Say hello to the Antigravity A1, an 8K 360-degree drone by Insta360

Last month, Antigravity emerged from stealth mode with nothing but an August date for its first drone announcement. Today is finally that day. A1 is the first drone designed from the ground up to have a 360-degree camera, and it has a few other tricks up its sleeve too.

Capturing 360-degree video is not new for the industry; Insta360 even released a camera attachment for the DJI Air 2S back in the day. However, no drone has been designed from the start for this purpose, and of course, Insta360 was going to be the one behind the first one.

At its core, the Antigravity A1 is an FPV-style drone that, instead of using a gimbal with a wide-angle lens, captures everything around it, allowing you to edit in post exactly what you want.

Its two wide-angle lenses are perched above and below the drone, allowing, when stitched together, to completely eliminate the aircraft from view. This effect happens both in the final video and in its transmitted view back to its goggles.

Controlling the drone is easy and intuitive. The included Grip Controller is similar in concept and design to DJI’s Motion Controller, allowing intuitive flight by just pointing the controller, pulling the trigger, and flying. One difference is that most FPV drones will orient themselves depending on where the pilot is looking with their goggles. However, because the Antigravity A1 uses the 360-camera for its viewfinder, where you’re looking instead reframes your perspective in the 360-degree view. The direction and flight of the drone are 100% based on where you’re pointing the Grip Controller.

Antigravity states that they eventually plan to launch a manual controller for the A1, but they don’t have a timeline for when that will come.

So why a 360 video drone? It’s simple, Antigravity believes it will be a better experience both during flight and in post, stating you’ll never miss a shot.

Other A1 drone specs

Putting Insta360’s impressive 360 video technology aside, the A1 will weigh an impressive 249 grams, meaning it skirts most regulations internationally and doesn’t require registration with the FAA for non-commercial use.

The overall design of the drone is reminiscent of DJI’s Mini 3 & 4 drones, with a more tilted-back stance, likely providing better stability in winds.

The A1 will also feature dedicated obstacle avoidance sensors on the front and bottom, which makes sense as you’ll almost never be flying it sideways or backwards.

Finally, the party trick of the A1 is a payload detection system that will automatically land the aircraft if it detects a heavy enough payload. This is in response to concerns over other consumer drones, most notably DJI, being used to drop grenades and other explosives in combat. While DJI doesn’t condone the acts, its drones are quite capable of them.

For Antigravity, their goal was to make a truly creative-only drone, so having safety features like this guarantees it’s not used for any unintended purposes.

For now, we don’t know much else about the drone. Other than the 360-camera, it will capture up to 8K 60 FPS video, likely similar to Insta360’s new X5 camera, but we don’t know the price, flight time, wind resistance level, or really anything drone-related.

But when will you be able to buy one? January 2026.

DroneDJ’s Take

DroneDJ’s YouTuber Jared Sanders was able to get some hands-on experience with a pre-production model of the Antigravity A1 last month. Just like DJI’s Avata series, flying the drone was intuitive and easy to learn for those who have never flown an FPV drone before.

Overall, the drone seems solid and useful; however, we haven’t yet received a unit for a formal review, so we’ll have to wait to make up our minds officially.

It shouldn’t be a shock that Insta360 is encroaching on DJI’s territory with a drone brand. The two brands released competing products around the same time, with DJI unveiling its Osmo 360 camera and Antigravity coming out of stealth last month.

This could mean a new wave of innovation and competition is coming to the industry, something we haven’t seen in a while.

However, the same big elephant is in the room; both of these companies are Chinese-owned, meaning that both companies could be outright banned from the US with future litigation. So, was Insta360 too late to enter the market, or do they have some trick up their sleeve to prevent being banned?