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back to article French drone bods Parrot wheel out 'prosumer' division

French professional drone firm Parrot says it will expand into the "prosumer" market – after laying off almost 300 staff and abandoning the consumer market. The new Parrot Professional business unit will offer drones priced between $1,000 and $5,000, according to Recode, as opposed to its usual offerings of around $11,000. …

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  1. Your alien overlord - fear me

    If only they had a camera drone overhead to see the bigger picture - drones were a passing fad with consumers.

    1 3 Reply
    1. AMBxx Silver badge
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      If all they're aiming for is 10 percent growth, looks like drones are a passing fad for 'prosumers' too.

      2 0 Reply
    2. AndyS
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      > drones were a passing fad with consumers

      Wow, there's a statement.

      Reminds me of some other statements: "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." or "nobody will ever need more than 640k of ram"

      Fact is DJI is doing extremely well, and other competitors are struggling to keep up.

      4 0 Reply
      1. Dave 126 Silver badge
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        > drones were a passing fad with consumers

        Read the source article. Parrot do well serving the agricultural and construction industries with drones costing in excess of $10k, whereas DJI lean more towards cinematography. This new range of Parrot drones include a model for 3D mapping of the landscape, and another for thermal imaging.

        Tools that save you money are not fads.

        0 0 Reply
  2. Jonathan 27

    DJI is eating their lunch. No one is talking about Parrots products because they're being outperformed on every level.

    5 0 Reply
    1. Chris King
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      True - but is anyone doing stuff like this with DJI's ?

      (And it's still less robotic than Stallone was !)

      0 0 Reply
  3. Mike Moyle

    Right...!

    Who's organizing the pool for when the first "This... Is An Ex-Parrot!" headline appears on El Reg?

    9 0 Reply
  4. Haku
    Facepalm

    On the subject of remote controlled flying things, I was watching a recent episode of Scorpion - hey I know what I'm getting into with that show & its Hollywood science but this time it really took the piss - they were trying to catch a falling space craft module by remote piloting a helicopter up to 5,280 feet (1 mile), then let it fall straight down next to the module and grab it with a robot arm...

    No that wasn't my "Seriously??" moment, get this. they lost connection to the helicopter so Happy swapped the dead batteries in the transmitter (which didn't even have its telescopic antenna extended) for new ones - 2 AA's... THAT was it, because the only RC controllers I have that take 2 AA's are for micro quadcopters and the transmitter has a range of 100 feet with luck, not even close to the 5,280 feet the tv helicopter went up to.

    Yeah yeah yeah, get out more, I will as soon as my big quadcopter batteries are charged ;)

    1 0 Reply
    1. Patched Out
      Reply Icon

      Doh! Moment

      I didn't catch the battery sizing issue, BUT I couldn't believe these "geniuses" didn't think to put fresh batteries into this mission essential equipment!

      2 0 Reply
      1. werdsmith Silver badge
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        Re: Doh! Moment

        And they were able to re-bind?

        0 0 Reply
        1. Haku
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          Re: Doh! Moment

          It looked like the transmitter was pre-2.4ghz era, indicated by the telescopic antenna, so no binding necessary.

          0 0 Reply

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