Xiaomi announces Mi Drone with 1080p and 4K recording

We had reported earlier that Xiaomi will be launching a drone camera system after company VP, Hugo Barra as well as India head Manu Jain sent out a teaser image with the date 25th May, and today we finally get to see the product which the company calls Mi Drone. While the official launch event is yet to begin, the official announcement has been made on the MIUI forums. The drone is said to have a compact lightweight body and it is made of carbon fibre. The on-board camera is a 12MP Sony BSI sensor with 6P lenses along with three-axis image stabilization and support for RAW image capture. There are two versions of the Mi Drone, a 1080p video recording and a 4K recording priced at 2,499 (Rs 27,000 approx) Yuan and 2,999 Yuan (Rs 32,000 approx) respectively. Xiaomi has announced that the Mi Drone will be available to order from 26 May but it is a crowd-funded project and the company will start delivering to buyers from July.

The remote control not only lets you fly the drone but also allows you to capture pictures and videos. It also offers features like auto take off, hover, return, descent and auto landing. The integrated antenna in the Drone’s PCB amplifies the signal offering a range of 3km. The Mi Drone’s position can be traced via GPS and in case it flies out of the connected range, it will automatically fly back to the original position where it took off.

The remote control provides a provision to dock your smartphone offering even more functionality including a live view and battery status of the Mi Drone. With the smartphone you can also set courses on a map to record a journey, set a centre point or provide a destination for the Drone reach. The Drone will stop if it enters a restricted area or detects any kind of collision. Other features include a 5,100mAH battery and it can fly for a continuous 27 minutes. The landing gear, camera and the blades can be removed so one can transport it easily in a bag.