Lily Camera Drone to refund customers as they “wind down the company”

Update 19/March/2016

Lily has announced it has “no official timeframe for refunds”and that the refund process will be run through Prime Clerk, the agency in charge of the company’s bankruptcy claim.

More importantly there is a new form to be filled out if you are waiting for a refund: here

More information on the Lily Robotics bankruptcy process can be found here.

The Lily Camera drone made the news in 2015 when they announced it as an “autonomous flying camera that combines GPS and computer vision technology to record stills and video of users autonomously via a wearable tracking device”.

The drone was also to be waterproof and boasted several unique (at the time) features all which lead to it quickly receiving over $34 million in pre-orders.

Unfortunately it seems the drone will not be making it to any of the hopeful customers, as Lily has announced they “are planning to wind down the company and offer refunds to customers”

Drone alternatives to Lily?

The big features of the Lily Camera were its portability, “follow me” mode and it’s IP6 waterproofing all for a relatively affordable price.

While “follow me mode” has made it into quite a few drones these days, for the rest you will probably have to compromise on features and possibly spend quite a bit more.

If the waterproof feature is important to you there are only a few options at the moment, like the very pricey Splash Drone Mariner II it also features follow me mode, however you will have to buy a GoPro separately and it lacks the portability aspect.

If the follow me mode and portability were the big draws for you, you can’t go wrong with the (also pricey) DJI Mavic Pro, though due to it’s popularity you might have to wait a bit to get yours.

A much more affordable alternative which is also relatively portable and has “follow me” mode is the Hubsan 501S Quadcopter, which was included as an extra in our Best Drones for Video Under $200 article.

Refund

There might be some silver lining if you are one of the disappointed customers now waiting for a refund, Lily have maintained from the outset that the “customer sales fund is entirely separate to their development and manufacturing fund” which if true would mean that the company should be able to issue full refunds to all pre-order customers.

Lily have stated in their press release that they:

..will be offering a refund to customers over the next 60 days. We will be initiating refunds to the payment card used for the original transaction (no action is required on your part; please allow 14 days for the refund to appear on your statement). If the card you used is expired, please fill out this form so we can work with you on providing a refund by other means (e.g., PayPal or check).

We hope everyone who pre-ordered get their money back in a timely manner, and if you are one of the 60K+ customers waiting for your refund, we recommend you keep an eye over the coming days as they release new information.