Wed, 25 Aug 2010 Parrot AR.Drone review

The Parrot AR.Drone is an exciting, fun-to-fly, four-rotor helicopter that can be piloted over Wi-Fi by an Apple iPad, iPod touch or iPhone.

But flying indoors proves tricky and may frustrate inexperienced pilots. We first saw the Parrot AR.Drone at CES in January, and you can buy one from HMV for £299 inc VAT. For a video review of the toy, click here.

Parrot AR.Drone: Getting started

Pairing the Parrot AR.Drone unit with an iPad was easy. The toy creates its own wireless network. If there are too many wireless signals in the area, the drone may have trouble pairing, a Parrot spokesman said, but in downtown Boston, Mass - awash with Wi-Fi - we had no issues.

Parrot AR.Drone: Wireless cameras

The Parrot AR.Drone has two cameras, one pointing forward and one pointing down, that stream video back to the controlling device. The cameras seem designed to take advantage of the augmented reality games we saw during CES. In one game an airplane appears on your iPad and you have to control your helicopter to shoot it down. We weren't able to test that game, but we're told that it should be available in the Apple App Store by the end of 2010.

Don't count on the camera to pilot the drone when you can't see it. While the small, front-facing camera has a relatively wide range of view at 93 degrees, it only shoots at 15 frames per second, hardly fast enough to avoid walls and doorways. Outside, though, the cameras give you a unique perspective on the world, especially when you hover the Parrot AR.Drone drone amidst trees.

Parrot AR.Drone: Controlling the toy

The AR.Drone includes basic controls that are on the screen of the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. Tilting the iPad makes the Parrot AR.Drone drone fly in the same direction as the tilt. When first flying it's best to stand behind it for easier orientation.

The software allows for a lot of customisation of flying controls. You can increase and decrease the tilt sensitivity as well as the vertical speed and yaw speed. Making the controls slightly more sensitive makes the Parrot AR.Drone helicopter easier to control because you don't need to move the iPad as much.

Parrot AR.Drone: Indoor flying

Flying the AR.Drone indoors requires a lot of space and minimal obstructions. Parrot suggests using the "indoor hull". Its Styrofoam bumpers ring the propellers and protect them. The indoor hull did indeed protect the rotors, but at a cost. Within two days, our hull fractured in several places and eventually broke into pieces.

We repaired the first few fractures with Super Glue and let the repairs sit overnight, but the next day the hull would break in a new place. Parrot offers "mending tape" for about a tenner and even has an online instruction video for repairing the hull. If your indoor hull is beyond repair, a replacement can be purchased for about £40.

Parrot AR.Drone: Outdoor flying

In low wind, outdoor flying proved to be much easier than indoor flying because of large, open spaces and the ability for the drone to ascend quite high. Selecting "outdoor flight" mode allows the drone to compensate for wind. We tested this feature with our hands off the controls and the toy effectively stabilized itself in the wind.

Outdoor flying was much more fun than flying indoors because the drone is quite agile and can fly very quickly in all directions. The main body of the drone, including its propellers, is forgiving. We accidentally crashed the drone several times outdoors, and the propellers and body of the drone stayed fully intact and did not impact future flights.

Parrot AR.Drone: Battery life

Flying time on a fully charged battery is around 15 minutes. There is a battery indicator on the screen of the iPad and the drone will gently land once the battery gauge hits 12 percent. Charging takes about 90 minutes. If you think you'll be flying a lot, we suggest buying a spare battery.

Parrot AR.Drone: Software

The only app available in the App Store when we reviewed the drone was AR.FreeFlight. It allows for full control of the drone including monitoring the video feed from the drone's two cameras. While it works on an iPad, it's designed for the screen size of an iPhone or iPod touch.

Parrot said that more games, like the augmented reality one we saw at CES, would be available by the end of the year. Parrot has also made an SDK (software development kit) available in hopes that developers will create more apps for the toy. We would enjoy seeing one that allows for video recording. The AR.Drone was initially designed for use with Apple products, but there are also videos online of it being used on a Google Android phone.

Parrot AR.Drone: Product durability

The biggest problem we ran into with the AR.Drone was the durability of the indoor hull during our initial testing phase. Being new to the toy, crashes are a near definite and can damage the hull. All of the pieces of the drone are replaceable and a special section of Parrot's website includes repair videos. Parrot said that, "The hull is first and foremost meant to protect the components of the AR.Drone such as the brushless motors, onboard processor and navigation board."

See also: The iPad-controlled helicopter camera