US$275 Anura Pocket Drone Mini-Drones getting smaller in the Year of the Robot Sheep

Need a Drone that can fit into your top pocket….and I mean LITERALLY in your top pocket? Become a paparazzi by spying on someone at a moment’s notice?

Then maybe the Kickstarter project by inventor Jacob Lam and his company Aericam called the Anura Pocket Drone is worth US$275 as started in the article “Spy on the fly with this pocket-size Drone”, published October 28, 2014 12:15 PM PDT by Michael Franco, CNET News and “Anura is a pocket-sized flying camera Drone you can take with you wherever you go”, published October 4, 2014 By Jason Hahn, Digital trends.

He's not new to the world of Drones, having founded a company called AeriCam that built a US$12,500 sexocopter (six rotors) that are used mostly in film-making.

The Anura Pocket Drone is smartphone small, with dimensions of 7.62 x 12.7 cm (3 x 5 in) and weighing only 113.40g (4 oz). With a flight range of some 18.29m to 27.43m (60 ft to 90 ft) it gets some 12 to 16 minutes worth of flight time on a single charge, which takes about 40 minutes via its included USB Cable.

Interestingly,  this Drone can take still photo or video with sound and stream them live via Wi-Fi Direct to your smartphone, be it Apple iPhone or Google Android, making this as must-have for the amateur spy.

Thus far inventor Jacob Lam and his company Aericam kickstarter campaign have garnered some 716 backers, who have pledged some US$147,509, far exceeding the targeted amount of US$100,000. Unfortunately, the Project was cancelled on Wednesday December 17th 2014 by the Aericam Team, as the manufacturer they’d secured for the product had backed out for reasons not specified.

Probably they and the manufacturer came under pressure to cancel the project, it would technically place military grade Drone and camera technology in the hands of the average citizen, making Drones as common as smartphones?

So he’s now turned his expertise in Drone design and 3D Printing to making Drones that are small enough to fit inside of your pocket and be controllable via smartphone in a regular customer’s hand. Albeit a lover of innovation myself, I somehow don’t see much good coming out of this.

US$275 Anura Pocket Drone - Why Mini-Drones getting smaller and inexpensive in the Year of the Robot Sheep

Please note that by no means is this the first mini Drone I've come across. The US$265 Zano mini-Drone is equally small as noted in my blog article entitled “US$265 Zano mini-Drone - Your personal Paparazzi shooting Videos and taking Selfies”.

An even more expensive option if the Pocket Drone that costs some US$495 as stated in the article “Pocket Drone: Collapsible, camera-toting copter costs $495”, published January 16, 2014 9:33 AM PST by Amanda Kooser, CNET News.

What’s' significant here is the fact that this Drone design is collapsible like the Airdog Drone as detailed in my blog article entitled “AirDog Personal Drone – Action Selfie-Drone with an attachment for a GoPro Camera”.

It’s also small and able to literally fit into your top pocket, having dimensions no bigger than a smartphone. The Anura Pocket Drone rotors neatly fold up into a 7.62 x 12.7 cm (3 x 5 in) inconspicuous smartphone sized brick.

This design is a significant innovation that suggests that Drones for commercial usage will potentially get smaller and interested individuals can hire fleets of mini Drones to be used for personal surveillance.

Suddenly those Americans who may be getting jobs in the future as Drone Pilots making some US$100,000 per year may not all be flying large model plane sized Drones as pointed out blog article entitled “FAA to allow Commercial Drones in 2015 - US$100,000 per year for 100,000 Drone Pilot jobs for the next five years”. Law Enforcement or even Newspapers may start hiring persons to remotely spy on people using mini-Drones that only cost US$275.

So albeit this is a leap in innovative design, I suspect we may not have seen how small or how low the price of mini-Drones that can be purchased by the consumer can really get and deliver the same quality images, video and sound like an expensive mini-military Drone. Mini-Drones, smaller and inexpensive, may be the new personal Robot, making 2015 potentially the year of the Robotic Sheep.