The Smartest and Most Sophisticated Drone Just Got Smarter: Skydio R1

Skydio is one of the companies that can be proud about having the most sophisticated drone model under its belt. With the announcement of the R1 drone, the company proved that they are leaders in this industry – and that the Skydio R1 is the smartest, most autonomous consumer camera drone that we have ever witnessed so far.

However, it seems that the team at Skydio is not stopping when it comes to the further development of the R1. Earlier this year, the company promised that they will make the R1 even more capable – and today they fulfilled their promise with the announcement of a new upgrades.

Speaking of, the company announced a new software development kit (SDK) that lets you leverage the R1’s obstacle-avoiding features in any custom applications that you can set up. Basically, this puts R1 even more ahead of its competitors.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, it is safe to say that the Skydio R1 is an amazing drone that uses even 12 cameras to dynamically detect as well as avoid obstacles while tracking you and filming what you are doing. For example, if you are riding a mountain bike through a forest, the drone can follow you all while dodging the trees and branches and keeping the picture in frame the whole time.

So, with a feature line that is so advanced like this, what could possibly be improved in the new drone?

New Skills, Autonomous Camera Behaviors and Obstacle-Avoiding Features

Skydio, which is headquartered in Redwood City, California, recently announced a bunch of novelties to the R1 drone – once again making it the perfect consumer drone out there and luring a lot of the drone delivery startups and companies who are dreaming of drones like the R1.

The new skills that Skydio puts on the table include specific autonomous camera behaviors like boomerang, vortex, rocket and “dronie” which is a real word now – and refers to a selfie photograph taken by a drone.

Even though there are drones which have similar skills, R1 outperforms them all with its new obstacle-avoidance AI, which seems to be the real value proposition of this new model. There is also a novelty known as ‘cable-cam’ which allows the pilot to navigate the R1 to specific positions and orientations and retrace the flight path between two points, all while maintaining the full obstacle avoidance and tracking a subject. This is definitely a killer feature which can be used in sports events’ footage as well as many commercial applications.

Skydio’s Goal for the Future

If you are wondering what’s next for Skydio, there could be a lot of developments in the near future – considering this new move and feature-wise upgrade of the R1.

In an interview with Spectrum, the CEO of the company Adam Bry stated that Skydio’s vision for the future “is that someday these devices reach ubiquity, and that they’re owned and used by and benefit tens of millions of people from consumer applications.”