Test Flight on Lime Kiln Trail
When I saw that DJI had released a new version of the Neo drone, I reluctantly wanted to learn more about it.
I say "reluctantly" because I hadn't even had my drone for a full year and I didn't want to have regrets for not waiting to buy it. I wanted to take a drone to Peru and the DJI Neo seemed perfect for what I wanted. And even though I didn't use it much on the trip, I'm glad I brought it along.
My curiosity was too great and I watched some of my favourite YouTube reviewers give their opinion of the drone and show what it could do. And compared with the first-generation Neo, it can do a lot.
Fortunately, the propellers are housed within a cage and are protected from such obstacles, and the Neo can take a battering and survive. One YouTuber continually crashed his drone into harder and harder objects, at faster and faster speeds, and the Neo proved to be virtually indestructible.
With the Neo 2's obstacle-avoidance sensors, the drone will either find a way around the obstacle or stop and hover in place, depending on how you set it up.
The Neo 2 has a readable screen that shows you the mode you're in. Like the first Neo, there are various pre-programmed flight modes that offer you hands-free operation; with the new version, there are more modes that you can choose from and you can customize some of these modes.
For example, in the Follow mode, the original Neo would only follow you from a level distance (basically, from about shoulder height), from behind. With the Neo 2, you can have the drone follow you from eight different points around you, and it can fly level, low, or high.
But it also has a forward-facing sensor that responds to hand gestures, which allows you to change its position. It's behind you and you want it to follow you from the side? Just hold your hand in a stop-like gesture, and slowly swing it to your side.
Hand gestures allow you to move the drone around you, fly up or down, and move closer or further away.
When I bought the first Neo, I was hoping to use it whilst kayaking, to have it follow me as I paddled. In its promotional video, DJI showed a stand-up paddleboarder using it—that was one of the reasons I bought the drone in the first place.
But with only landing sensors on the belly of the Neo, it proved to have trouble flying over water, and DJI recommended against doing so. To land the drone in the palm of your hand, you had to mode under it so that the sensor could detect your hand.
Doing that in a kayak had its challenges, assuming the drone didn't try to land before then, if it say its own reflection on the water.
With the Neo 2, you don't have to move up to the drone to have it land on your hand. You simply hold out your hand, palm upward, and it comes to you. I can keep my kayak still enough to do this.
The Neo 2 has improved in so many ways that after seeing several review videos, I knew that this is the drone for me. I've put my old Neo up for sale and I bought the Neo 2.
To practice using the drone in a forested environment, I returned to the Lime Kiln Trail, where I had been only a week earlier, photographing the frost and fog that had settled in Ottawa. I wanted to see how the drone would behave on winding paths and moving between trees, and I wanted to practice using the hand gestures.
And, I made a video that showed what this new drone can do. Have a look.
As I state a couple of times in the video, I'm not providing a review of the drone. The people who created the videos that I watched do a much better job than I could ever do, so if you're interested in seeing more about the drone's capabilities, I suggest you click the links to those videos, which I have provided in the Description section of my video.
I'm excited to try this drone out when we head back to Costa Rica, in just over a month. Stay tuned.
Happy Monday!
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