Nixie (drone)

Nixie
Nixie concept rendering (2014)
Developer Christoph Kohstall, Jelena Jovanovic, Michael Niedermayr[1][2][3][4][5]
Type Wearable camera drone
Release date Unknown[6]
Introductory price "Slightly higher than GoPro" (expected)[5][7]
CPU Intel Edison chip[4]
Graphics 1080p HD images and video[2][5][8]
Weight < 45 g (0.1 lb)[2]
Website www.flynixie.com

Nixie is a small camera-equipped drone that can be worn as a wrist band.[1][3][9] Nixie can be activated to unfold into a quadcopter, fly in one of its pre-programmed modes to take photos or a video, and then return to the user.[2] Competing against more than 500 other participants,[4] Nixie's developers became the winning team in the development track of the Intel's Make It Wearable competition on November 3, 2014, thus securing $500,000 in seed funding to develop Nixie into a product.[5][10][11][12][13] The developers stated their goal to develop the drone into the next generation of point-and-shoot cameras.[12]

As of March 2016, the device was in development and was not commercially available.[6]

Features

Nixie is a drone that unfolds into a quadcopter and is worn as a slap bracelet.[14] It weighs < 45 g (0.1 lb), captures full HD images or video, and syncs with a smartphone.[2][8] The drone uses an Intel Edison chip.[4] In October 2014, Nixie prototypes had good functionality, but lacked durability and design perfection.[1][2][15] At that time, an important engineering challenge was to identify flexible, light, and durable materials to achieve the look of concept renderings.[2][14] In November 2014, an updated prototype added image recognition capabilities to identify the user,[7] and the primary goals were improving propellers, motors, and object navigation.[10] The overall goal for the project was stated as building a light, portable, and user-friendly drone that could serve as a "personal photographer".[2] Accordingly, the drone was named after a playful water spirit Nixie of Germanic mythology.[9] In the media, Nixie has been described as a "wearable selfie drone"[9] and as a "wearable camera drone",[10] with such images being nicknamed "dronies". The developers emphasized that Nixie is intended for taking framing-worthy pictures and videos, not only selfies.[7]

Applications

Prototype of the drone flown by Christoph Kohstall (2014)

Even though a wearable camera drone was suggested to have applications in rock climbing, mountain biking, and other adventure sports,[2][3] in November 2014 the developers announced plans to market Nixie to a niche audience of rock climbers first, before expanding to a general audience.[8][10]

Operation modes

Sensors and motion-prediction algorithms are used to guide Nixie along one of four pre-programmed paths for taking photos or video.[2]

  • In a boomerang mode, the drone flies a set distance from its user, takes a photo, and then returns.
  • In a panorama mode, it takes photos to fill a 360° arc.
  • In a follow me mode, it serves as a third-person view camera by trailing the user.
  • In a hover mode, it hovers for use in jib shots and can be controlled from a smartphone.

History

Nixie prototyping workshop (2014)

According to Wired,[2] the first Nixie prototype was built by Christoph Kohstall. After tinkering with a quadcopter that he received as a gift, Kohstall built a drone model of eyeglasses with propellers, as well as a prototype that could dive underwater and then reemerge from under the surface.[2] To better address the poor usability of quadcopters, he then had an idea to create a "flying wristband" with a camera.[16] Kohstall's partner Jelena Jovanovic was involved in creating the first prototype and later became the project manager.[2][16] Together with Michael Niedermayr, Kohstall and Jovanovic entered the 2014 Intel's Make It Wearable competition as team Nixie led by Kohstall.[9][16] Once the team became a finalist on September 3, 2014,[1][9][16][17] Nixie received significant amount of attention,[1][2][3][9] and > 5.9 million views on YouTube.[14][15] As one of ten competition finalists, the team was provided with mentorship, design assistance, technical support, and $50,000 for further development.[1] The team presented the final prototype at the Intel Make It Wearable Challenge Finale on November 3, 2014,[15] winning the $500,000 seed funding grand prize to develop the prototype into a product.[11] In their second interview with Wired,[10] the developers indicated that their primary goals for improving the drone were optimizing propellers, motors, and object navigation, as well as miniaturisation of Nixie.

Developers

  • Christoph Kohstall holds a PhD in particle physics from IQOQI, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University.[2][6] Kohstall serves as a co-founder and CEO of Nixie.[12]
  • Jelena Jovanovic is a technical program manager at Google.[2][6] Jovanovic is a COO of Nixie.[5]
  • Michael Niedermayr, Floris Ernst, Stefan Niedermayr, Steven Le, Kris Winer, Jeremy Swerdlow, and Steven Shiozaki have backgrounds in motion prediction algorithms, design, and engineering.[2][6]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kumparak, Greg (28 September 2014). "A wearable drone that launches off your wrist to take your selfie". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Flaherty, Joseph (6 October 2014). "The inventors of the wristwatch drone share their vision of the future". Wired. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Domanico, Anthony (26 September 2014). "Nixie lets you wear a selfie-taking drone on your wrist". CNET. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Takahashi, Dean (4 November 2014). "Nixie wants to give rock climbers (and other adventurers) a flying camera drone on a wrist". VentureBeat. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Das, Sumi (11 November 2014). "Selfies take flight with Nixie wearable drone". CNET. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Official Nixie website". Nixie. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 Murray, Sara (10 November 2014). "Meet Nixie, the Selfie-Taking Drone". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 Singh, Manjot (13 November 2014). "Nixie wearble drone for selfies". Technology News. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Monckton, Paul (29 September 2014). "Nixie, the wearable selfie drone". Forbes: Life. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Collins, Katie (3 November 2014). "Nixie wearable camera drone wins Intel's $500,000 tech challenge". Wired. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  11. 1 2 "2014 Intel Make It Wearable competition". Intel. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  12. 1 2 3 "Drone wins Intel's wearable challenge". CNBC. 4 November 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  13. ↑ Drury, Jim (6 November 2014). "Nixie wearable drone promises the perfect selfie". Reuters. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  14. 1 2 3 "Introducing Nixie: the first wearable camera that can fly". Nixie. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  15. 1 2 3 "Make It Wearable finalists: Meet team Nixie". Vice. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  16. 1 2 3 4 "Finalists of the 2014 Intel Make It Wearable competition". Intel. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  17. ↑ "Announcing the 10 finalists of Intel's Make It Wearable Challenge". The Creators Project. 3 September 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
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