Click through to the Indiegogo page for the delayed Lily drone and this is what you will find

“Lily : The World’s First Throw-and-Shoot Camera” is under review by the Trust & Safety team.

Check back later or contact us if you have concerns.

This will probably not come as a surprise to you dear sUAS News reader, you are here so are discerning! I must admit I thought Lily was doing its own, pre order rather than traditional crowdfunding. Indiegogo still has the page up and although I have reached out to them no comments are so far forthcoming.

In May 2015 Lily CEO Antoine Balaresque told Berkeley Innovators that “The great thing about pre-sale vs. crowdfunding is that you can get to know your users much better,”

So I am not at all sure where the Indiegogo link is coming from.

An update 1900 GMT from Kelly Coyne PR for Lily

The official Lily Camera is available for pre-order exclusively from our website, www.lily.camera. We did not partner with any crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo or Kickstarter for our pre-order campaign. Several months ago, a fake page popped up on Indiegogo. We have been in touch with Indiegogo regarding this, and they are actively investigating the fraudulent campaign. There is no connection between our company and this Indiegogo account. Since our pre-order launch in May 2015, several fake websites have popped up, including one with claims to sell Lily stock. We ask all current and future Lily customers to not attempt to purchase any product (or stock) from anywhere other than www.lily.camera.

I think Lily will firmly go down in history as over promising and under delivering. The last time I wrote about it I asked if they could pop one along to Patrick in Sacramento, our office is near the river so we could try out the waterproof bit. So far no joy on that one.

Their 23rd May 2016 blog update rang big alarm bells. In it they talk about sonar integration.

Squinting in the Sun

We’ve also got sonar sensor testing in heavy rotation this week, making serious strides on the firmware integration. The sonar sensor is one of many housed within the Lily Camera, each responsible for a very specific task in flight. The sonar sensor’s job is to detect your Lily Camera’s distance from the ground, always maintaining a three meter minimum while in flight. As this sensor must be able to perform in a vast variety of environments, we’ve been putting it to the test across all types of terrain.

First off, the sonar is in the camera area, I guess that’s them either side of it in the image above. Explains why I am not seeing anything on the bottom where I would expect them and that they are waterproof in there.

But the most important point, they are just testing the sonar! This is one of the very hard bits!

Just three weeks ago I wondered if they would be able to compete with a slew of follow me drones coming out of China.



