Drone DJ Weekly: Snap’s new ‘drone,’ tornado drone footage, more

Last week we saw more leaks detailing what DJI’s newest drone will be capable of. We also have a new drone on the market, well a “flying camera,” but basically a drone by Snapchat and more. Catch up on the top drone stories below.

Snap announces ‘Pixy’, the company’s first drone/flying camera

The company might not call it a drone, and they don’t want anyone to call it that, either. However, it is a fairly limited drone, but a drone it is nonetheless. While many people are surprised a “software” company is getting into drones, Snap (the creators of Snapchat) has always considered itself more of an AR company, and its new drone is just a new way to capture video and put its AR effects on it.

Called Pixy, the drone is about the size of a human palm and actually looks pretty cool. Featuring a 2.7K front-facing camera, the drone can track you while you move or it moves around you. Although you don’t have any controls for the drone, Pixy is designed to fly itself and will take off and land in the palm of your hand. However, a big downside to Pixy is wind resistance, making it hard to fly when winds get above seven mph.

You can order Snap’s Pixy “flying camera” on the company’s website, starting at $229. While you can order it now, getting it will take a while, shipping in the summer.

Drone footage of tornado tearing through Kansas town

Over the weekend, storms ripped through the plains states, including Kansas, which saw several tornados. One of which was caught on video by a drone, providing a unique perspective of the horrific destruction it caused.

An interesting thing to note is that Reed Timmer, the storm chaser that captured the footage, didn’t use a high-end professional solution for the drone. Instead, Timmer used a DJI Air 2 and found it on the ground after the storms passed. A testament to how well-built DJI’s drones are.

DJI Mini 3 specs leaked by online retailors… twice

Again, we see more leaks as to what we might expect whenever DJI announce their next sub-250 gram drone. Ahead of the rumored launch, DJI’s Mini 3 Pro showed up on two retailer’s websites; first on the Dutch site TopRC and then by the UK retailer Argos. Both showed off complete specs of the drone and high-quality images.

The listing also confirmed the European pricing of the drone, meaning we will most likely see the Mini 3 come in at around $1,000 USD. A massive price increase versus DJI’s Mini 2 but closer to its competition, the Autel Nano+.