Hey chum — new Splashdrone feature for night fishing…

If you haven’t heard of using a drone instead of a fishing rod, Splashdrone would like to have a word with you. Not only can it carry and drop a line, but it can now dispense chum while watching with a camera built for low light. Are you hooked yet?

Splashdrone is the name given to the waterproof drones built by Swellpro. You start out with the Splashdrone3+ and then add on widgets, depending on what you’d like to do with the drone. As their website explains, “The Base Platform comes with no cameras. After being equipped with different camera or payload release systems, your SplashDrone3+ can be used for filming, fishing, boating, or rescue. No limit, no worries.” And, if you’re lucky, maybe some fish.

And now, you can extend the Splashdrone3+ capabilities with some new add-ons.

Night fishing

One of the first things you’ll need, if you want to be flying over the water at or beyond dusk (check your local laws first!), is a camera that can still provide a clear picture. Now, Swellpro has announced that it has a product to fit that demand. First, let’s have a quick peek at the base model:

And now, let’s add some specifications:

New widgets

Now, Swellpro has released a unit that promises to take your night vision “to the next level.” Check out the video the company released:

Chum chum chum

You won’t be fishing for sharks, but the Splashdrone3+ can also dispense up to one kilogram of stinky, sloppy chum into the water to get things rolling. Of course, that means you’ll have to really clean the dispenser after landing… but it beats dispensing chum by hand.

And while we can’t seem to locate a video of chum stirring up schools of voracious fish, we did manage to find something that is arguably more practical: A release system for Search and Rescue. It can easily pinpoint a swimmer in distress and drop a life preserver. And that’s pretty cool:

Ingress Protection

What’s the Swellpro secret? How do they manage to make these things waterproof? Well, we don’t know all of their secrets, but a sealed body certainly helps. The key here is the IP number. That stands for Ingress Protection, and the higher the number, the better the device is at preventing water (or particulates) from getting inside and mucking things up. In this case, the Splashdrone3+ has an IP67 rating, which is excellent (and which rivals some pretty pricey Enterprise drones out there). This drone can literally operate underwater while filming, then surface and take off again.

That’s pretty cool. We’re not sure how often we’d do that… but it beats sinking.