Last week, the DJI Spark camera drone started shipping to excited new consumers everywhere, helping to fuel what is expected to be a $2 billion year for personal drones. And this market is expected to double within 3 years.
We mention the Spark drone specifically because until now, DJI has not developed a simple, entry level consumer drone.
China’s DJI Global has literally cornered the drone market by simultaneously serving both Hollywood and commercial drone operators with advanced drones like the Inspire and Matrice series as well as aspiring recreational videographers with the Phantom and Mavic Series drones.
Now that thousands of DJI Spark drones started shipping earlier this month, that’s about to change.
The advent of affordable, gesture-controlled drones (like the Spark) has exploded the consumer drone community into the millions, but processing, managing and sharing drone video continues to be the biggest hurdle for the average person.
Anyone who has spent time in the online drone forums is aware how many recreational drone users are struggling to process higher quality video on that are under powered PCs and laptops. And as Dragonfly tells us, “Point solutions such as mobile editing apps, storage appliances, and cloud-based file syncing services create a disjointed, frustrating and expensive experience.”
Dragonfly is the first and only app that provides an end-to-end video solution that can be used by everyone.
How Dragonfly Works
In simplest terms, Dragonfly transfers video from a drone to a phone immediately after it’s flight without removing the memory card. Your phone then transfers this video to the cloud (in background!) the next time it connects to Wifi.
What features can you expect from Dragonfly?
Likely more than you expect. Inside the Dragonfly app you’ll have access to:
- Automatic organization of video on the map and in filtered galleries
- Engaging emotion reactions to highlight important moments with the need for editing
- Automatic video mixes that are easily shared to social media, text, or saved to the phone
- Permanent backup and disaster recovery
- Transcoding of video for optimal mobile viewing and sharing
- Original high resolution files available for editing or streaming to a television
DJI Spark - Web based uploader for rapid transfer of existing video to the Dragonfly cloud
As Memery co-CEO and Founder Chris Morace says, “products like the DJI Spark…have created a tremendous demand for a simple way to easily organize and enjoy drone video. Dragonfly offers a gorgeous experience and unprecendented ease of use– if you know how to plug in your phone and launch an app then you’re ready to go.”
With an abundance of apps, too many sometimes to chose from, what makes Memery’s Dragonfly app different?
Well, along with the launch of the Dragonfly app, we’ve learned that former DJI executive Darren Liccardo has joined Memery’s advisory board. If you haven’t heard of Darren, he’s run DJI’s innovation team in Palo Alto for the last three years. Prior to that he was the director of autopilot engineering at Tesla Motors.
We’ll let you take a moment to digest that last paragraph.
And Memery, the global leader in location-based video apps, is dedicated to making it effortless for everyone to appreciate and enjoy the action in their lives as it’s captured across multiple device.
Memery is backed by notable investors such as Ron Conway and current and former executives of Google, Facebook, Snap, Twitter, and Jive. That’s a deep bench.
Because we got a sneak peek of Memery’s Dragonfly app ahead of our Spark shipment we can’t wait to try it out. And we’ll be sure to give you the full rundown of all of it’s features.
Dragonfly launches for free today in the US Apple App store. Account costs for backup & storage are:
- 10 GB – Free
- 50 GB – $1.49 if purchased in July (regularly $2.99)
- 300 GB – $9.99 if purchased in July (regularly $12.99)
- 1 TB – $29.99 if purchased in July (regularly $39.99)
Dragonfly is compatible with the DJI Spark, Mavic, Phantom 3 Series, Phantom 4 Series and Inspire Series drones.
During July Dragonfly is promoting it’s launch with several contests, discounts and sweepstakes:
- New accounts in July qualify for chance to win a DJI Spark drone
- “Most Moving Video” contest to win DJI Goggles
- “Best Video on Dragonfly” to win a DJI Mavic
Full details on the Dragonfly app, features, and contests are available the the launch site and here.