Carpe Diem and capture the moment! That seems to be the spirit and purpose of the Moment foldable, selfie-drone from the Chinese company Simtoo. It is a lightweight drone that is easy to carry with you on your travels to capture all those amazing moments. It is also competitively priced at $199 when you buy it through their IndieGoGo campaign. The full retail price will be $349 however once the campaign has ended.
What are the specs?
The Moment is a relatively safe drone because of its lightweight, restricted range and enclosed propellers. It weighs a little over 400 grams including the battery and when it is folded it is about the size of a book. With the 2,900 mAh battery, the Moment drone will fly about 15 minutes according to Simtoo, although in our real-world experience it was more around 12 or 13 minutes or so. The battery can be charged with the supplied charger as well as with a USB-C cable. It also comes with a nice carrying case.
You fly it with your phone
You use the Moment app to fly the drone. You can download the app from the Apple App Store or from the Google Play Store. You connect your phone to the drone using wifi and once connected it worked fine, although at times there was a little lag and it would take a split second or so for the drone to respond. The drone has a 12-megapixel camera and can capture video footage in 4K at 25 fps. The drone has a small camera sensor and it shows in the photos and video footage. I found the photos to be ok if the highlights and shadows were not too pronounced. However, there was substantial noise in the photos and digital artifacts in the video footage in lower light circumstances. In controlled conditions for instance indoors the footage was ok, but outside with more challenging light, the video footage started to fall apart. The drone takes micro SD cards to record.
The Airselfi Drone app with the Moment Drone in the background
This photo was taken with Moment foldable selfie-drone.
This photo was taken with Moment foldable selfie-drone.
Flight characteristics
The Moment flies fine in calm conditions, i.e. indoors or on days when there isn’t a lot of wind. As soon as the wind picks up, i.e. more than 10mph, the drone has a hard time. At that point the drone is almost too light and its size and propeller-cage do catch quite a bit of wind. Furthermore, the motors are not super strong. The Moment features 4-inch tri-blade propellers powered by the 1906 brushless motor. The Wi-Fi range is about 100 feet and during our testing we noticed, that as the drone flew away from us and got close to that range, the Wi-Fi connection became more sluggish, making the drone slower to respond. As long as we flew in our vicinity, the distance you’d typically be in for selfies, all was fine.
Drone features
The Moment provides several features to make flying easier. The enclosed propellers allow you to safely launch the drone from the palm of your hand. In the app there is a one-tap, return-home button, that will send the drone back to its launching spot. You can simply grab it out of the air when it comes close to you. It also offers an auto-tracking option, following as you walk, hike or bike (slowly).
Moment specifications – Drone:
- Folded dimensions: 215x153x50 mm
- Unfolded dimensions: 215x263x47 mm
- Weight including battery: 415 grams
- Max speed: 11 mph
- Max flight height: 20 m / 65 ft
- Max flight range: 100 m / 328 ft
- Max operating time: 15 mins
- Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz
- App name: Airselfi Drone
- Storage capacity: 64G
- Battery: 2900 mAh capacity, 7.6V, 22Wh, LiPo 2S, 129 grams
Moment specifications – Camera:
- Image sensor: 1/3.06″ (CMOS), effective pixels 13M
- Lens: FOV 90 degrees; 28 mm; f/2.0
- Depth of field: 1.0 – 6.7 m
- ISO Range: 100-3200
- Camera tilt: -90 degrees to 0 degrees
- Image: 4640 x 3480 pixels
- Video recording modes: 4K: 3840×2160 @ 25 fps, 1440P: 1920×1140 @ 30 fps, 1080P: 1920×1080 @ 60 fps, 720P: 1280×720 @ 120 fps.
- Photo/Video format: JPEG/MOV
Conclusion
The Moment drone is a nice drone, with a somewhat limited use. As said on their website it is a lightweight, easy to pack, selfie drone and it should be viewed as such. In calm weather (or indoors) and with favorable lighting conditions, it does take selfies (photo or video) that are quite ok. The real benefit, for now at least, is in its price of $199 during the IndieGoGo campaign. Once the campaign is over and the price goes up to $349, the Moment faces more serious competition from the likes of the DJI Spark (DJI, Amazon, BandH), The Hover Camera Passport (Amazon) the Parrot Mambo (Amazon, BandH), Bebop 2 (Amazon, BandH) or the Yuneec Breeze (Amazon, BandH).
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