Maybe it's the design, or its size and weight, or that you're just as likely to find it sold as a phone accessory as you are in a toy store or camera department of a big-box retailer, but Parrot's Bebop 2 is one of the least intimidating camera drones you'll find. Even less so than most toy drones, since it takes off and lands on its own and has no trouble hovering in place indoors or outside. The fact that it's controlled with a phone or tablet certainly helps. Flying by touchscreen isn't the best experience, but honestly handing someone a regular remote control for the first time arguably isn't any better. Instead of sticks and switches and buttons, you're tapping on a screen and sliding your thumbs around or simply tilting your phone in the direction you want it to fly. The mobile app is free, but you can make a $20 in-app purchase to unlock more advanced flight-plan capabilities, letting you set waypoints for the Bebop 2 to follow among other things. The quadcopter is small enough to slide into an average backpack and at just over a pound (500 grams), it's easy to travel with.

Aside from the propellers there are no moving parts, which helps its chances of surviving a crash. The ABS body is reinforced with glass fiber to toughen it up even more. It's also one of the safest drones you'll find with flexible plastic propellers that stop the second something hits them. Because of these things, the Bebop 2 perhaps comes off as more of a toy and less of a serious camera drone like the DJI Phantom 3 Standard, which currently shares the Bebop 2's $500 price tag. (The Bebop sells for AU$900 in Australia and £440 in the UK, while the DJI is AU$859 and £449.) And frankly, if high-quality aerial photos and video are what's most important, you're better off with the Phantom 3 Standard. (Similar flight plan capabilities to the Bebop's don't cost more with the Standard, either.) Consider the Bebop 2 if you want something more family-friendly. One that you won't panic as much about when you turn over the controls to a friend for their first time flying. A camera drone that can get decent video and photos for sharing, but also survive crashes and do flips with a couple taps on screen.

I actually tested two different Bebop 2s. The first was a preproduction unit that, like the original Bebop I reviewed, occasionally dropped its wireless signal in flight. Not really something you want to have happen when it's hundreds of feet in the air or out over a body of water. Parrot said this was a fault in the early models and not a typical experience. To confirm this, I tested a second unit and, in fact, did not experience any dropouts while testing it. That may have been because of its newer firmware, or there was something actually wrong with the first drone, or maybe both. All I know is the second Bebop 2 I tested performed just fine. Parrot claims it's possible to fly the Bebop 2 up to 300 meters away (about 985 feet) using a mobile device. That's an average, too, so it can potentially go even further or fall short of that mark. The distance is going to vary depending on everything from trees and buildings to other wireless signal traffic to the device you're using. Even how you hold the device can determine signal quality.

That in mind, I tested using the latest firmware installed (version 3.2.0) with an iPad Air 2 in an open field surrounded by trees in a heavily populated area (i.e. with a lot of wireless signals) and was able to get it out to more than 200 meters before the video cut out. ar drone parrot achatCould it have flown farther? storm drone 6 unboxingProbably, and I might have even gotten the video feed back. ar drone parrot avisBut I played it safe and called it back using the automatic Return to Home option. ar drone motor stuckThe point is, how far you'll be able to fly the Bebop 2 is dependent on your environment and your device. parrot ar drone elite edition price

For the best range and physical controls, you can spend a couple hundred dollars more for Parrot's huge and awkward Skycontroller. It has full controls for the drone and an amplified Wi-Fi radio on top allowing you to fly up to 1.2 miles (2 kilometers), assuming conditions are absolutely perfect. parrot ar drone londonThe FreeFlight mobile app is installed on it though, so you don't need to pair it with a mobile device to fly. It also has a full-size HDMI output on the side lets you connect an external display to see what the camera sees and also supports headsets for completely immersing you for first-person-view (FPV) flight.The Skycontroller isn't your only option for physical controls, though. You can pick up a Bluetooth gaming controller and use that to pilot via your tablet or phone. Parrot has a tutorial on how to set it up and some suggested controllers.Catrobat at Google Summer of Code 2017 Pocket Code is the Winner of the Regional Award Europe at the Reimagine Education Awards from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA!

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