[HN Gopher] US Army will buy enhanced variant of the Skydio X2 d...
___________________________________________________________________
US Army will buy enhanced variant of the Skydio X2 drone
Author : ironyman
Score : 30 points
Date : 2023-12-17 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| I wish Skydio still did reasonably priced consumer drones with
| these features. Their old demo videos were glorious.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| I wish they did consumer drones, period! They left the market!
|
| Innovators Dilemna movement; why chase a competitive cut-throat
| consumer market when there's big cushy expensive whales of
| governments, a much bigger revenue stream.
|
| Especially since drones have quickly become the leading
| "attritable" piece of equipment. Where-as a consumer will hold
| on to a drone for years!
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I think/hope the consumer market for drones is larger than
| the military market.
| rasz wrote:
| They made nice demos, DJI makes drones that actually do all
| those things.
| matthew-wegner wrote:
| Skydio 2's autonomy is _still_ miles ahead of DJI 's current
| generation. Have you used one in person?
| jcpham2 wrote:
| DJI makes drones that crash, or they did and I became an
| expert at repairing phantoms. I have still yet to crash my
| Skydio2
|
| Was it expensive as crap? Absolutely! Can I hand my kids my
| phone and let them fly the drone and it not end up in a lake?
| Yep, that too.
|
| Peace of mind has its costs
| huytersd wrote:
| DJI cannot compare with Skydio's follow software. It's pretty
| magical.
| 05 wrote:
| DJI ate them for breakfast, turns out a single better
| implemented feature doesn't make a competitive product (or even
| a survivable niche, apparently).
|
| At ~800g AUW, sub-250g requirements just put the nail in the
| coffin - the avoidance tech doesn't scale down - a 2kg drone
| need the extra same weight in sensors and compute and battery
| to power that extra compute as a 249g one.
| Animats wrote:
| Price is at least US$10,000 for the X2. The militarized X2E is
| probably even more expensive.
| salad-tycoon wrote:
| 10,000 Why so cheap?
|
| I mean they paid $52,000 for a trash bin on an e-3. War is a
| racket.
|
| https://www.zerohedge.com/military/boeing-charges-pentagon-5...
| konraditurbe wrote:
| Skydio 2 drones were prone to failures and it made cops be afraid
| to fly them. https://dronexl.co/2023/03/31/blue-suas-problems-
| pimping-for...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-12-17 23:01 UTC)