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All You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars Drones

Details and impressions by a drone expert after attending the global presentation event in Brussels.

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In mid-July Propel Star Wars hosted a presentation event for their new line of drones, with a strict information embargo linked to Force Friday and the greenlight to The Last Jedi promo. Expectations were high after their presentation from last year, when three small quadcopters were introduced, shaped as an X-wing, Tie fighter, and Endor Moon speeder bike, so we were excited for this year's event.

Before the event and after checking the Propel website, we were admittedly hoping for First-Person View drone combat, which involves usual drone racing using special goggles to receive video feed from an onboard camera. The FPV experience is totally different from the conventional Line of sight (LoS), and the level of immersion proves addictive. Add some lasers and Star Wars figurines on top of that and you'll have Futurama shut-up-and-take-my-money memes everywhere.

Unfortunately, this was not the case though. Overall, the product presentation and the event were great, but a bit of a letdown in terms of the evolution of this hobby. It felt more like a further step into a broader promotion and distribution effort in Europe of a good existing product (with a few new cool features, like the app simulator) rather than the presentation of a brand new concept.

THE COLLECTION

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The drones we were shown at the event were essentially evolved and tweaked versions of those already described on Propel's official website, presented in late 2016. By June 2016 the Millennium Falcon variant was still on the table, but it was discarded in the end.

The collection comprises of three small quadcopters (about 10cm, less than 100g) intended to fly indoors or in your backyard, parks, parking lots, etc. without much wind. All of these are based on the original trilogy, as you can see below:

All You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars DronesAll You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars DronesAll You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars Drones
74-Z SPEEDER BIKE, T-65 X-WING STARFIGHTER and TIE ADVANCED X1

Claimed Key features:
• Speeds up to 30mph (50km/h). Never mind it was claimed to be 35mph before, you won't notice the difference.
• Multiplayer game with other Propel Star Wars battling drones.
• Push button aerial stunts.
• Multiple speed settings for beginner to advanced pilots.
• Highly detailed, hand painted and numbered.
• Special edition collector's box with light up display case.
• Average run time: 8 min per battery. Two of them included.
• Training mode augmented flight training.

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It's important to note, though, that no matter where you live in the world, you shouldn't worry about the legislation to fly them, as to the authorities, they are just toys. Also, each of these drones is expected to retail at just under £200. Two batteries seems like not much at all, though, and are likely to be a bit pricey - if you're really into flying you'd better have around 8-10 of them. Right now, on the spare parts website, a battery is $10 USD, and £16 in the UK (similar off-the-shelf batteries shouldn't cost more than $5). They integrate and fit perfectly into each drone, which also means, for example, that your extra speeder bike battery is useless for your friend using the Tie, unfortunately.

THE EVENT

Brussels Docks Dome provided a great environment for Propel to show off, with four dedicated rooms; Technology, App, Q&A, and Battle, all aimed at different aspects of their products. Around 200 people were in attendance, mainly press, a few retailers and YouTubers, so splitting the crowd into four groups was crucial for a closer experience with the product, and also to get in touch with Propel staff. In the end Propel managed to let every one of us try a drone and the simulator at least once, which is still remarkable.

In essence, the underlying intention from Propel was clear: showing how easy their products are to fly, and how anyone without drone background could enjoy the experience. We think they made their point, as most of the people attending didn't have any piloting background and still did well (although most of them did feature certain gaming prowess).

All You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars DronesAll You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars DronesAll You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars Drones
All You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars DronesAll You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars DronesAll You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars Drones

The event started with an excellent one-hour presentation of the product in the main room by Propel CEO Darren Matloff and his Chief Pilot (now that's a job title), with a choreographed battle among Propel pilots as the finale. It was a shame that there was no direct presence from Disney in the event, or any major announcement concerning the film, even if we did see the trailer.

After the dedicated sessions, the most capable competitors in the Battle room continued in a series of classifying rounds up to the final. Unfortunately, we screwed up in the qualifying rounds... we're not great LoS pilots, our battery was low, it was dark and foggy, we lost a contact lens, we took an arrow on my knee, etc., so we stayed as humiliated spectators. The Force wasn't with us for this one.

THE DRONES

It would have been nice to return from Brussels with a drone to review in detail (or the three of them to check battles as well... sure, why not?) but we'll just sum up what we could experience during the event, and will provide you with a review after launch.

First of all, it's hard to tell the differences between each of the three models with respect to last year's ones, but from what we could gather during the technical conversations we can assume they may have been slightly refined in terms of motors, battery type/capacity, plastic molding etc. Anyway, they will appear exactly the same to the untrained eye, despite those tweaks and updates.

Overall, they're nicely-finished, quality products, as there's hand-painted plastic with a lot of care put into small details, which is extensive to all the elements within the box (including the box itself). Every feature contributes to an immersive LoS experience, and a real premium-product feeling, which is a great achievement for a plastic toy.

The box is still as awesome as it was presented before, with LED lighting and a different piece of Star Wars music every time you 'unbox' it. In the end, it's clear that the aim is at a great collector's product worth the price, even if you're not that into drones.

All You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars Drones

THE DRONES: The air vehicle

From a purely technical point of view, these drones offer a good compromise between performance and flight time. Flight times for drones are usually as phony as fuel consumption for cars, but we can confirm that a 10-minute flight was easily achieved without the need to be careful on the sticks. Propel has really nailed the design balance for powerful enough motors with sufficient battery capacity at a low enough weight. The last point is crucial, given all the 'dead weight' that comes from just decorative elements, and Propel bragged about very thin (0.4mm) injected plastic shell, that would be barely 2-3 layers on a 3D printer.

The motors are brushed, which is the standard technology for this size of quads, however, they're considerably larger than those in drones similar in size, and Propel staff commented that their design demanded this new 10mm diameter motors that we will be seeing soon in lots of cheap Chinese drones. To keep in mind: brushed motors wear out and if you fly a lot (without crashing too hard) you'll need to replace them eventually.

The overall durability is awesome, as we were expecting a much more fragile quad, based on experience. These quads withstood dozens of crashes without any damage other than the propellers getting bent or lost, though, and moreover, the floor was not particularly soft either. Even the parts that look more prone to break, such as the laser cannons on X-wing, are very flexible and difficult to break off. In case you succeed in doing this, they are sold as spare parts as well.

Patent pending Inverse propulsion (which are fancy words for just 'crystal clear propellers below') works well, and with little abstraction - you may believe that the props are not there and the models are truly hovering or flying in the void space. Keep in mind, however, that you'll need a flat, smooth surface to take off and land. Landing on grass, for example, may end up tangling and damaging your motors if not stopped in time (if automatic landing is used it shouldn't be a problem). It's worth mentioning that the airframe obstructs the airflow to the propellers a bit, especially in the case of the Tie Fighter, but we couldn't notice any lessened performance with respect to the other models. Perhaps it was a bigger issue for the Millennium Falcon.

At the end of the day, though, remember it's still a drone, and you can still manage to get scratches and tangled-hair (remember it's for ages 14 and up). You're also provided with ugly prop guards for further protection, which are really useful. As a side note, we also saw that newcomers to the drone world still found the high-pitched blade buzz as 'cheap'. We guess we're too used to it, but it may be true... after so much high-technology talk some people got a bit disappointed.

THE DRONES: Technology

The air vehicle is fine and beautiful, and it's Star Wars, but perhaps you still don't believe it's worth the asking price, so now we can start with some distinctive features proudly included in these drones.

Even if admittedly aimed at pro-piloting/competition, the major asset of Propel drones is their safety in terms of learning curve and use. That is, apart from brand new Simulator app (discussed later) the Training Mode allows for a very gentle approach to drone piloting.

First, it comprises automatic take-off and landing with one button. It also serves as an arm switch, so it's difficult to inadvertently spin the motors and cause any damage. In training mode, throttle stick controls direct height: from the ground (take off point) to a certain max altitude. Basically, this means that you can't crash land onto the ground, although you can still crash into obstacles or higher ground... you shouldn't expect obstacle avoidance in such a small drone.

Training mode defines a 'full virtual box' so you should never lose your drone when disoriented, which means it stops before you effectively send it to the moon. As a drawback, it's also true that you still need to learn more advanced height control for more aggressive piloting, and the initial tech aids could create bad habits in your handling.

The other interesting feature is what Propel calls Intelligent Awareness Technology, and unlike 'reverse propulsion', this does deserve being called a technology. With this, up to 48 signals can be transmitted and received at the same time: 24 combatants with their respective radio signals, Infrared or laser (LiFi) fire and hit detection, and bluetooth connection to present all the battle information.

There are three speed settings for beginner to advanced pilots. The more maneuverable mode could still appear a bit slow for advanced pilots, but it's not bad, however, a full manual/acrobatic mode is missing. The preset 'barrel roll' (quick roll) is pretty standard for cheap small quads, where you can even trigger a flip with the same ease.

There's no USB port to the flight controller either, which means that built-in firmware/software cannot be updated, although Propel commented that future versions might incorporate this.

THE DRONES: The controller

The radio transmitter feels really good, not at all like the standard PlayStation-esque cheap third party controller. In terms of size and weight it could be similar to that of a DJI phantom.

Depending on your country you could get a different standard, which is called MODE1 or MODE2. This isn't totally different from driving on the left or right side (here we drive on the right side, and we have MODE2: left stick is throttle and yaw, right stick is pitch and roll).

In terms of design, the controller matches the detail level found in the other elements - lots of Star Wars sounds and voices (only English, re-recorded for the occasion), vibration on the sticks, etc. These all contribute to improved immersion, especially with headphones on, and you can always turn everything off if it feels too unnerving.

There are two different controllers, depending on your model: rebel or imperial. The white controller comes with the X-Wing, whereas both the speeder bike and the Tie fighter get the black one.

All You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars DronesAll You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars Drones

THE FLIGHT TRAINING APP

Announced in late 2016, the simulator app is the major feature incorporated in Propel drones, available for both iOS and Android, and free to download. However, you'll need to link it to the Controller, so don't think of it as a mobile video game.

In essence, this app guides the rookie pilot through different tutorials and missions of increased difficulty, from hover control to full battle combat. Each mission can be completed with different grading, and it's recommended to achieve the Gold Medal in all of them. The app is said to be carefully designed to match the physical realism expected by Propel staff pilots, so mastering the simulator should be a true asset when getting into real drone flight.

We could only try the speeder on Endor's Moon, but it's likely that the other drones and different scenarios are available. We weren't able to check the latest missions with combat training, but we would not expect it to come anywhere close to say space battles in Battlefront.

The training box scenario is enough to practice, but don't expect a wipeout track either. Remember you're flying within Line of Sight, so it's unnatural to go very far away. It's also nice that the app also permits direct access to the spare parts site, so you can order more batteries or whatever you happen to break with great ease. And, unlike the drone firmware, the app is likely to be updated and improved over time.

BATTLE MODE

Last year's models already offered battle mode, so if you were lucky to find a friend with a second drone, you could engage in a laser drone dogfight. The rules are simple - three hits and you're done, your drone goes tumbling to the ground, with the drone shaking and crash landing when hit looking really convincing and cool.

InfraRed emitters and receivers on each drone enable the firing and hit detection, and the cool thing provided by the words IAT and Lifi is that the firing is not anonymous, so you get to know who hits who, and that information is available to everyone.

Infrared (invisible) emitters can be upgraded (at an additional cost of $40) to true lasers class-1, safe to the eyes, and visible in dark and smoky environments. The laser beam cone is more focused than the IR, so laser battles are aimed at pros, while IR is more gentle with rookies firing somewhere close to another drone and scoring a hit.

The development for battling is pretty good and we've not seen it before. We're used to drone races where both pilots and public find it difficult to really get the status of the event, which ends up being mostly boring for the audience (except for crashes), so it's remarkable how the IAT interconnects drones, transmitters, and smartphones to provide a real-time vision of the match. That is, at any point anyone can check who's winning and losing, the kills and points, etc.

D-sports? Not likely (for now)...

This time around, Propel made a big effort in presenting drone battle as the next big thing, beyond drone racing and esports, stadiums crowded to watch the World Drone Battle Championship, etc.

It may still be a vision, but hey, why not? We still don't envisage actual pro battles at this point, but must admit Propel has made a good (first) step towards fulfilling the vision. In our view, there are still a few things needed for it to work, such as more immersion, lack of advanced customisation, and a potentially chaotic 3v3 setup/broadcast though. Anyhow, battles are still fun and we'd love to see local communities appear and compete in small groups. Propel will try to empower this, supporting communities around the world.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Propel did emphasise their technological background and we can expect new technologies to be implemented. They showed us all the good things their product already has to offer, and the new ones, which are a few, but we still missed a big surprise, as if this time Propel was holding the handbrake for greater upgrades just to keep up with the schedule and market constraints.

We learned from the pilots that FPV prototypes did exist: the Stormtrooper on the speeder bike was replaced by the camera, and the Tie fighter would look awesome with the cockpit grid on display with the camera inside. Likely, Disney concerns over 'toys with cameras' may have been a big hurdle, but they'll have to conceal them in the end. Oh, and the Millennium Falcon (at first presented as a fourth option) may return, as a larger high-performance drone, closer to the racing models.

All in all, Propel's drones are good products that could sell out just as collectors' items, but they are also pretty good drones. Probably unmatched in their category, with the Star Wars factor and a reasonable price point. So far it is unlikely that Propel will fulfill its grand vision of what they called new gaming era, but we should keep an eye on them for interesting future developments on the matter.

All You Need to Know: The new Propel Star Wars Drones


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