China-based SZ DJI Technology Co. unveiled the DJI Inspire 1, a more upscale and powerful model compared to the company's popular Phantom line of commercial drones that were released early last year.
The company is looking to globally expand its reach in the commercial drone industry, and so have updated their camera-wielding, four-rotor Phantom drones into the Inspire 1.
The Phantom drones found success with a variety of users and professionals, including drone flight hobbyists, movie makers and construction contractors. This made DJI the best-selling company in the commercial drone industry.
According to DJI executives, the company is looking to build upon the success of the Phantom with the Inspire 1, which aims to address the needs of users that the Phantom is not able to.
The Inspire 1 comes equipped with a 4K camera, which will allow it to shoot videos at about four times the quality compared to the traditional high-definition cameras, such as the ones that the Phantom carries.
The camera of the Inspire 1 has the ability to completely turn around 360 degrees while shooting, as compared to the camera of the Phantom which is locked into facing the front. In addition, it is detachable, which will allow users to attach camera upgrades such as top-quality sensors that can be used for several applications developed for the drone.
A test flight as demonstrated by DJI aerial imaging director Eric Cheng also showed that, compared to the Phantom, the Inspire 1 moves with more agility and speed.
The Inspire 1 will not come cheap though. While the Phantom is already selling for the price of roughly $1,000, the new commercial drone for DJI will carry a price tag of about $3,000.
In addition to the announcement of the Inspire 1, DJI also unveiled a new platform for the development of applications for its drones.
The platform will allow programmers to develop apps for controlling the drones and for analyzing the information that the drones can collect.
According to DJI, the company has already partnered up with several companies for the development of apps for the Phantom. One of these apps is able to collect data from the drone's camera for the creation of 3D maps on the terrain below. Another one allows simultaneous flight coordination among several Phantom drones.
The app development platform is currently limited to the Phantom, but the capabilities will most likely expand to the Inspire 1 soon. Any developer can create apps to work with the camera of the Phantom, but for safety issues, developers will first have to send an application to DJI if they wish to create apps that control the flight of the drones.
