The PowerVision PowerEgg drone looks like an alien ship out of Arrival
The PowerVision PowerEgg shown off at CES 2018 is unlike any drone we’ve seen before.
If you’ve seen Denis Villeneuve’s excellent sci-fi film Arrival, you’ll be familiar with the eery pods in which the extraterrestrial visitors, ahem, arrive. They’re elongated egg-shaped vessels that stand like monoliths over the landscape and which also make weird noises.
Well, when enclosed, the PowerVision PowerEgg looks just like one of those. Things get a little more terrifying when it opens up to reveal its propeller arms and four legs. It goes from Arrival to looking like something from The War of the Worlds.
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It’s a huge departure from the standard quadcopter designs you may have seen from practically every other drone maker.
"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said. pic.twitter.com/RDbKoltDFZ
— Richard Easton (@chocojetpack) January 11, 2018
Once you look past its strange design, however, it does actually share many features of other drones. It can record up to 4K resolution video and has a 3-axis gimbal for stabilisation. The camera can stream its video in 720p to your paired smartphone and can transmit up to 5km away.
There’s a maximum flight speed of 46km/h and a flight time of around 23 minutes. Controls take the form of a standard twin-stick remote control or, more interestingly, the Maestro, which is designed to be used one-handed and looks a lot like an old Wii Nunchuk controller. The latter aims to simplify flight controls and also supports gestures.
The PowerEgg is available now for $1288.
Away from the skies, PowerVision was also showing off the PowerDolphin. This appears to be a more streamlined version of the PowerRay underwater drone I saw back at IFA. It’s capable of 4K video and will let you drag bait too. The PowerDolphin will cost $749 when it’s released in April.
Would you head for the hills if you saw a PowerEgg in the skies? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
