Hover Camera Passport Drone

There were three screws missing on the drone, I didn't notice that until it can't fly. Also, on the listing it clearly shows whats in the box which included spare screws and screwdrivers, but what I recieved is only the drone itself and the charger, It is definely not correct description on the listing, I am totally disappointed on this product. I will return it at no doubt.

Great little selfie drone. Fits into a large coat pocket. Very well protected so no fear of damage to drone in pocket or in use. (May 2017) PROS Intuitive and simple to use straight from the box. Protected propellers so no damage to drone, you or anything else it might touch. 2 batteries a must are included as flight time is 9 minutes per battery. Comes with a twin battery charger so both batteries can be charged together. Follow me, orbit and 360 spin modes are all very simple to use. Great video and photos on wind free days Can also be controlled from Android devices and ipads as well as iphone. Typical for Apple products it feel good and looks good. Clever little unfold function. Very light even with batteries - this will not use up much baggage allowance when you go on holiday. All video and photos were very simply transferred to my phone for me to post online or email. Could also download from phone to laptop. It has real time video feed to your controlling phone so I advise getting a quick look at Google Maps satellite view of the area you are flying in case a wind blows your drone away. This way you point the camera down, tell the drone to land and you will know where it is to go and pick it up from. Displays battery level on iphone screen. QUESTION It has a flash but not sure why as it cannot fly in a darkened room due to camera which is used for hover cannot see the ground clearly enough so the drone does not hold position and is very difficult to control. (Maybe I am doing something wrong but I could not control it in a darkened room although I could see clearly.) CONS Very light so not good for flying in windy conditions.(There is no GPS so if it does get blown away you cannot track it. It does have real time camera view so if you know the area you can work out where the camera is a fly it back manually or land it for collection). It can only orbit and/or follow a person NOT an object. (Hopefully this can be a future software update). You need to move smoothly in follow me modes (No sudden changes in direction) as if it looses you from the camera view finder it cannot continue following. Obviously the further you are away from the drone the better as you stay in camera view for longer. Not waterproof. Not sure if it floats BUT my advice - stay well away from water. Could do with a take off from the ground mode. It can only start flying when held in the air. (Hopefully a future software update) Need option to change default manual control as joysticks are best for me but I have to set that each time I use the drone. (Hopefully a future software update

I do own this product although I did not buy it through Amazon. I did not buy it from the Apple store either. Other sellers at better prices are available, just keep searching. The Hover Camera Passport drone has a series of neat features that make it stand out from other drones. The most obvious one is that the propellers are caged which means that it is not as dangerous to you or other people. It is less likely that the propellers can be damaged by accidental strikes with objects, which you can pretty well guarantee will happen when you are starting to learn to fly. Other caged drones are available and some are quite cheap but they don't offer the 4K picture or the degree of controls that this drone has. Just because the propellers are caged does not make the drone safe though. I am sure it could cause some hurt if it hit you on the head for example.The other main difference is that the drone folds up. It is quite small, but I don't personally have a pocket large enough to take it so I would not say that you could easily carry it in a jacket. In a backpack or a maybe a large handbag maybe. A good protective case would be helpful and is available at an extortionate cost.The body is made of carbon fibre which makes it lightweight and strong. It does feel flimsy and that is because every effort has been made to save weight as every gram required to fly is yet more energy wasted by the battery. The low weight puts it below certain regulatory thresholds which is good news. However it does not mean that you can ignore the rules and regulations of flying a drone.The batteries take about 45 minutes to charge on the dedicated charger. There is a protective rubber cap at one end of the charger which must be removed for the batteries to charge. The batteries each last for not more than ten minutes, which at first seems short time but I have got used to it. The batteries can be very hot once they have discharged and will need to cool down before they can be recharged, the charger will not charge until the battery has cooled sufficiently. This is to protect the longevity of the battery. If you need to have the drone is continuous use another battery would be helpful and can be purchased separately.The drone is controlled by smartphone or tablet. You can download the app from the Apple Store or Google Play. I do not know if there is a Kindle app for this but I doubt it. The app is simple to use. Firstly you should go into the settings and calibrate the sensor. This allows the drone to work out which way is up. It starts up in owner mode and the first thing it needs to do is make a scan of your face. Once you have been recognised if you activate owner mode the drone will follow you around and let you take pictures and videos without the need for your smartphone. It does this by gestures. You make a gesture with your hand and the drone will complete the action. At the moment the gestures are take a photo and land. I presume the manufacturers are working on more gestures as the firmware updates.Other modes which have similar functionality are Orbit, Cycling, Running, Bird's eye and Group photo- for all of these you select a person in the front of the camera, a green box will go around the selected person and then start the mode and it will automatically do the activity. How successful it will be will depend on how much thought you have put it beforehand. Orbit for example will send the drone on a circle around you. You need to be sure that there are no objects it might hit because it does not know very much about its surroundings. In walking, cycling and running mode the drone will follow you. In bird's eye mode it will go up and look down and follow you. They do work but take care! For example it is not recommended to take the drone over water because the drone works from with a sonar and the reflections from water can confuse it. Nor can the drone fly in anything other than light wind, which they classify as under 6 miles per hour. In my experience it does struggle in a breeze and gusty conditions are a no-no.Finally the app does have a full manual control which I have found easy to use. The phone has a full screen video feed from the drone and the remote controls are overlaid. It takes a while to get your head around the controls and how the drone will react because there are two parts to the flying, there is being aware of where the drone is relative to the surroundings and potential hazards and there is achieving the pictures. The first part is much more important than the second and so your attention needs to be in several places at once.However I purchased this more for indoor use and in many respects this is the perfect 'domestic drone'.All drones are noisy close up so it is not surprising that it does not record sound.The drone has a 32Gb memory on board, it will send proxy videos to your smartphone or tablet but if you want the full resolution videos you will need to connect a computer via a USB 3 cable - not included in the pack. In Owner Mode the recordings are HD quality because it stabilises the picture internally. Other modes will record in 4K if you have selected this in the settings but some post stabilisation may be required. Exposure, white balance etc are all auto functions and can not be over ridden which does put some limits on professional use.It needs a lot of light full day light is best, grain comes quickly in low light and the compression is hard and unforgiving of video noise in low light. It is not happy to fly in low light and will warn you if the drone cannot 'see' its surroundings. If you fly too close to a ceiling it can stick against it, but the app has a landing mode which will bring it down.I think it is value for money (mind you I paid £350 for it) but then I don't want to fly over the White Cliffs of Dover. If you do, you'll need something a lot bigger and a license.