UVify's 100 MPH Draco Racing Drone Is Best For Beginner Drone Racers To Get Started

UVify's 100 MPH Draco Racing Drone Is Best For Beginner Drone Racers To Get Started

UVify's 100 MPH Draco Racing Drone

With a flick of my thumb, the Draco HD drone lifts off, zipping through the air with a low hum. I’m elated. The speed it’s flying at is breathtaking — I’ve barely tapped the throttle and it’s already a tiny black speck in the distance — with a top speed of 100 miles per hour, I shouldn't be surprised. Below it is houses, fields, a great expanse of greenery, viewed in HD quality through a pair of FPV (first person view) goggles. It’s enthralling and a little disorientating, but Hyon Lim, CEO of drone company UVify, tells me that’s normal. “At first, you can feel scared and dizzy because of the motion,” he says. “Slow down and familiarize yourself with the optical speed of the drone — it’s an awesome experience.” Imagine flying a cheetah dosed with Adderall and you’ll have some sense of what a wild ride this is.

Drone racing is not a new sport —- as long as there have been remote control hobbyists there’s been a culture of racing — but it didn't fully get mainstream till 2016 when ESPN showcased series one of Drone Racing League in a primetime spot. From here it’s grown year on year. Drone maker DJI opened their first drone arena in Seoul in 2016 — an indoor park full of LED hoops and aerial challenges to maneuver; they opened a second location in Tokyo this October. Funding wise, over $32 million has been invested in the Drone Racing League, and prizes for tournaments can reach $1 million and more. In 2016, 15-year old Luke Bannister won first place in a Dubai race, taking home a cool $250,000. Plus the millions more invested by the likes of DJI and others into growing this hot new sport.

But while drone racing is an enjoyable spectator sport, there is often a high barrier to entry for beginners. Not only do you need a large amount of stuff — controller, receiver, etc. but you also had to be able to solder, and engineer your flying formula one, as most kits are custom-made. Then fix it, when, inevitably it hit the ground and a wing or propeller snapped. That’s why Lim’s Draco drone is such a big deal and gaining just a following in the hobbyist's community. It’s designed as a single unit, ready-built and ready to fly right out of the box (once you’ve charged the batteries, fixed the propellers etc).

Lim was frustrated by how difficult it was for drone racers to get started in their field, and didn't like how enthusiasts were limited by their engineering expertise. Hence the modular design of his Draco drone, where parts can be easily swapped in and out, snapping together, Lego style. “Racing drones crash a lot of the time and propellers are often broken,” he says, explaining the concept was letting the consumer stay in the air and fix any issues with ease — experiencing the joy of flying instead of constantly fixing things. He also applied this modular approach to the very nature of the drone; currently, users can opt to purchase the Draco drone, $699, or the Draco HD drone $799. However, if you bought the Draco and after a couple of months wish you’d bought the HD version, you can easily upgrade by purchasing a digital module, that slots straight into the body of your drone. The very definition of plug and play! This concept caught the imagination of investors, to the tune of a $4.25 million Series A for the UVify team.

“We are heavily customer orientated not technology oriented,” Lim says. “Tesla is our role model as they’re using electrical technology to push the envelope, utilizing technology to make driver convenience a priority as much as possible. We’re pushing our technology to be as convenient as possible to our pilots — and speed up the production!”

The carbon fiber Draco HD drone and it broadcasts wide-angle HD with zero latency — it’s digital based, while the Draco drone comes with 5.8GHz Analog video transmission. Many drone racers prefer analog controls for more stability, but, like everything, digital is clearly the future and the Draco HD gives people a head start at that. “Practice flying in your line of sight before switching to FPV,” Andrew Meyer, a development pilot for Uvify advises beginners, as a way to get to grips with the controls before immersing yourself in the landscape. Battery life is short — a common issue with drones — but depending on your speed, you’ll get around 5-10 minutes of juice.

As someone used to the stability and weight of the DJI Phantom, flying the Draco was like changing gear from 30-100 in five seconds flat. It’s important to follow all the usual procedures for drone flying here; a wide open people-free space, following the drone flying laws of the area and, especially with FPV flying, wher a buddy to act as a spotter with you, to keep you safe when you’re lost in the goggles. “It’s intuitive to fly,” says Meyer. “Even if you do crash it bounces back, so just get out there and have fun.” Of course, racing without any other people can be lonely, so once you’ve mastered the controls I’d advise checking out some of your local drone racing groups — the Drone Racing Clubs website is a good starting point, as well as checking Meetup groups in your area.

UVify actually has a couple of drone models in development; in addition to the Draco models, they have a special Draco research drone, which they sell to universities and corporations for research. The research drone involves deep learning capabilities of researchers — something the team says they might utilize modules for their racing drone.

The company also has a racing team — currently open for pilots. People of all ages are welcome to try out, though, like in eSports, the ages of professionals does skew younger. “We do see up and coming pilots who are 12-years-old, but it’s not as extreme as what you see in esports,” says Robert Cheek. (For reference, in 2016, a 16-year old DOTA 2 player won $1 million in a Seattle tournament). “Younger [pilots] come from the gaming world and they transition from that very easily — using goggles is not that big of a difference to them,” says Meyer.

Overall, UVify’s Draco HD drone has a huge potential for racing, plus a lot of nicely designed features, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved. Currently, the documentation it comes with is clunky and hard to understand for a beginner racer, and the online portal doesn't answer all the questions. In particular, to change settings on the drone you need to download a UVify program — currently hosted in a file in a subfolder of a Github directory; and one that won't download or open. The UVify time says they are aware of these issues and are working to fix them for future flyers. And while it does (mostly) work straight out the box, you do need to separately purchase a controller, receiver and FPV goggles to get the best use out of it, bringing the total cost up by another $500 or so. You can get cheaper accessories but to enjoy the true breadth of what the Draco can do, you do need FPV goggles that capture HD digital video — I tried this with Fat Shark’s base HD model, and was blown away by the image quality and crispness.