Drones compete to be top dog in the R/C aisle by adding extra features, gaming, and more. by ALI MIERZEJEWSKI, senior editor WINTER IS COMING—WELL, AT LEAST FOR the toy industry, which is constantly looking forward to Q4—and toy manufacturers are always competing to provide the best products at the best price. Last year, we saw an influx of drones hit the market. A lot of companies were jumping on the trend, from traditional R/C companies to newcomers to the game that were importing in unknown brands. Retail shelves and online retailers were flooded with a variety of drones, making it a bit of a struggle for consumers to sift through all the options to find the one that suited their needs. This year, the R/C toy category is seeing a bit of a change in the form of fewer players and more features. The drone category is becoming an even tougher category in which to compete—kids and experienced fliers alike are both looking for more than just a quadcopter with a camera.
Not only are companies looking for new ways to innovate their drones, but they’re also looking to find ways to make the nuanc-
Air Hogs Connect: Mission Drone
es and technicalities of drone-flying more accessible to a wider audience. A lot of the added features are making drones semi-autonomous, allowing younger and more novice fliers the chance to get in on the action. “We're taking a different approach,” says Davin Sufer, chief technology officer, WowWee. “We want to make something that’s going to be fun to play with and interact with—and not just about learning to fly and having to get through that learning curve.” One feature you’ll see in several drones on the market this year is auto-hover. This allows the drone to sit and hover in the air at a designated height. Basically, it removes the pressure of having to fidget with the throttle to keep the drone steady at a consistent height. Eliminating the worry of crashing opens a whole new world of possibilities. DRONE RACING With new organizations, such as the Drone Racing League, gaining popularity, drone racing is becoming the hot new thing. It takes a lot of practice and preparation to be able to fly a drone from a first-person point of view (meaning the user feels like he or she is sitting in the cockpit instead of on the outside looking at the drone). “Those guys spend hours and hours and hours training their quads and learning how to fly them and calibrating them and doing all these things to make them work perfectly,” says Conor Forkan, global business unit lead for SpinMaster’s Air Hogs brand. “Your average person doesn’t really have the time or patience to do [that].” The Air Hogs Sentinel takes all of that frustration out of race-type flying. It puts
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the flier in the first-person point of view, just like the pros, but it’s also covered in sensors that will detect the obstacles first, and correct the flight pattern. “The Sentinel has obstacle avoidance, autonomous flight, a really high-definition camera, and a really wide-angle lens, so that I am able to fly it around inside a building, around corners, and through a detailed obstacle course, without having to have that much skill,” says Forkan. “I can just press full throttle on the gas, and it has sensors that are going to compensate.” Skyrocket Toys is also capitalizing on the drone racing trend with the newest addition to its Sky Viper drone line: the Hover Racer. The Hover Racer flies up to 20 mph while hovering 3 feet off the ground and has different modes for game play. Using the free app and infrared beacons, players can race and battle with up to four different Hover Racers, or play as a single player. It also has a Co-Pilot mode, in which two different smart devices connect to one Racer, so that friends without Hover Racers can also play. As players improve, they can unlock new capabilities, such as stronger weapons and better performance—equivalent to leveling up in a video game. “We say it’s where drones meet video games,” says Kristy Burns, vice president of marketing, Skyrocket Toys. “And that sort of connected play with R/C flying is absolutely where the category is going.” GAMER’S PARADISE In order to incorporate other video gametype play aside from racing, WowWee added beacon sensor techonology to its drone line this year, meaning the drone can sense the beacon and stay near it. This year, WowWee introduces flight to its REV line of battling artificial intelligence (AI)