Affordable mini drones

[DrJohnZoidberg]

I'm looking to get a small drone to use around the house to help with maintenance tasks (e.g. inspecting roofs, solar panels, gutters, etc). so don't need anything crazy but also don't want a piece of junk. The video quality should be good enough for me to make things out properly.

Where should I start looking? I've never used a drone before as I've never had a use for one.

 

[bwana]

Something like this DJI Mini SE

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Something like this DJI Mini SE

I saw that one, was wondering if it's worth going any cheaper or just sticking with a known brand.

 

[bwana]

I saw that one, was wondering if it's worth going any cheaper or just sticking with a known brand.

Cheaper inside the house is fine, outside, doing what you want to do, is another matter entirely.

 

[airborne]

Something like this DJI Mini SE

Surely there must be something cheaper than that considering the op just wants to do relatively close flying and doesn’t need high quality optics or extreme resolution. There must be some half decent off brand Chinese drones on the market these days, especially if you don’t need big range or advanced flying modes?

 

[Harmonic]

I'm looking to get a small drone to use around the house to help with maintenance tasks (e.g. inspecting roofs, solar panels, gutters, etc). so don't need anything crazy but also don't want a piece of junk. The video quality should be good enough for me to make things out properly.

Where should I start looking? I've never used a drone before as I've never had a use for one.

Once you're sorted with a drone, if you wanted to, you could use something like this to generate a single top-down orthophoto and a 3D model of your house

 

[bwana]

Surely there must be something cheaper than that considering the op just wants to do relatively close flying and doesn’t need high quality optics or extreme resolution. There must be some half decent off brand Chinese drones on the market these days, especially if you don’t need big range or advanced flying modes?

Given he wants to fly in close proximity to his house he should anticipate at least the occasional gust of wind. DJIs can handle it.

I've used my older Air for several roof inspections, here and abroad... it's time consuming (battery) and more than a little risky. I think the last thing he would want to do is crash into something like a solar panel.

Plus who knows, he might enjoy flying it.

OP - you're not close to any drone exclusion zones? https://www.dji.com/flysafe/geo-map

 

[Harmonic]

I saw that one, was wondering if it's worth going any cheaper or just sticking with a known brand.

Also, look at second hand drones. They don't seem to hold their value much and for a lot of people, the novelty dies off very quickly

 

[Harmonic]

Given he wants to fly in close proximity to his house he should anticipate at least the occasional gust of wind. DJIs can handle it.

I've used my older Air for several roof inspections, here and abroad... it's time consuming (battery) and more than a little risky. I think the last thing he would want to do is crash into something like a solar panel.

Plus who knows, he might enjoy flying it.

OP - you're not close to any drone exclusion zones?

It's not all that risky if you setup the parameters properly on something like drone deploy. You can literally setup the flight plan and click "go". The software does the actual flying. It does require a decent drone though, like a DJI.

 

[bwana]

It's not all that risky if you setup the parameters properly on something like drone deploy. It does require a decent drone though, like a DJI

That was my point.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Surely there must be something cheaper than that considering the op just wants to do relatively close flying and doesn’t need high quality optics or extreme resolution. There must be some half decent off brand Chinese drones on the market these days, especially if you don’t need big range or advanced flying modes?

R6k honestly isn't that bad, now to find one at that price. I see the istore is out of stock.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Also, look at second hand drones. They don't seem to hold their value much and for a lot of people, the novelty dies off very quickly

Just took a quick look on carb and there is nothing available in Cape Town. Also a bit wary of abused drones, or getting one with an old battery.

 

[Tabac]

I'm looking to get a small drone to use around the house to help with maintenance tasks (e.g. inspecting roofs, solar panels, gutters, etc). so don't need anything crazy but also don't want a piece of junk. The video quality should be good enough for me to make things out properly.

Where should I start looking? I've never used a drone before as I've never had a use for one.

Is it not cheaper buying a ladder ? Then you've got it to actually do the maintenance.

 

[Harmonic]

Just took a quick look on carb and there is nothing available in Cape Town. Also a bit wary of abused drones, or getting one with an old battery.

That makes sense. One thing I can say, out of the four batteries I had for my Mavic 2 pro, two of them have crapped out. Probably total flight time of 50 hours between all four batteries so not much at all.