Mi Drone Extensive Review: Come Fly with MI!
by mitch002 (follow me at Twitter @MI_mitch002 for the latest review and tutorials)
As we all know, Xiaomi has released its Mi Drone on May 25th 2016, which is Xiaomi's first journey to aerial voyage. This has attracted many fans, and they have announced two variants which is the 1080p and the 4K versions. We have here the 1080p version as the later is set to be release somewhere in August due to delay in production by Sony.
Now let me first show you a short video introducing the Xiaomi Mi Drone from the official company and my introduction as well, sit back and popcorn please!
Whats in the Box:
Checklist:
- Drone
- Remote
- 5100mah battery
- 1080p Camera
- Adapter
- USB Chord
- 8 propellers (4 pcs spare)
- 4 propeller shield/bracket
- Screwdriver
- Wrench
- Welcome kit
- User Manual
Unboxing Video:
How to Properly Assemble the Mi Drone:
Design:
The Mi Drone is designed to be very compact, where in fact during the launch, Lei Jun was able to put the Mi Drone inside his 15" laptop backpack, but nevertheless there will be an upcoming carry bag specially made for Mi Drone. We can see that Xiaomi provided 4 additional propellers just in case something happened, you have spares to let you fly your drone again. Xiaomi made the Mi Drone easy to assemble and disassemble.
How to Assemble the Mi Drone:
- Screw on the 4 propellers, red cap on the arm with red line, and silver cap on the arm with silver line.
- Tighten the propellers using the provided wrench
- Screw on the 4 propeller shield/bracket
- Slide the lever on the side to pull down the landing foot
- Snap on the 5100Mah battery
- Remove the cover on the bottom, snap on the camera properly
How to Connect Mi Drone to Remote:
- Download FiMi App to your phone (QR code is provided on your manual)
- Mount your phone to the remote and connect USB Cable from phone to remote
- Turn on your drone and remote (1 short press then 1 long press)
- Turn on Mobile Data and GPS on phone and USB Tethering as well
- Run FiMi App
- Just continue untill you reach the map screen
Now you will encounter calibration problem, refer to this thread on how to calibrate: How to Calibrate Mi Drone Properly
Now some of you will have problem the moment you tried to log into FiMi App, the null error, and as you finished, you will have problems with the GPS as well, there is my guide for that problem: Mi Drone No GPS and Null Error Fix
Many heralded the Mi Drone as the DJI Phantom killer, just like back in the days that the Yi Action Camera was dubbed as the Go Pro killer. Well we can say that it is a cheaper alternative, but it has yet to match its level of quality yet. We can say that the Mi Drone is an affordable drone for those who want to have the drone flying experience.
Mi Drone is equipped with GPS + GLONASS, dual satellite positioning and optical flow auxilliary system. In addition to using satellite positioning, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) usually requires auxiliary locator for exact auxiliary positioning. The optical flow auxiliary locator of the Mi Drone is found at the bottom of the fuselage. Ultrasonic locators are like two eyes to accurately measure the relative position between the UAV and the ground to keep flying safely under 2.5m height. It has specially increased camera for optical visual location. It has used 1/5 inch CMOS photoreceptor with 640 * 480 screen resolution. After adopting Howe OmniPixel3 - HS technology, it can easily realize automatic hover, automatic flow and other functions.
Based from the flying performance, the function of one key to return automatically of Mi Drone should use the satellite to position, the positioning difference is a little big which controls 3 meter to 5 meters civil level. If it can make full use of the visual AIDS locator at the bottom of the fuselage, it will locate more accurately when needed to return automatically. Now, for safety features, Xiaomi locked the beginner mode to 300 flying minutes with restriction on heights and distance. Then next level will be for advanced users. This feature is not good if you are already a professional drone user, this will limit your mobility at first use.
The camera used is also removeable, you just need to remove the cover plate at the bottom of the fuselage and attatch it properly. This is to make the drone easier to pack away. The camera is well designed, adopting flexible rubber connection to damper the vibration that can cause flight instability to the drone.
The camera is equipped with WiFi, it use 5G WiFi to transmit video and photo. Photos and videos are stored in the micro SD card, when it generated video files, it can also save a version of the small storage which is for transmitting the photos and quick view to the FiMi App. We suggest you use UHS-1 high speed writting card for best performance.
The battery of the Mi Drone uses 15.2 Volts and contains 5100 mah of juice, which can more or less accomodate flying time of 27 minutes, but based on our experience, it lasted us around 24 minutes and it started to warn for battery low already. There are 4 LED lights under the propeller of the Mi Drone, the Red and Green represent the tail and the white represents the head. This is your guide for night flying to check the direction of your flight.
Mi Drone Initial Flight Video:
Remote Contol:
The remote control is pretty ergonomic to the hands, easy to grip and easy to control. Now the most important of a remote control is the right andleft handle which can control the various movements of thefuselage. Red orange toggle switch can be used to switch to normal flight and return mode automatically. Lower rocker flying is the power switch, automatic button, the power indicator light. On the back of the fuselage is video and camera keys respectively. On the left side of the roller can adjust camera’s pitching angle, and the right of the roller isused to adjust the brightness level of mi drone’s white light.
The right roller is used for adjusting the camera exposure level. Because UAV cameras all work automatically. It will adjust automatically the light according to the environment. This model can sometimes lead to take video brightness to change sharply, and affect the video effect. Obtained by manual regulation of exposure on the right side of the roller, it can avoid video brightness to change too violently under the some extreme environment. Xiaomi UAV has cancelled the function, but use the notification light to change the direction of the head of the Mi Drone.
How to use the Mi Drone Video Tutorial:
Some Photos Taken from the Mi Drone (full resolution):
Photos taken using Mi5 using the 4-Axis OIS while the Mi Drone is making its flight:
Conclusion:
Xiaomi has taken its first step into aerial voyage and its pretty not bad for a beginner, the Mi Drone is good for beginners and those who like to get a feel for flying drones without shelling out that much money. The 1080p camera is average for taking daylight video, and the remote is pretty easy to handle. Xiaomi focused a lot on safety where we had a hard time calibrating and locating no flight zone in order for this baby to take off. The FiMi App has a lot of rooms to improve as it is still very buggy especially concerning the GPS of the drone.
The 1080p is sold at 2499RMB and the 4K edition is set to debut at 2999RMB.
mi.com/miuav/
Stay Tunned as I visit beaches to try out the Mi Drone, will post the awesome videos once I get the job done.
Trivia: What animal does this look like?
Disclaimer: Please don't send me any PM regarding any type of sales related inquiries. I'm a Xiaomi enthusiast but not a seller of Mi Products. I'm just a hardcore Xiaomi Fan, one notch higher than many of you here. Also I'm a Tech Blogger in the Philippines and all my review devices are either bought by myself from Xiaomi or borrowed from someone for a short period of time.
MI Drone Extensive Review: Come Fly with MI!
