SenseFly eBee Review
In this article, we will review the most popular drones offered by Sensefly company, which is Sensefly Ebee. Ebee is one of the smallest sUAS you will find with an impressive list of important features. Their drones succeeded in revolutionizing the aerial mapping and also helping the agriculture and monitoring sectors. One of the most important characteristics offered by this drone is making survey flights as efficient as possible and also mapping huge swathes of terrain.
Following this article you will have the opportunity to gain more knowledge about this drone model. Knowing its characteristics, its features, the quality of its products and also the other consumer’s opinion related to this Ebee model, you can figure out if it is the right model for you.
Design and quality
The Sensefly Ebee drone has a revolutionary design, being a fixed-wing drone and it. When it comes to its appearance it has a very beautiful and sturdy design that is similar to the Parrot DISCO drone’s look and it also has a foam body built.
When you purchase the Sensefly ebee drone you will also get a hard side carrying case, that will help you to easily carry it wherever you want and also to keep it secure all the time.
A big advantage that this drone offers is that it weighs just 700g and its size is pretty small compared to its competitors which offer the same features at a bigger size and also 2 or 3 times heavier.
The simplicity of this model is what makes it so special. Being one of the smallest drones between its competitors, it is also foldable, becoming even more portable. The ebee package comes with everything you need in order to start mapping:
- Batteries
- RGB camera
- Radio modem
- Emotion software
It is using the Pix4Dmapper software that helps you process and analyse the ebee’s photos, making your flight experience more satisfying.
Efficiency
The Ebee model can cover up to 12 km2 in an automated mapping flight and it has a flight time of 50 minutes, which is pretty impressive. A big advantage is that the company has kept a safety feature into consideration, so if you hit someone neither the person or the drone is gonna hurt. If you fly this drone at lower altitudes and over small areas, it can offer you photos with ground sampling distance of down to 1.5cm per pixel.
The company says that the Ebee is the easiest to use mapping drone you can find on the market. You just have to throw it in the air, and it will capture for you the images you need, and when it is done, it will also land by itself. Even if you are a beginner drone user with no flying drone skills, you don’t have to worry about flying this drone, because it doesn’t require any piloting skills.
Emotion 3 is an ever-evolving workflow hub. With this feature you can wirelessly connect your drone, to industry cloud solutions, to airspace data, to survey-grade base stations and even includes live weather updates. This represents a very important aspect that offers you lots of important data that you can use and collect.
With the eMotion, your drone flight is built using missing blocks, so you just have to map your block, highlight the region you want, define the settings and the emotion will directly generate your drone’s flight.
Another important aspect offered is the emotion’s built in flight data manager, which automatically handles the georeferencing & preparation of the photos required for post-processing in software.
Camera
The Sensefly eBee comes with a professional high quality camera, Sensefly’s WX 18.2MP , that offers you extraordinary images whenever you fly it. It is ultra-compact, ultralight and fully configurable, so you are able to set it up however you want.
This is the first camera to be built for drone photogrammetry work. It will capture for you amazingly sharp aerial images, allowing you to create ultra-accurate 3D digital surface models and vivid orthomosaics.
The sensefly S.O.D.A 3D represents a unique innovation in drone photography. The camera is changing its orientation during flight taking three photos (one of them is nadoptimezed time and the other two are obliques instead of one for a much wider view), which are quickly optimized with the Pix4Dmapper software.
Battery
The Sensefly ebee comes with a 4900 mAh, 15.2v Lithium Polymer Battery, offering you a continuous flight of 50 minutes, while you can map and take photos. But if you want a much longer experience with the Ebee drone, you can find online and purchase another battery, when the one that you are using is off, you can quickly switch them and continue flying.
Price
As we can see above, there are plenty of reasons to love sensefly eBee. Its qualities are extraordinary, it has a great looking aspect and its battery lasts very long, but it has a big disadvantage that can make you change your mind a little, and that is the price of it.
The drone starts at the price of $25,000 and I consider that is far too expensive for what it offers. The price of this drone is not suitable for a regular consumer, and it is more suitable for companies I guess.
Conclusion
Taking into consideration all the factors presented above, SenseFly eBee from this review is a great drone, with great qualities and I would love to have one for sure, but the price of it is much too high for what it offers.
Finally, Sensfly was bought by the drone company Parrot and maybe in the near future we will see some price changes, because at this moment ebee model is not too easy to get, even though it is an extraordinary drone.
