If it had come with a battery charging station that could accommodate four batteries (I use that because they sell the three-pack of batteries) so that it would take 45 minutes to recharge for 28 minutes of flight time at around $150, the weak-ass battery would have been much easier to forgive but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. It likely should have come with an extra battery or two (or three) due to the short flight time.
It’s a ton of fun to play with, and it’s got a lot of options that make it an attractive drone for beginner and intermediate pilots.ĭurability and control are the strong points, but the battery is the Achilles heel.
Overall, TRNDlabs’ FADER drone is a terrific little drone that has one glaring weakness. There’s a slight film on the inside of the plastic where the camera is, but that’s a small price to pay (and I could probably disassemble and clean it if I wanted to) if it still works after something that would have killed drones that cost twice as much. I figured for sure that I’d murdered it, and it acted a little odd when I tried restarting it after being submerged, but letting it sit overnight, it worked flawlessly without any electronic drying gimmicks. While I learned that because there’s not much weight to the drone and it struggles to maintain any sort of control in a decent strength breeze, it can also withstand smashing into a tree and being submerged in a creek for over 10 minutes while we looked for it. That being said, remember a few sentences ago when I said people might be afraid they’ll tear this little thing up? I have to admit: The FADER is remarkably durable considering its lightweight plastic. Perhaps in the future models, the capture button on the controller could be used to enable/disable the streaming video/WiFi feed which could extend the battery life – likely doubling it for people who just wanna have fun flying their drone and don’t wanna invoke their inner Casey Neistat. I wouldn’t exactly call that the best time investment trade, but the drone is really fun to fly in spite of being crippled by the battery. You can purchase additional batteries for the FADER directly from TRNDlabs, but even with their three-pack of additional FADER batteries being on sale for $29, you’re immediately up to $129 for the cost of this drone which starts to bring it out of the impulse purchase zone and more into “do I wanna pay $100+ for a toy I might fuck up in 10 minutes”.Įven if you buy three more batteries, you’ll be getting around 28 minutes of flight time while looking at 180 minutes of charge time. Quite honestly, seven minutes is barely worth walking outside for. Seven minutes of flight isn’t terrible, but it takes around 45 minutes to charge the battery. I’m sure this is because the drone is continually streaming a WiFi signal and video, even if you aren’t connected or actively using the companion app.
TRNDLABS FADER 2 DRONE HOW TO
While I did learn how to be a much better drone pilot due to FADER’s instructional materials and overall ease of use, I think some of my earlier struggles in capturing media had to do with being conscientiously aware of the FADER’s incredibly short battery life.Ĭlocking in around seven minutes of flight time, FADER’s fun is unfortunately over by the time it gets started. This is a ton of fun and made for some impressive flying considering my skill level to anyone who happened to walk by while I was derping around outside with it. FADER allows you to press down on the right stick, and then the drone will barrel roll to the left or right, or front/backflip with the flick of the direction. Rather quickly, I was able to turn FADER’s sensitivity up to the highest setting, and for the first time in reviewing a drone, I was able to perform the automated flip functions reliably. It took me a few flights to fully understand how the auto-takeoff function worked, but once I realized that slightly pressing up on the throttle would jump the drone about three feet into the air before gliding back down to a much lower altitude, I had a considerably easier time learning the basics of flight. This made drone stability much more comfortable to balance for the initial flight, and I like the flight safeguard by not only having to rotate the stick up then down to prepare for flight but then having to press the auto land button to engage the rotors which would then allow the drone to take off. Unfortunately, the videos basically just read the manual, so they’re mostly irrelevant – but I did pick up the auto-calibration setting which I missed when reading the manual. I decided to take FADER’s learning approach seriously by following the instructional videos and materials in the manual.
0 kommentar(er)
