For this year’s Skydio R1 Black Friday promotion, the company offers you a free second battery ($149) and a custom Skydio backpack ($129) when you purchase the R1 drone. No discount on the $1,999 drone itself, unfortunately. Still, a very nice promotion, because the fully autonomous drone doesn’t easily fit into most regular backpacks as we learned ourselves. Also, the extra battery comes in nicely as the flight time is a mere 16 minutes, due to all the processing taking place onboard this aircraft. The Skydio R1 Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotion for the R1 drone will run from Friday through Monday.

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The Hover Passport Camera received a lot of attention when it was first released in 2016. The drone was safe and easy to use. The Passport’s camera was better than most selfie drones. The Hover Passport ($300) was designed to appeal to customers who might be intimidated by standard drones that have complicated remote controllers and exposed propellers. The new Hover 2 stays close to its roots, with a foldable user-friendly design. The foldable design is where the similarities seem to end. Hidden beneath the black shell of the ZeroZero Hover 2 is a killer drone with upgraded features and some fantastic innovations. I suspect that competitors like DJI, Parrot, and Skydio are starting to worry.

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Earlier this year Skydio stunned the drone industry with the introduction of the R1. The first consumer drone that flies fully autonomously. Today, Skydio announces a new drone developer program, new cinematic skills and a lower price ($1,999) for their self-flying drone. The R1 can now be programmed like any robot to perform a series of tasks.

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This year, Disrupt SF will feature a panel discussion with some of the biggest names in the drone industry. The panel will consist out of Arnaud Thiercelin, the head of the R&D department for DJI in the U.S., Adam Byrd the founder and CEO of Skydio and Chris Anderson, the CEO of 3DR. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say about the fast-growing drone industry.

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Skydio released their fully autonomous flying R1 drone earlier this year and their unmanned aircraft has surprised may drone enthusiasts. The way the R1 drone is able to avoid obstacles while following you is simply unreal. I had the chance to try it out a number of times now and it truly is impressive. Today, Skydio releases their first major software update for the R1. They have added the ability for the drone to follow vehicles, which I think is a very valuable addition for when you want to show off your adventures. Of course, keep in mind that this is not meant for the public roads! Skydio also added four new cinematic modes and improved the ‘lead’ mode, landing and general user experience of the app. The company promises to keep improving their Autonomy Engine with future updates.

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This video was just uploaded to YouTube and it shows you how the Skydio R1 drone views the world as it is following you completely autonomously. This is called the “Voxel view” and it is the view that the R1 drone creates with help of the 12 obstacle avoidance cameras and the one main 4K camera primarily meant to track the subject.

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