The Teal drone, which is up for preorder prior to its Christmas launch this year, is set to become the world's fastest consumer drone, capable of flying at 70 miles per hour and up to 85 miles per hour in ideal conditions.
The drone is claimed to be able to fight through wind speeds of up to 40 miles per hour and is capable of flying in the rain and snow without suffering any damage. The drone has a range of 300 feet if connected through a Wi-Fi network and up to 2,500 feet through an extended Wi-Fi connection, with GPS systems to allow operators to keep track of the Teal drone's location.
The drone, which is powered by an NVIDIA TX1 supercomputer that will be powerful enough to support autonomous flight, image recognition and machine learning, can be operated through an iOS or Android app. Users can also use other input devices such as standard gamepads like the Xbox One controller.
The Teal drone comes equipped with a 13 MP camera capable of recording 4K videos at 24 frames per second, with the footage electronically stabilized. The drone has 16 GB of onboard storage and a microSD card slot to support additional storage of up to 64 GB.
In addition, the Teal drone is modular, which will allow operators to customize it according to their needs and will make it easy to replace certain components.
Behind the development of the drone is George Matus, who is astonishingly just 18 years old.
"This drone really started from my own love of flying," Matus said in the introductory video for the Teal drone. He started to fly drones at the age of 11 years old and built his first one at 14 years old, beginning his obsession on the machines.
Matus has no formal background on software development or electrical engineering, but he was heavily involved in the conceptualization, design and engineering of the Teal drone under a company that is made up of three full-time employees, 12 full-time contractors and between 30 and 40 others working on design and engineering.
To make the Teal drone a reality, Matus had to acquire funding, and he did so through seed funding from several investors to raise $2.8 million. Matus, however, admitted that the focus was to get the Teal drone out to as many people as possible instead of raking in profit, which meant that the profit margin for each sold machine, while not negative, is still not good.
What makes the Teal drone an even more exciting development in the industry is the fact that it will offer an open API, which will launch ahead of the market release of the drone. According to Matus, the company is looking to develop the Teal drone as a universal platform that will be programmable like a smartphone, further adding to the customization abilities of the drone.
Interested customers who would like to preorder the Teal drone can do so through the company's official website. The drone will carry a price tag of $1,299, which is $100 less compared to the premium DJI Phantom 4 drone, but it is capable of doing so much more.
