It's been fascinating to see how the drone industry developed this year and what big trends have developed. Like other tech products, drones are getting smarter, faster and overall more complex. Let's take a look at the 5 biggest trends of the drone industry in 2016.
Selfie drones
Don't underestimate the power of the selfie! The selfie truly came into form with the release of the iPhone 4 and the subsequent proliferation of front-facing smartphone cameras. Today, the selfie an integral part of many people's daily life. It's only logical that people would start taking drone selfies and look to purchase drones designed specifically for that purpose. Seeing an opening, a lot of companies started to make selfie drones, claiming that a drone could take cooler photos than your phone and selfie stick. The Zano, Hovercam, Dobby, and Yuneec Breeze are among the drones targeted at selfie lovers that were released this year. Who doesn't appreciate the novelty of new perspectives that drones can offer?
Portability
Drone manufacturers making their aircraft smaller and smaller. The Yuneec Typhoon H, while it was rather bulky, could fold up and take up much less space and was launched at the beginning of the year. The GoPro Karma also sports a folding design, and wowed users at its launch event. But the next week, DJI announced the Mavic and shook the whole drone industry. It was most portable and functional drone of the year. There are some selfie drones that are even lighter and smaller than Mavic, but their feature arsenal is limited compared to Mavic Pro. It is hard not to compare drones with cellphones. There was time when mobile phones were getting smaller and smaller. Now, it's happening with drones.
Obstacle Avoidance
Yuneec's flagship aircraft, the Typhoon H, not only had sonar sensors, but also Intel Realsense (infrared sensors) attached to the front. DJI, being the drone market leader, knew what Yuneec was offering and made sure to release the Phantom 4 with obstacle avoidance. It featured two frontal obstacle avoidance cameras and powerful video processor to make collision avoidance possible. The recently announced DJI Mavic also uses the same technology. Phantom 4 Pro has 360° obstacle avoidance. However, the GoPro Karma doesn't feature obstacle avoidance. They were having a hard time because customers kept saying that they want obstacle avoidance. A lot of potential customers went with the Mavic instead. Is this the feature you'll use every day? No. Ideally, you'll never have to use it, but you're not using your car's airbags every day either. Would you buy a car without airbags?
FPV Racing
FPV racing went from the fringe to the mainstream in a very short period of time.
Second to Ready to Fly mid-size drones, FPV drones are the most popular with hobbyists. Racing drones are small, relatively affordable and extremely fun to fly. That is why RC enthusiasts love them so much. FPV googles isolate the operator from world and make pilot feel like they're is really sitting in the drone and flying himself. It is a completely different experience from looking at your phone screen and flying. Racers have built a very strong community over this year, and now have lots of leagues and international competitions. DJI, even though they don't manufacture racing drones, opened the drone racing arena in Korea for FPV events.
Photo By DRL
Promotional Use
Uber Mexico used drones to great effect to advertise their service. They hooked posters to the bottom of DJI Inspires and flew them over cars during rush hour traffic.
Photo by Bloomberg Technology
This is not the first time Uber has used drones in promos. In China, they used Phantom 3s to deliver Ice Cream to potential customers.
A Russian ad agency called Hungry Boys used drones to carry distribute flyers around the office buildings, getting the attention of the workers and suggesting they order food from a local cafe.
It would be right to include the drone delivery and industrial applications on this list, but those have been in the works for a few years now, so I only mentioned fresh trends.
Thanks for reading!