Parrot is expanding its Minidrones range with 13 new “characters” across five Minidrone categories in September. The new drone range adds a Hydrofoil to the mix, with prices ranging from $150 up to $290 each.
The company says they’re very happy with the way the market has embraced the Minidrones. With over 600,000 units sold of the original series, it’s no surprise that they’re expanding the range for 2015 with 5 “tribes” of Minidrones and the stickers that added so much personality to the first generation of Minidrones now make distinct characters with unique designs available in each tribe for a total of 13 new Minidrones.
Replacing the first generation’s Jumping Sumo are two new drones. Jumping Night brings adjustable LEDs that you can use to send signals and a higher jump, while the Jumping Race looks like the evolution of the Sumo with almost double the speed and the option for compact or open wheels.
Like the first generation of Jumping Minidrones, they feature an onboard camera, the ability to program a series of actions as a “road plan” and they “talk” to you with beeps and whirrs, reacting to the tricks you’ve had them perform. They’ll even work as a mobile walkie talkie.
The Jumping Minidrones are controlled via a Wifi connection to the drone with about a 50 metre range, using Parrot’s FreeFlight 3 app.
Jumping Night will retail at AU$280, with three characters available:
Jumping Racer will retail at AU$289, with three characters available:
2014’s Rolling Spider has been replaced with the Airborne Drones, Night and Cargo. They look like shrunk-down versions of Parrot’s big Bebop drone at first glance.
The Airborne Night Minidrones, like the Jumping Night, feature adjustable headlights and let you send flashing signals. The Cargo models meanwhile let you carry “cargo” – Parrot’s recommending figurines or “toy bricks” (I think they might mean Lego!). Cargo drones are also the lowest-priced Minidrones Parrot has ever released.
The Airborne Minidrones are controlled via a Bluetooth connection to the drone with about a 20 metre range, using Parrot’s FreeFlight 3 app.
Airborne Night will retail at $200, with three characters available:
Airborne Cargo will retail at $150, with two characters available:
Finally, the new Hydrofoil drones feature the body of an Airborne drone attached to a hydrofoil apparatus to make it rise out of the water and move at a rapid rate of knots. You’ll probably need a pool to run these in though as they can reach speeds of 10km/h on the water. Parrot recommends freshwater use.
The Hydrofoil Minidrones are controlled via a Bluetooth connection to the drone with about a 20 metre range, using Parrot’s FreeFlight 3 app.
Hydrofoil will retail at $240, with two characters available:
2014’s Minidrones range ended up available at a pretty wide variety of retailers. While Parrot hasn’t told us specifically where they plan to send the 2015 range, we’d suspect if you’ve seen last year’s Minidrones on sale somewhere, there’s a good bet you’ll see the 2015 range come September.
Will you be checking out Parrot’s new 2015 Minidrones range? Tell us in the comments!
After seeing the reports in the states about drones flying over fires and blocking fire fighting aircraft I full expect that in short order flying drones will be banned. And to be honest I agree with that. No one needs a flying drone of great distance, a toy in a small area not far from you fine.