from the manufactures page. For any further queries, please reach out to Parrot's Customer Service and Technical Support.

Features

  • Easily updates to meet FAA requirements
  • Enjoy a truly immersive piloting experience - Increase BeBop's range up to 2 km with Wi-Fi Extender - Take control of the drone using the 2 joysticks for an intuitive RC piloting - Dock station for tablets and smartphones
  • 14 megapixel Full HD 1080p "fisheye" Camera and outstanding 3-axes image stabilization
  • Records videos and pictures in a 180° field with remarkable image quality
  • Built-in GPS for automatic return home and high altitude flight control
  • Control your experience with our Free Flight Pro app (iOS, Android, Windows 8.1)

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Top Reviews

Rugged little drone easy to throw in a back pack and go.
by John A (5 out of 5 stars)
October 23, 2015

My tests hovering

Sky Controller run time
20-25 flight times averaging 8-13 mins

Bebop drone fly time with 1600mah batteries

Winds 8mph and below 11-13 mins

Winds 8mph and more 10-8 mins

Aftermarket 1800mah batteries

Gives roughly about another 5-8 mins depending on the wind.

Perfect for day pack hiking trips. To catch an awesome angle of things. Flying this drone with the phone is a it difficult... But with practice it's really easy. Having the sky controller makes a world of a difference. It will build confidence on flying and also knowing you still have full control of your drone due to the massive wireless antenna attached to the controller.

BUT IN ALL Honestly the controller is HUGE

I've tested my drone for a 1km so far have not pushed it farther than that. But for altitude it's very stable all the way up to 150m equivalent of 460ft but a gust of wind can effect it when flying at full tilt directional flying. It won't fall out of the sky but change its angle where correction is needed. I've flew the drone in winds speed up to 18 mph and it handled it no problem. A lot of correct was needed but the sensors did well to adjust and compensate for the drift.

I would recommend getting a few extra batteries and a speed multi charger. After flying this drone for some time you will enjoy it and want to fly it for a longer amounts of time.
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Shows it has potential, but not quite there yet.
by Jon (2 out of 5 stars)
July 15, 2015

Exceptionally fun to fly. Incredibly frustrating to consistently lose control of your $900 bill with wings.... I'll start this by saying I no longer have my Bebop. "Why?" you ask? Well, I'll tell you. One day, on a beautiful overlook in middle America overlooking a beautiful river valley, Jon wanted to give his little bee some room to stretch it's wings. Long story short, my little bee never returned to me. When I began to fly it back, it became unstable and plummeted into the thick forest below. I'm not an expert quad pilot, but I take investments like this seriously and I took every precaution in the book, well aside from flying in an open field I suppose, but open fields are boring and no one wants an aerial picture of grass... I calibrated, hovered to ensure things were functioning properly and my connection was strong and enjoyed about 5 minutes of trouble-free flight before the unthinkable. I expressed my concern to Parrot and am currently in the process of receiving a replacement. If Parrot stands behind their product and their customer, I'd be more than happy to improve my rating as this thing is SO RIDICULOUSLY FUN TO FLY! Now, on to the actual review.

Quality

Quad - for the price, you'd expect more than plastic and styrofoam but in Parrot's defense, this thing is durable! And than the stars it is, because it will crash with or without pilot error. The battery fits somewhat loosely on the battery tray but the velcro strap holds it in place even in the event of a crash. The lense is exposed on the nose of the quad, leaving it susceptible to scratches or worse. The little rubber pads under the landing gear will come off, and no you will not be able to find them when they do. The blades are thin and relatively flexible but provide plenty of lift and survive crashes surprisingly well. The motors are powerful and smooth despite their small size.

SkyController - again, a $500 piece of equipment *should* feel like a $500 piece of equipment but Parrot didn't seem to think so. Many have stated the power switch falls off, and it does. It's literally just a switch extender because the power switch sits below the plastic frame. Design flaw? Don't know. The plastic has a cheap, brittle feel to it but has held up well over the past month. The range extender seems like a weak point but shows no signs of deterioration after a month of solid use. The joy sticks are sensitive and tight and give you a feeling of control. It's a large device and you'll need to treat it with care to prolong it's life.

Interface/Connection - This isn't a review of the app, I just want to sate some concerns with the interface and connectivity. Connecting and maintaining connection with this set up can be troublesome. A lot of that depends on the device you choose to use to control the quad. For instance, my Nexus 10 secures and holds a connection much better than my Note 3. It's so bad with my Note 3 that it's unusable. The connection drops seconds after take off and reconnecting is nearly impossible. With my Nexus 10, connection is solid 90% of the time. Nothing is perfect, so that works for me! The app interface can be cumbersome if you need to reconnect in flight or make changes to your settings on the go. Again, some of this may be very dependent on your Apple, Android, or Windows device. My advice would be, if you have multiple options for a controlling device, test each before taking your quad out of your yard. First Person View (FPV) is delayed, fairly low quality, and severely impacted by distance. You shouldn't anyway, but you cannot rely on the FPV to fly this out of line of sight.

Battery - nothing special. It lasts about as long as stated depending on your flying habits. Charge time seems faster than stated. A second charger or multi charger and spare batteries is a must.

Flight - when she works, she works! It's absolutely amazing to watch this thing hold dead steady in 20mph gusts. It's fairly responsive until you really need it to be, becoming sluggish resulting in collisions in some cases. Again, take time to learn how it handles before setting it free. It's fast too. This can be a lot of fun, or an expensive accident but watching it zip around the sky above your head is pretty impressive. Return to Home (RTH) function is pretty neat and functions well as long as you secure a solid GPS lock before flight.

Video/Photo - If this was a hand held camera, no one would be impressed. But since it's a flying camera, it's pretty awesome. Due to the digital image stabilization, 1080p is not 1080p. It's cropped down so much due to the stabilization and fish-eye removal that it's closer to 720p or less. But, it's aerial video, who cares how clear it is! Photos are decent, again severely cropped to remove fisheye. However, it does save a copy of the uncropped full fisheye photo as well for post processing. Quality is decent, but again, it's aerial photography so it's pretty awesome! 8gb of storage is all you get. No expansion slots. I did call Parrot and asked about a micro usb flash drive and was told very shortly that a micro usb flash drive could be used as expandable storage. I have not tried this but it would be awesome if that would work!

Customer Support - You won't get their name when you call. Many have reported their service department as rude and difficult to work with. I've called many. many times, and have yet to have a CS rep answer with their greeting and name. No big deal, however they give you the sense that they're sick of deal with us "winey customers", and they probably are. But that's not entirely our fault. Parrot, in my opinion, has released a very advance product to the mass market without working many of the bugs out. That's not to say they aren't trying. Firmware updates are being released regularly but often fall short in many areas. My advice in dealing with their CS department, don't take anything personally, and be very polite as long as you can.

I can't recommend this to anyone at this point. It shows some serious promise. It packs a ton of high end features, it's very portable, strangely durable, but it goes freaking nuts sometimes.
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DO NOT BUY!
by Mark (1 out of 5 stars)
May 18, 2017

This is an outdated piece of junk. As a novice I was told this drone would be a good "entry level" drone. I had to call Parrot x7 and each time a different response and btw It's truly defective item
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Outstanding!
by Mattworld31 (5 out of 5 stars)
April 20, 2016

Received my drone and skycontroller combo on Monday. It's now Thursday and I'm going on my twentieth flight.

It's a top- quality product. You can actually feel the heft of chassis while handling. The manufacturing and machining is precise. You'll read about the styrofoam wrap around the camera housing, but don't let that put you off. This drone looks slick.

The Skycontroller is similarly well built. At first it seemed bulky but once you get used to it, it is quite nice.

Flight is excellent and enjoyable. I started with medium altitude panning shots and have progressed to low altitude precision shots.

The video quality is superb. The photo quality is also decent.

I will be enjoying this for some time. I look forward to purchasing a bebop 2 and the disco.
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The drone works great. One pf the batteries included will not cahrge
by Mauricio Ernesto Escobar (2 out of 5 stars)
August 31, 2017

The drone works great. One pf the batteries included will not cahrge, skycontroller does Not work, image coming out of HDMI on the sky controller is not working properly see picture included. Therefore I can't update the skycontroller.
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Great drone, cool features, but will it be your "dronie" drone of choice?
by Oreo10 (4 out of 5 stars)
May 3, 2015

I've had my Parrot Bebop Drone with Skycontroller for about a month now and wanted to make my own review of it, some comparisons of it to the AR Drone 2.0 and some other comments.

The Skycontroller has a very professional feel, the bebop drone itself is quite small, I actually like the look of the AR Drone 2.0 a bit better but I do like that the Bebop battery fits better into the bay by clipping and a Velcro strap.

One thing I noticed is that the Bebop is a bit louder (Sounds like a loud bumble bee) than my AR Drone 2.0 was, not sure why but it's noticeable if it's hovering above you whereas the AR Drone 2.0 could be more stealthy. The Bebop drone, however, is more stable in flight and the camera stability and quality blow away the AR Drone 2.0.

The Bebop with Skycontroller takes an extra minute or two to get up and running. You turn on the Skycontroller which then finds the bebop drone, then you connect your phone/tablet to the Skycontroller via Wifi and you're ready to go on the Free Flight 3 App., Sometimes it takes a minute or two for all the connections to be made but following this order seems to be the fastest way to get up a running. GPS locks on pretty quickly for both units, I always turn the drone on outside so it can find GPS right away and set where it should return to using the "return to home" feature.

Once up in the air the drone is stable and very easy to control. I have recently gotten it to its ceiling altitude of 150 meters (~500 ft.). It is definitely high but would like to fly even higher but haven't found a way to do so. The live video feed sometimes struggles the further away I fly it but it is still flyable even if out of my line of sight for a moment or two. The other day I got it a bit too far away and was not able to see it, luckily the Bebop has the GPS "return to home" feature" I simply hit the button for this on the Skycontroller and I could see on the GPS map that it was heading back to where I took it off. I'm hesitant to trust this feature too much but so far it works well when I ensure the GPS indicates green on the Free Flight 3 App before and shortly after taking off. I get about 10 minutes of flight time with the included batteries, I recently bought an extended battery (1600 mah) and it does seem to add a few extra minutes to flight time.

After landing, I download the videos I have taken during each flight from the drone to my phone by finding the "internal memory" category on the app and transferring the videos to my phone over the wifi connection between the two for viewing later. It usually takes about a 2 or 3 minutes to download 30 seconds of video just as an example.

Overall I am pretty happy with the Parrot Bebop Drone. You get a nice package for the price and it is a good upgrade from an AR Drone. I would like to compare it with a DJI Phantom in the future but for now this is a solid choice for someone looking to spend a little less and getting extended range and a good camera all in one package.

Pros:
- Superior range with skycontroller
- Skycontroller feels and operates very well
- App has just the right amount of features / information
- Drone is stable in flight, as is the video it records
- "Return to home" GPS feature could be a lifesaver

Cons:
- Louder than I expected
- Takes longer than I'd like for connection to app for flight
- Live video during flight can be delayed and freeze
- Only 8-10 minutes of battery per flight
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This thing is amazingly easy to fly
by R. F. Orcutt (5 out of 5 stars)
August 5, 2017

This thing is amazingly easy to fly! We just took on a windy Oregon Coast flight. While the drone did move around in the wind quite a bit, the video was very smooth. Add a tablet onto your Skycontroller and you will have a great setup. My only complaint is the relatively short battery life on the drone (about 7 minutes each).
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Impressive set of tech.. still comes across as a toy unfortunately. I was hoping for better at this
by Rick Eutsler (3 out of 5 stars)
June 30, 2015

Ok so.. I'm not a new Drone pilot. I've had several from the DJI to the 350QX series and hosts of smaller / cheaper ones in between. You can see the un-boxing and parts stuff about this all over.. So I'm going to try and focus on what you may not hear about.

Pro:

Extremely stable. Follow the directions and you should do just fine. Make sure all your settings are correct for your environment and the rest is pretty much easy.

Not GPS dependent: One of the reasons that I like the product is that it's not dependent on the GPS for basic positioning. The camera and sonar sensors operate with or without the GPS. This is a really nice feature for new pilots and makes it very easy to fly.

All in one solution, just add a screen: I love the concept of real controls with visual feedback. I have an old parrot AR drone and I've modified it to work with a transmitter. This flies much like it, only with much better controls. The dual frequency, range extender, setup for control and video built into the sky controller is certainly a step above the duct tape and bailing twine setups I've seen out there.

Out of the box thinking: Where other makers are hanging heavy mechanical devices off the front or under their quads to get video, the parrot folks just took a really high MP camera and let technology do the work. This is VERY impressive. As a videographer, and why I wanted this drone in the first place, the idea of light, compact, and stable seemed like a God send. It's great at what it does.. it's just not "professional" enough and this is where things turn.

The Bad:

It's VERY hot: I live in Arizona. You may not see a lot of footage shot with the bebop shot during the Arizona desert in summer. I got warning lights after about 3 minutes of flight time. It was about 109 (not bad for Havasu) and it was basically grounded. Indoors in the AC it sits and you can hear a cooling fan going and it gets really hot just sitting still. This was deal breaker 1 for me.

Questionable durability: These new quads are built to take a beating. Parts pop off and pop back on and you're back up in the air. I lost a prop early on with the bebop. No problem, just reinstall it. That was easy.. till the 2nd flight and the prop came off as it came off the ground. Come to find out, there's an issue with that motor assembly now. The original prop and the included replacement prop both fly off the 2nd time you take off. Talking to Parrot, it's got to go back to them for repair or replacement. You are going to hit things, get too close to things, etc. Things are going to break. (if you are new to RC stuff.. just accept the fact that it's not if you crash, it's when you crash. All pilots, even really good ones, crash at some point)

The "get over it," or for the Disney fans, the "let it go":

I've heard folks complain about the price. Yes it is a lot of money. BUT, it does a lot of things AND if a company wants to invest in R&D and promotion in the way Parrot has for their BeBop and then charge for it, that's their right for sure. We don't have to buy it. There are dozens of drone options on the market. Had the Parrot been stable, resilient, more durable, and more heat tolerant, I would have happily kept it even with the high price tag. There's nothing on the market, that I'm aware of, that does all that the Parrot Bebop w/ Sky Controller does right out of the box. Not out of the same box anyway and not at this price point.

Final thoughts:

Parrot.. come back with v2 and address some of these issues and I'll happily buy another one. for now I've got to go charge up my DJI and get to work.

Cheers

Rick
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amazing technology with reservations
by sam iam (4 out of 5 stars)
June 5, 2015

my 5th quad and 2nd level-1 system, by far - the most interesting of the 5, i believe the limitations stem from the fact i'm using an Android phone interface: cannot update drone firmware nor record video, am in contact with Parrot about those, drone crashed twice not due to my inputs, phone lost connection once and drone landed by itself nearby (thank god for friendly neighbors), so if you really want this system - pair it with an ipad/iphone - likely you'll have better results than me, compared to other drones out there - the system is miraculously robust, i've been waiting a life-time for a system like this, the only drawback is battery life - so they give you 3, i'll update this review if Parrot can help resolve problems above
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This is a good drone with some frustrating design flaws.
by TOEFL Man (4 out of 5 stars)
March 26, 2015

This is a good drone with some frustrating design flaws. First of all, you really have to buy it with the controller. Do not expect to control this with your iphone. It works, technically, but it is very hard to control, and it will lose contact with the WiFi. With the SkyController it works very well and will not lose contact even at long distances (they claim up to 2km).

The camera is fixed front, but can be angled up, down and left right about 20 degrees? It is very stable, and a good drone for beginners.

The issues I have with it are:
1) File transfer. The videos it creates will be large 3,4,5,6+ GB. Transferring these to a Mac is a pain. You have to download an app "Android File Transfer" to your Mac, and use that. But it has limits. It will not transfer a file over 4GB, so you have to be careful and break up your videos when recording (stop recording and restart). Anything over 4GB will not transfer and will be lost. They're a French company and I guess they didn't realize how popular Macs are in the USA. Anyway, this is a big issue for me, and very annoying that a $1000 device can't do something as simple as transfer files to a Mac.
2) Lens cover. The camera does not have a clear lens guard. Thus if you scratch the lens, a real possibility, you are kinda screwed. That's a shame.
3) When auto-landing it can be a bit unstable. Basically, when descending from over 10ft.

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