Kudrone drone – real deal or scam?
Kudrone drone is a highly hyped chineese new drone. With a fundraising on the idiegogo?https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kudrone-4k-camera-nano-drone-with-gps-auto-follow-drone.?$1,171,903?USD raised by 9344 backers (2344%?over the initial goal of $50,000) and only a few days let for this campaign.
Why it may be scam?
- It can not fly for 8 min on 650mAh battery. At least not with a weight of 85g. Not a brushed motor with a direct drive propeller.
- 4K video encondig and simultaneously processing a 720P video stream over WiFi requires a lot of processing power, this would require a lot of current from battery and flight time would be even more limited.
- Look at the “stable” flying demonstration of this drone. Not even near to the GPS or baro assisted flight:
- A video demonstrating some video supposedly shot with drone, but it looks like made with phone camera while holding it by hand and, of course, not a 4K:
Some indoor flight footage:
As you can see – no real sample of on board camera recording. Why? – think yourself.
UPDATE 2017-04-13: Kudrone posted another “testing” video with so called “2.7K@30FPS” video. It was shot with some device, clearly not the drone and the resolution is only 1080P.
Why it may be real deal?
Kudrone released video showing some fab with manufacturing process. Some shots include molding process of kudrone plastic frame. Other shots show some flight controller assembly works.
Lets look at the still shot of the main board (flight controller). We can see the top side of the controller where we find four mosfets for driving four brushed motors, posssibly a gyro on the top part and a baromether chip. So at least this drone should have altitude hold feature. No GPS or sonar sensors seen. Unfortunately we dont have any pictures of the lower part of the main board so it is unclear what main CPU it uses.
My verdict so far (2017-04-12): While this Kudrone drone can be actualy produced, it will no way have all declared features. There is no way to have 8 min flight time with 85g of weight. There is no possibility that this drone can do 4K 30fps video and of course no 720P livestream. No way to have “Precision vision positioning”. Most likely no GPS also.? Withour these features this drone would be worth not more than $50.
Update 2017-09-26: Buers start to receive their little drones. And so far we can see only a few unboxing videos on Youtube. Look at the one user’s video below – terribly shaky actual flight footage (descending on the 2:30):
Another user is protecting himself with a towel from the unexpected Kudrone drone behavior. Very funny (or sad) ??
Users shouldn’t be happy with the results ….
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About Author
I am one of the early birds who ordered Kudrone. As of early September, Kudrone finally started to ship its few thousand Kudrone drones to its supoorters, according to the e-mail that I received directly from Kudrone. Until I received mine, in about two weeks, proving that Kudrone is NOT a SCAM.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that Kudrone can be actually manufactured, but it most likely will not meet all the expectations. We will probably find out that 4K video has no full FPS as expected. It would be enough to have decent 1080p 30FPS, instead of higher resolution.
Maybe Kudrone is not a Scam but their customer service is as shitty as hell. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to buy this. Mine is not hovering up straight. I wasted 100 bucks.
Thanks for your comment. I’m really sorry for this unfortunate purchase you have made! It is really difficult to make a stable and self controlled hovering aircraft of this size and using brushed (not geared) motors. Thats why we are saying, that this whole crowdfunding campaign was a scam because most of the customers will not get what they expected. While Kudrone can fly it is far from satisfactory.
It can be, if you have never flown any othe quadcopter, then maybe you will find Kudrone performing good enough…
Agree–not a scam–technically. But my batteries don’t charge properly using the “early-bird” 3-battery charging bay. My drone won’t lift off (says GPS not connected and won’t fly without it). So yeah, I suppose they technically made it but what a piece of crap.
Thanks for your comment and for your confirmation of poor performace of this (k)drone. I hope kudrone will come out with decently working app sooner or later. So far their product looks totaly unfinished.
October 28, 2017. Have not received my Kudrone ordered in March, 2017. Kudrone keeps saying that my order will be shipped out “next week” but they have yet to even provide a real tracking number. They did provide a tracking number several weeks ago but that number was no found in “Track my shipment” website. Kudrone appears to have assigned answering customer inquiries to someone who does not read English as they just have a different stock answer that changes weekly.
SEEING HOW POORLY THEY HAVE DONE SO FAR I’M EXPECTING ANY PRODUCT, IF IT EVER GETS DELIVERED, TO BE AS WORTHLESS AS THEIR REPLIES.
I have my Kudrone – the video is a bit shaky and doesn’t like the wind at all, but works OK. Haven’t tried out Follow Me, etc as I haven’t got a GPS to work yet (but bad location). Will try in the park to see it working fully.
FYI: I have completed the firmware and camera updates, and am using the latest update of the iOS app. I have also done the calibration.
It looks like it is your first drone. When you have a DJI, Yuneec you will see the difference.
piece of junk. kind of worked one day, the next day it won’t fly unless it’s calibrated and it won’t calibrate – no reset, uninstall and reinstall app doesn’t work, this thing is now a doorstop with blinky lights. No customer service to speak of.
I bought this drone because of the weight is less than 250 grams and It is not required to make a registration (FAA). After many problems, lies and ridicules excuses, finally the KU drone arrived and How TERRIBLE PRODUCT this DRONE is…! It is extremely unstable, It looks like the sensors don’t work. Since the first flight It got lost because does not hold altitude, GPS sensor may it is not installed, It goes where ever and you cannot control it and bad quality video and camera. I have already updated all versions of software, firmware and the same..! THIS IS A SCAM… SERIOUSLY. And the worst, They don’t want return the money. This Chinese company made more than 1 million dollars and after reading this news and watching the videos I can see they were not prepared to make a least an acceptable drone. Buy DJI or Yuneec Breeze it is less than $200 US.
SCAM………..do not buy……never has worked, customer service is $hitty at best
Yes, I was skeptic about this drone from the start. It just couldn’t be so good as it was advertised. Those pre-release fake camera videos were quite amusing though.
Hi all, i just got my kudrone and i did all but cannot connect it to wifi. Please someone can help me what to do? What is the procedure?
I read and followed all usermanual and app setting but all i did finally faild to connect.
I have samasong 7 mobile. Android.
Thank you
I changed my cell phone. I found the kudrone app, looking for kudrone. Apk and installed it. It opens more, there is no way to login. Does anyone know how to solve this problem. Thank you, comments pleace to oscarlucca@gmail.com