Parrot Bebop offers a drone’s eye view

PARROT, the company behind the popular AR Drone quadcopters, announced a new toy on Sunday: the Bebop drone.

The Parrot Bebop drone, which has a 14-megapixel fish-eye camera lens and battery life of about 12 minutes flying time, is scheduled to be released later this year.

PARROT, the company behind the popular AR Drone quadcopters, announced a new toy on Sunday: the Bebop drone.

The big deal is video — the Bebop has a new full-HD camera that can shoot impressively detailed video and, when combined with the optional Skycontroller, the footage being shot can be viewed in real time on a phone, tablet, HDTV or virtual-reality headset such as Oculus Rift for a drone’s eye view.

The Bebop introduces a few key improvements over Parrot’s two previous drones in terms of the camera quality, software feature set and safety.

The Bebop’s built-in camera is a 14-megapixel, 1080p, fish-eye shooter with a wide 180-degree field of view. Paired with Parrot’s software, the camera can pan, zoom and remain much more stable than previous generation drones as it shoots photos and video in flight. The Bebop has 8GB of flash storage on board, where all the imagery is stored.

There’s also built-in GPS that enables the Bebop to hover in place if ever you take your hands off the controls — whether you are piloting the device with a smartphone or the Skycontroller. The GPS can also be used to send the Bebop on a preset flight pattern, or return home with the press of a button. Parrot also says the Bebop’s WiFi capabilities are stronger than its predecessors. It features four MIMO WiFi antennas that can run on the latest 802.11ac connections and either 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies.

If ever the Bebop’s propellers come in contact with anything, they automatically stop spinning. They’re also now made of a softer plastic so do much less damage to whatever they do come in contact with.

When paired with the Skycontroller, the Bebop can fly as far as 2km from its pilot.

But battery life is only about 12 minutes. The Skycontroller features an HDMI port, which allows users to feed video out to a display or TV. And the Oculus Rift integration works now — we tried it — to offer a unique and immersive control experience.

The Bebop and Skycontroller will be sold in a bundle, and the Bebop will be sold solo as well. Parrot isn’t saying how much anything will cost just yet but, given all the improvements, we expect it to list for more than the second-generation AR Drone’s $US300 ($320) price.

Both devices are slated for release sometime in the fourth quarter of the year — in time for Christmas.

The Wall Street Journal