TEST: AirSelfie E03

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

More and more selfie are or will enter into the market. They target customers who want to shoot in a fraction of seconds a high quality video without being a great drone pilot. After the zerotech dobby, a lot of emerged in the market. Here is a new candidate even more smaller, lighter and compact, i.e. the AirSelfie E03, a 61g brushless machine with a builtin 1080p@30fps camera and controlled via WiFi with a smartphone or tablet. The machine design is based on a ducted system to avoid any accident. The big open question, is this machine stable enough to shoot good videos ? Let’s discover this new candidate.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x AirSelfie E03 (with a 2S 250mAh builtin LiPo)
+ 1 x Powerbank
+ 1 x USB charging cable
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

OVERVIEW

The general design is a reactangular machine with anodized aluminium material. Brushless motors are jailed into the structure, avoiding any potential accident. Props fot 6 blades and with the ducted system we have a mini-EDF turbine boosting powerlift capacity. When we take the machine in hand the first, we are surprize how light this machine is…. The general dimensions are also very small and the smaller a machine is, hardest is the stabilization job. Especially the left-right distance between two motors is even more shorter…

30mm props…

-FRONT VIEW
The machine comes with an extra rubber belt protecting much better the machine from crash on hard surfaces. This belt is super easy to remove or to install.

The 1080p camera is install centrally. A pinhole lens thread will offer a relatively limited Fielf Of View less than 90 degrees in practice.

-SIDE VIEW

-REAR VIEW

A microUSB port to charge the builin LiPo. It takes approximatively 30-40min to charge the 240mAh LiPo… It’s long. When the machine is turned on, you can grab all recorded photos/videos stored into the 4GB builtin memory.

-UPPER VIEW

-BOTTOM VIEW

A super compact camera for Visual positionning coupled with a Sonar/ultra sound device. This system will be used for take off and landing. In practice, when you arm the machine via the slider of the Appz, the machine won’t take off standalone. You will need to toss it in the air. As soon as the ultrasonic don’t detect anymore the presence of your palm, motors will spin faster to hover in place.

-WEIGHT
61.3g standalone … it’s relatively light for a brushless machine with a 2S LiPo.

Motors

Super compact brushless motors, probably some 0703 or 0705 model.

Camera module

A raw indoors video sample

Power bank

I received the AirSelfie wuth the 12600mAh powerbank, very usefull to charge the machine anywhere a couple of time.

Notice, you will need to remove the rubber belt to insert correctly the machine into the bank.

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS AND DEMO FLIGHT

The machine is controlled with a 2.4G WiFi on a couple of meters. You can find easily the appz “AirSelfie” in Google play or iOS market The WiFi connexion is done with WPA2 security. The password is the last part of the SSID. No possibility to change the password.

The App offers three way to control the machne, a beginner way, a selfie way… and more classic The first two try to control the machine with only hand. Whatever the way to control the machine you selected, the interface, offer a live preview of the camera in VGA format without any EIS. The camera recording as well as a power off icons are here. The power off will stop immediatly the machine. When the recording is turned on, the icon turns into red color but no time code associated with. Little surprize when the recording starts, the live preview becomes in 720p and a small electronic stabilizatin seems to be active too limiting defacto even more the FOV.

As soon as the take off slider is moved to the right, engine will start only and if only your palm was well horizontal. You will need to toss the machine in the air for a complete hovering. First remark the machine is Noisy :(… no miracle with such prop system and dimensions. Even indoors, the machine is not super stable…. The altitude stabilization far to efficient…. and I found the machine not super stable even for hovering. Probably some better PIDs can help to fix this situation… but I think the general problem comes from the design… motors are too close each other. Designers wanted a safe and compact machine but as results, it’s unstable. By consequence, despite the presence of a small EIS, videos are not stable… There are some large mouvenments on them. It’s not acceptable for a selfie drone. What a pity since the recorded video quality is relatiively good for such micro sensor. Light sensitivity is correct and no frame are lost. Maybe a firmware update can improve stability results. Another super disappointing point is the flight duration… 2min. After 1min 55, a warning message appears … and in practice 5s later, the machine engages an autolanding… It’s crap. I reget the absence of the battery voltage display in the main interface.

CONCLUSIONS

To make short, avoid this machine. I don’t see really any positive argument for it: short fligt time, super unstable videos even indoors, noisy… no advanced specific selfie drone modes. Some toyquadcopters can produce almost as good videos for a fifth of the AirSelfie E03 price. The problem of the AirSelfie is the design…. A safe compact brushless machine with EDF system is not compatible with a stable machine.

PROS

+ 1080p@30fps without any frame lost
+ Powerbank

CONS

– 2min of flight time
– Super unstable recorded videos even indoors
– Noisy
– No advanced flight modes: POI, selfie
– Long to charge (> 30min)
– No battery voltage indication in the GUI
– Not wind resistant

This quadcopter have been courtesy provided by Banggood in order to make a fair and not biased review. I would like to thank them for this attitude.
You can find it actually for 250USD at https://www.banggood.com/AirSelfie-E03-WiFi-FPV-5MP-HD-Camera-Selfie-Drone-With-Power-Bank-Brushless-RC-Quadcopter-p-1175119.html

Cet article TEST: AirSelfie E03 est apparu en premier sur Drone-Maniac !!!!!!!.

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