Parrot has unveiled its latest drone and this one is just a little bit special, letting you hook up an Oculus Rift headset for a drones-eye-view of thw world.
The Parrot BeBop is a quadricopter drone that has one hell of a party trick – it can connect to an Oculus Rift and stream the video directly to the virtual reality headset.
Perhaps the biggest difference with the Bebop is its camera. While Parrot's drones are best known for their cameras, the Bebop's takes things to the next level.
The front of the drone features a 1080p/4 megapixel fisheye lens. That gives the drone a 180 degree view of the world. It also comes in a shock-absorbing mount to make the recording as smooth as possible. The drone comes with 8GB of inbuilt storage.
According to Parrot, the Bebop also has a combination of sensors under the hood including a three-axis accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. The company promises that this should mean a smooth flying experience – even in windy conditions.
However, that tech-heavy focus does have a downside. According to Parrot, the Bebop should only get about 12 minutes of flying time on a full battery charge.
In addition to being able to control the drone via virtual reality headset, it can also be controlled via a tablet or smartphone running Parrot's controller app FreeFlight.
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The drone connects to the tablet or smartphone over Wi-Fi, giving you about 300 meters of flying range to play with.
However, if that isn't enough for you, the Bebop also sees the debut of Parrot's new accessory, grandly titled the Skycontroller.
It allows you to combine your tablet or smartphone with a giant aerial and twin control sticks that give the drone a huge 2km range. Which certainly makes things interesting given your 12 minute timeframe.
No price or launch date for the UK has been announced yet, but the Parrot Bebop is expected to land in the US later this year.
Ben Furfie is a former freelance writer for T3.com who produced daily news stories for the site on tech and gadgets. He also live-managed the T3 Award websites during the 2013 and 2014 T3 Awards. Ben later moved into web development and is now a Technical Development Manager leading a team of developers.
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