TEST: Eachine E57, the slim WiFi toyquadcopter

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

The Eachine E57 represents the last compact WiFi toyquadcopter from Eachine. In the menu, a machine ultra slim, super easy to transport/pack with new system to folding system and a 720p WiFi link. The E57 can be controlled with the provided radio or via the dedicaced “Eachine fly” Appz via a 2.4G WiFI link. Let’s have a quick tour of this product.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x Eachine E57 (with a builtin 250mAh 1S)
+ 1 x Transmitter (using 2xAAA batteries not included)
+ 1 x USB charging cable
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 1 x Prop remover wrench
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

OVERVIEW

The general shape is an H struture with a super slim height dimension…. less than 1cm, i.e. 9.2mm to be precise. Everything is plastic based. The general quality of the plastic is in the average… not too hard minimizing the risk of massive cracks during a crash.

A 100mm machine unfolded

-FRONT VIEW
A super tiny M5 lens can be guessed on front. Latterally, two small blue lights are here…. Beyond, 10m there are not super visible to distinguish between front to the rear.

-SIDE VIEW
The trick to unfold the machine is the press the two latteral push buttons… and in a fraction of second, thanks to some tiny springs.

-REAR VIEW

Two small red lights . When flashing slowly, they indicate the LVC alarm.

-UPPER VIEW

The unique port, a small DC plug to charge the builtin battery.

-BOTTOM VIEW
Through the central section, we can guess the buitin battery…. No possibility to remove it to swap for a new fresh one…. A real pity. You will have to wait 30min before another flight attempt …

-WEIGHT
36.2g only for the quadcopter including the LiPo… relatively light…

The transmitter is also super light.

Motors and props

Some 7mmx20mm coreless brushed motors. No specific RPM mentionned.

38mm props… with large section. The same type of props we can find for some nanoquadcopter like the UDI Skulldrone.

Camera module

What a tiny lens thread !!!! a M5 format … Clearly impossible to find a lens with wider FOV with such super tiny dimension … The camera got a fixed orientation angle. No possibility to set it to a positive angle for example

With such tiny pinhole lens, don’t expect a FOV larger than 70 degrees… For indoors applications, it’s super hard to fly FPV with such narrow FOV …..

Transmitter

A super slim transmitter is given. Here no classic stick gimbals but some super flat model to be manipuled only with thumbs. So you can be in troubles if you are a “pincher”.

The classic flight modes are here: headless and “one key to somewhere” …. Only two speed modes are proposed while via the Appz, three can be selected. Be aware, if you want to control the machine via the radio, you will need first to bind the E57 with the transmitter before to connect the machine to your smartphone via WiFI. There is no smartphone/tablet builtin holder …. so no possibility to carry your favorite WiFi device …

Two AAA batteries to find the transmitter. NiMh models are working.

Here we have 2-in-1 MCU+RFchip…. It will be super hard to hack the radio protocol. Unfortunatly, I was not able to bind the E57 with another transmitter.

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS AND DEMO FLIGHT

The “Eachine fly” Appz must be installed if you want to enjoy the FPV WIFi feedback. It’s the same application used for the E56. Anyway, the E56 radio can’t control the E57 and vise and versa… so probably there are some minor difference in the RF protocol.

The first thing is too bind the transmitter with the quadcopter by pressing up & down the throttle stick. When done, you should see solid the blue & red lights of the E57. In term of radio link, no problem within a radius of 30m. I don’t advise to go further with this machine. For the FPV link, the frame rate don’t exceed 15fps even at close distance and the latency is a minimum of 0.3s. Of course versus time, the frame rate decreases with sporadic some video freezings. The FPV feedback is good, we have a real 720p feedback where colors are relatively well rendered. Aynway, the light sensitivity is correct but very far to reach the best performances from other CMOS cameras. For example, if your target the sun, you will see a black hole. In term of flight caracteristics…. the yaw control is “touchy” in expert mode….. The more problematic is strange behaviour of the altitude hold. As soon as, a small breeze is here…. you can see your machine going down or up with non-negeagable altitude deviation. Indoors the situation is improved. video recordings are more stable.

Another problem is the lack of powerlift in general. For example, after a 360 degrees flips, the machine loose 3-4m of altitude…… The vertical climb rate is slow….. The machine looses also altitude after a yaw turn….. At the end of the flight, the 7mmx20mm motors are warm… sign of the stress associated with the extraload. Finally the 36g machine is paradoxally too heavy for these type of motor/prop combo. In term of video recording, outdoors despite the altitude hold, the lack of power will produce some a bit tembling videos…. More in presence of wind, it’s not obvious to shoot/focus precisely on your desired scene. At the end of the battery duration, we can notice some suddenly altitude losts, probably linked with a battery with poor discharge performances. The flight time is about 4min in average.

CONCLUSIONS

Far to be the best Eachine WiFI quadcopter …. Despite being super compact and with a good FPV feedback, the motors’s weakness is major negative point… The E57 must be almost only used indoors to have stabilized flights. Outdoors, the machine can drift (a lot) in presence of wind… and shooting videos of a specific scene is not obvious.

PROS

+ Super slim
+ Original folding system
+ Good 720P WiFi link
+ Super transportable

CONS

– No removable LiPo
– Lack of power
– YaQwNFoV (Yet another Quadcopter with Narrow Field of View)
– YaP (Yet another Protocol)
– Deviation in altitude hold especially outdoors
– No possibility to attach a smartphone/tablet to the transmitter.

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 41USD at https://www.banggood.com/Eachine-E57-WiFi-FPV-Selfie-Drone-With-720P-HD-Camera-Auto-Foldable-Arm-Altitude-Hold-RC-Quadcopter-p-1196592.html

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