[Syi]

I was really interested when I saw this the other day and it is an awesome idea but as others have mentioned I wish they would give some details on how they plan to address some of the key issues.

Most importantly and an issue which seems to have been affecting drones in general is battery life. Even current commercially successful drones only last a matter of minutes before needing to be recharged and they are several times the size of the nixie and dont have cameras to deal with. What happens if you are climbing as in the video and 3 minutes later the battery starts dying while you are stuck on a mountain face?

I've liked the concept ever since I heard about quadcopters though and I think it has a lot of potential. From the video I think they're suggesting that you could have an option which sets the Nixie up so that you basically just throw it in the air and it will track + record you. This is obviously a big software challenge (motion tracking the target) that they will have to face although still arguably easier than battery life or flight stability in bad weather conditions.

If they launch it as a glorified selfie taker though I think it would be a shame as it could do so much more. As shown it could compete with the GoPro - hands free and a much desired camera angle - for filming sports, as well as things like amateur TV/film recording, surveying, mapping, etc. That extra functionality could all be added with software updates, its the hardware and physical design which I'm hoping they have a secret answer to.

[invertedohm]

No matter how incredible the software is, I don't see a solution for the core problem that they will need to solve: battery vs weight. It's revealing that there are no prototypes shown at all.

Very curious what their weight goal is and how they plan to deal with physics.

[Syi]

Yeah especially as they plan for it to be wearable. It needs to be light enough to comfortably stay on your wrist for a period of time. Taking the climbing example again, having even a few pounds extra weight on your arm makes things a lot more difficult. If they added battery packs which the Nixie could recharge from to compensate then it kind of defeats the point of it being wearable and so portable.

[mgkimsal]

"If they added battery packs which the Nixie could recharge from to compensate then it kind of defeats the point of it being wearable and so portable."

Would depend on how it's done, of course, but just because something is able to use battery packs doesn't force me to carry them with me all the time. Just having some I could keep in a car to replace quickly while 'out' would be sufficient for some (many?) use cases.