Xiaomi may be one of the companies that rocked the show floor with three new product announcements, however its partner YI has also put up its booth in The Venetian ballroom at CES 2017, and what I’ve found there is a new drone from the company. Not to be mistaken with its parent company, the YI Erida is the company’s very first drone and its a rather huge one, which is around the size of a DJI Inspire drone. The YI folks have assured me that the drone would be as stable as quadcopters due ot its three long propellers, and all thanks to its full carbon fiber body, the drone weighs 540g and will go fast as 120km/h with up to 40 minutes of flight time.
Developed together with Atlas Dynamics, the YI Erida drone is originally called the Erida Copter. Attached to its gimbal is technically a YI 4K Action Camera, which has a 12-megapixel Sony IMX377 sensor that records 4K footage at 30 frames per second, the Yi Erida will work in extreme temperatures from a range of -15-40 degree celsius. Like every other drones, you use your smartphone and tablet to control the drone airborne, which connects using either Wi-Fi or the drone controller’s wireless connection. The drone will also have 7 flying modes, including Follow, Random, Beam, Focus, Orbit, Freeflight and Mission, all of which can be used for work purposes rather than just being a toy drone.
In typical Xiaomi fashion, the YI Erida drone has no pricing and availability yet, and we doubt this drone will ever made it to markets out of the U.S, but let’s hope it will be competitively priced like the rest of the company’s products.