Ask Lemmy

Hey sorry about my late reply.

The one you linked from Amazon seems like a decent one for a child around her age. Not too complicated but you bring up a good point about the smartphone aspect of it that I had forgotten.

You likely would want to avoid any of these that require a smartphone to use especially since they’re coming from China and not something you may be fond of having on your phone. Additionally, and this could go one of two ways, it will require the use of a smartphone to use the drone for her which has a pro and con depending on how you look at it.

Pro that she can’t just up and take the drone out flying on her own whenever she pleases which you may want that control. Con that it will require her to use your phone any time she wants to go along with it.

Additionally, I don’t like this because over time, those apps can be lost to time whether it be it’s no longer available for download or lost to which app you need because you no longer have the manual to know which app was required. But you do have that same thing happening to a physical controller, so it’s up to preference on that.

As to the durability…I actually have to say that for the cheaper toy drones like the way you linked, they often can take quite a beating that my more expensive, more hobby adult drones cannot handle. Most of these cheaper toys are made of plastic but unibody design and most often will have guards around the propellers which can help protect them if bumping into walls or other obstacles like trees. My first cheap toy drone was like this and handled a lot of abuse from my first few flights of learning how to fly.

The more expensive ones can be prone to more breakage, but the trade off is that this is because those pieces were designed to be removed and replaced, so repairability is a thing. Just know that on the one you shared, it doesn’t seem to have prop guards which could be a problem here and you may want to see if you can find one that does have propeller guards so when she inevitably hits a tree or a wall (it will happen), the chances of the propellers being destroyed is much less than with this design where the propellers are exposed.

Which brings me to another point of safety…the more expensive drone propellers can take a finger or at least do some serious damage requiring an ER visit if you were to stick your finger in while the propellers are turning. The toy drones have less of a chance of this but the risk of injury is still there. Having the propeller guards can help to avoid this for children so they’re less likely to be injured in this or similar ways.

The cheaper toys are not designed in the same way. If the propeller gets damaged, then there’s not much hope in getting a replacement, sorry to say.

You could think of it as comparing a life size car on the road to a Power Wheels car made for children. The kids car can withstand hitting a tree at its highest speed whereas an adult car cannot. But if heavily damaged, you can replace and repair much of the adult car but can’t with the child’s Power Wheels car.

As to your last question…Im unsure about open source boards that could handle that, but it’s possible. I do believe that Hollywood movie studios utilize quadcopters that have the capability like you’re describing, where you can control the drone and the camera separately, but not aware of any consumer or open source drones that can do that.

But this hobby is very unique and new things happen every day, so never say never.