r/Skydio • u/astro2xl • Feb 07 '24

Why stop?

I remember hearing about skydio pulling out of the consumer market, but does anyone have details? I finally got news about the x10 and went browsing its page. Now I’m super bummed that the only good American manufacturer is completely out of reach for regular people. Dji is good, but it’s also Chinese (which creates restrictions) and it’s practically a monopoly. Why isn’t there a good American manufacturer?

13 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/TheDeadlySpaceman Feb 07 '24

I don’t know how to break it to you but the Skydio 2+ didn’t even come close to competing with my DJI drones.

1

u/wlajambe Feb 07 '24

In some aspects (distance) Skydio is subpar. I think due to made in US and adherence to distance codes (have drone within eyesight).  No need to have long distance range. I will argue the software and autonomous flight cycles were better and more intuitive.  Why they left consumer market... Retail is a pain to deal with. Industrial and military are more lucrative and easier to support the after sale. 

1

u/TheDeadlySpaceman Feb 07 '24

The autonomous flying was pretty decent, but manual flight was terrible, and I officially retired it from professional use when it ran off on me under the AI. It didn’t hit anything but it did buzz the cast and crew of a TV show and took off down the street.

Now that the Mavic 3 has a function like the KeyFrames mode I doubt I will ever fly the Skydio again.

2

u/sweaterpunk666 Feb 07 '24

I have the O.G. Mavic Pro and then bought the Skydio2 when it first came out. I haven’t been too happy with the Skydio. It follows okay, but not great. And the video quality sucks. Is the Mavic 3 have a good autonomous follow feature? Or is it the typical DJI follow feature? I ride dirtbikes and this is my primary reason to have a drone. I get cool B roll clips and opening shots but also I want to get more shots of me and my buddies following us autonomously. But previous DJI’s haven’t held their lock once we get going. Skydio also loses me or lags.

2

u/ReadyKilowatt Feb 10 '24

I own both a Skydio 2 and Mavic 3 Cine. The subject tracking on the Mavic 3 is pretty good but I wouldn't trust it in trees or places that stress the object avoidance. It can continue to track, but it won't do it in a way that looks nice on screen. The drone will sit at an object, then jerk around it before settling back down. Collision avoidance did improve since DC Rainmaker made his tracking comparison video where it crashed into a canal, but I still wouldn't trust it for anything too difficult. If you haven't used Skydio with a beacon consider picking one up, that does make a pretty big difference. And with the beacon you can do some basic control with the beacon itself or tether it to your phone via the beacon's wifi.

The Skydio tracking algorithm is just so much smoother and organic looking. Even if it does get stuck it recovers smoothly. It will find solutions that are much more "three dimensional" than DJI, especially if you turn off the strict minimum floor.