Tencent introduces a remodeled Dobby Drone.
If self promotion and downright narcissism hasn’t gotten any worse, Tencent Weibo has finally launched the Ying drone in China. This drone was previewed earlier this year at CES but the details were a bit sketchy.
So now we have the final product and is shipping in China. Welcome to the Ying Drone.
So it comes in two colors, black and white but the black one isn’t a Yang drone nor the White One being a Ying drone.
The point is, the drone itself isn’t a Tencent invention but one that is developed by Zerotech, the makers of the Dobby selfie drone which we wrote about a while back.
Now both the Dobby and Ying drone do about the same thing except that the Ying drone is made for streaming video to Weibo/WeChat users. The app connects the drone to give you instant video calling. Retailing for US$300, the drone is capable of 4K video and 13 megapixel stills.
Flight time should be in the ball park of 10 mins and the range will probably be limited to 50 meters since it is after all a WIFI enabled controller from your smart device.
The Ying drone platform was built around the Quaalcom 801 Flight Controller and should be quite agile in the air except maybe when it encounters typhoon level winds. For now, it is just another selfie drone and if you are looking for some loving, there is always the Dobby.
Zerotech is already shipping its Dobby drone world wide so it remains to be seen if the Ying drone would get the same treatment. Right now, it is a China only product.
It could of course ship later to countries where WeChat is a leading IM client, though we are not precisely sure. This is probably a unique selling point for the Ying drone since it is a Tencent Weibo/WeChat product.
Whereas DJI, through the Mavic Pro, can already be used to broadcast live through the use of Periscope, there is little prospect of that suceeding in China as Periscope is a virtual unknown in those shores.
As a co-branded product, don’t expect too much from ZeroTech. They have had limited success with the Dobby drone and from the looks of it, the fight for marketshare will be a tough one.
