hover-camera-drone 5d4f

A culture where everyone is always being filmed, always able to share their most intimate moments at the push of a button, is coming.

Consumer drones have exploded in popularity in recent years. These flying camera computers have the ability to detect faces, follow people around, fly on their own, land safely, and perform all sorts of cinematic tricks that used to require helicopters, cranes, steady hands, and lots of patience. And the prices are falling all the time: DJI’s Phantom 4 drone costs $1,100 and can avoid objects while tracking moving objects at over 25mph. And a new drone, from Chinese startup Hover Camera, aims to be the first affordable drone to normalize constant filming—like a pet paparazzo that can track your every move.

The Hover Camera is novel in that it’s exceedingly compact, and doesn’t look like some alien structure, flashing with lights and odd vestigial legs as it flies. In fact, it’s just a black rectangle, similar to an old VHS tape in form and size. The Hover also has a plastic mesh encasing for its propellors, meaning you can safely fly the drone inside, and even grab it while it’s flying. You could bump it into people or objects and not hurt them.

hover-camera-drone 4d4f

Folds away neatly. (Hover Camera)

The drone also doesn’t require any arduous setup like many consumer drones on the market tend to. You just charge the batteries, download the app, connect to its wifi network, and you’re set. You press the power button once to turn it on, and once more to make it hover, and you now have a flying camera that can track you with its 13-megapixel sensor, capturing your essence in 4K.

Link: Quartz