Welcome to my first outdoor unboxing in quite a while. The weather's beautiful,
perfect for flying. So, we've got the Parrot AR drone 2.0 here today. This is
basically like the original parro AR drone except that it is smarter, faster,
it's higher definition. It's like more
maneuverable. It's got more features.
So, you can like flip around and stuff. So, basically, it's like the AR drone
except way better. I mean, one of the things that I said when I first saw the
AR drone is I'm not really that excited about AR drone, but what I'm excited
about is where this is heading. This is the next evolutionary step. So, they've
taken the lowresolution camera on the drone V1 and added an HD camera. So, you
can view on your tablet or on your smartphone in 1280 by 720 HD. They've
added intuitive smart Okay, intuitive smartphone control isn't new. It's also
available in both the market and the App Store, although it's called Google Play
now. I guess um at launch, which the V1 wasn't YouTube ready. Okay, I suppose
most video recording devices could be called YouTube ready. What else we got
on here? Okay. Easy connect. Yeah, we got that. So, HD front camera and
um QVGA vertical camera. So, they haven't upgraded the bottom camera, but
that's okay cuz it's just to keep it from drifting side to side. Uh you tilt,
tilt, control, record, and share. Ah, yes. Video recording. AR drone V1 did
not come in the native uh freeflight app
from Parrot with video recording capability. V2 does. So, people were
putting like um what HD heroes and all
that on their drones. Now, you don't have to. You can use the front camera to
record in HD video and share with aha
share with friends through the control application available on the app store
and the Android market. Automatic camera moves. Okay. High
stability. Wow. Automatic static flight up to 50 m high when commands are
released. That's cool. So, the original drone couldn't really go that high and
retain a certain amount of control. Looks like they've improved that aspect
as well. Carbon fiber central cross. Okay, let's move right along here.
Stabilization system, photo video recording, 50 m, 165 ft range. Yep, I
believe that because we took even a drone V1, which was using wireless G,
the distance of this entire parking lot here. So, you can see that's pretty far
away. So, drone V2 with wireless end should be even better. Realtime video
slash realtime video feedback. Yep. Cool. Okay, let's get it opened up. I'm
actually pretty stoked here. Oh, yeah. The apps. So, the game apps, if you know
other people who uh own an AR drone, you can download these apps and you can play
virtual games where it's like an augmented reality type of gaming
experience thing going on. Okay,
then. So, it feels lighter than the
original drone actually. That's kind of
interesting. Move right along. Let's have a look at what we've got included.
So, first thing that's included is your outdoor hull. So, this one doesn't have
the protective cover around the propellers. So, the advantage is you get
better battery life and you get better maneuverability, but the disadvantage is
if you get too close to a tree, you're not going to have that protective bumper
zone that well protects you. I would suggest flying the AR drone with the
indoor hall at first until you get a little bit used to it, even though it's
not quite as fast and not quite as exciting to fly. AR drone 2.0 battery.
So, they have changed the battery design as well as the charger design from the
original AR drone. So, if you have existing batteries, you will need to get
the new ones and the new charger as well. So, let's just go ahead and throw
that on there. Now, it's a nice little clip-in design, whereas the old one was actually kind of ghetto. It includes all
the adapters you need for various regions. So, there's my North American
one, but uh no matter where you live, you just throw it on there and you're
ready to charge up your battery. It also includes some helpful little stickers.
These are great for augmented reality games. You can also do neat things with
the drone like you can put these on things like your hat. You can set the
drone to follow you around because they are designed to recognize these
stickers. Also includes a thick old manual. So they recommend for 14 up for
the AR drone 2.0. I can see why because you know you bust up your AR drone, your
your 10-year-old busts up their AR drone on like the first time they're flying
it, they're going to be pretty disappointed. But you kind of expect that to happen with young kids. It is
pretty easy to fly, uh, assuming that it's at least as easy as the V1, which
I'm sure it is, but you can make mistakes. It does happen from time to
time. So, in here, we got your basic controls. This is good. It gets you
started. However, I would definitely recommend watching some of Parrot's
YouTube videos, or I'm going to be doing more of a video review of this one
later, and you can check that out as well if you want some more tips on flying. Let's have a look at some specs
here. So, we already covered this. You got a wide-angle lens. That's important
for navigation because you don't want to just have tunnel vision right in front
of you if you don't have line of sight to the drone. So, if you're actually
navigating by the video feed, you're going to want to be able to see what's
on your left and your right to get around it or over it or whatever else,
not run into it. Video storage on the fly with Wi-Fi directly to a remote
device or on a USB key. So, you can actually plug a USB key right into the
AR drone right here. Very, very cool stuff. There's all your specs in terms
of the uh the recording. Not much else to say about that. Robust structure, so
expanded polyropylene EP hulls. Okay,
they feel lighter than the old ones, so if nothing else, that's good. Foam to
isolate inertial center from the engine's vibrations. Cool. Carbon fiber
tubes, which are located here. No, that's not right here.
So, the central cross is made of carbon fiber. Total weight 380 grams with
outdoor health, 420 with the indoor hull. Highrade 30% fibercharged nylon
plastic parts. This is important because the AR drone is incredibly durable. I've
actually had my drone V1 uh fall from
heights in excess of here just directly down on its side with an outdoor hull
and actually not be damaged. I was able
to pick it right back up, do a quick check, quick visual inspection, and fly
it again immediately. So, yes, the
replacement parts are, you know, they're there for you, but odds are you won't
need them right away, even if you crash a few times, unless you're incredibly
unlucky. Liquid repelling nano coating on the ultrasound sensors. So, that's
kind of cool. Fully repairable. All parts and instructions for repairing are
available on the internet. Their instructions are outstanding. I actually
had them crash my AR drone B1 at the Vancouver Men's Show. They flew it up to
the very top of the ceiling of a warehouse. So, we're talking about three
stories up and then it hit something and
fell down. They lost control while I wasn't there to supervise them using my
drone. So, it busted the central cross. It took me a couple hours to repair, but
using the videos available from Parrot, I didn't waste any time. So, I just had
to get myself a new central cross. All right, electronic assistance. Check this
out. This thing basically has a tablet in it. 1 ghahz ARM Cortex A8 processor
with 800 MHz video DSP. one gigabit DDR2
RAM at 200 megahertz, which is plenty. Wi-Fi N, as I mentioned before, it's got
an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a pressure sensor, as well as the 60 FPS
vertical vertical QVGA camera for ground speed measurement. Oh, okay. I guess
they're using it for speed measurement now, too. The uh the vertical camera,
which is located here on the drone, if I can find it. It used to be located here
on the drone. Here on the here on the drone, is also used to keep it from
drifting. So, if on a windy day like today, it's easy for the wind to blow
the drone a little to this side, but it can look at this line and readjust
itself to make sure that it doesn't drift all over the
place. All right, going right back along. Threeaxis magneettometer, 60°
ultrasound sensors for ground altitude measurement. So, that's pretty cool as
well. So, I'll show you the ultrasound sensors. These guys are right here. So,
there's a transmitter and a receiver. This tells the drone within a very very
accurate degree of measurement how high it is off the
ground. And finally, yes, it's very easy
to fly. This much is true. We already know this. Aha, motors. So, they've
upgraded the motors as well. Specific hyperpelled drag. So, bunch of specs
here that probably don't mean that much to you unless you are a total, you know,
RC motor geek. But there you go. Water resistant. Cool stuff. So, in
summary, drone 2 is awesome than drone 1
in pretty much every possible way. Includes basically the same package. You
got your outdoor hall, your indoor hall, your battery, and your charger, as well
as the drone itself. And I am very, very
excited to take this thing out for a flight. So, I just want to show you guys
a quick sort of visual tour of the drone. So, there's your there's how you
swap the hull. You just pick it up. It's held on with a magnet, which is stored in here. So once you pop it into place,
it's not going to come off, but it's also easy to remove if you want to.
Okay. Your battery gets held in the harness right here. Plugs in your power
right there. And uh your USB recording,
it's done right here. I'd recommend using a lightweight USB key, not
something really heavy. You don't want to affect the balance of the drone, although it looks like it's right in the
center. Um and you don't want to affect your battery life as well as the
performance of it. There's your HD camera. You want to be careful with that
guy. And these this design looks very very similar to drone v1 other than a
couple changes in component in uh in the components that
are being used. So you got your same uh gears and shafts, your same propeller
blades by the look of things. Very flexible, which will save your bacon at
some point. I guarantee it when you accidentally fly it up against a tree
and it bends like this instead of snapping off like I've seen many other
less intelligently designed uh RC
aircraft do. Uh on the bottom here, yeah, there's pretty much nothing uh
nothing out of the ordinary. So, you got your camera as well as your ultrasound. And I think that pretty much covers it.
Thank you for checking out my unboxing of the Parad Drone V2. Don't forget to
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