Drone maker DJI has partnered with Line Friends, characters created as stickers for mobile messengers in Asia, to introduce a new kid-friendly drone and open up a path to make drones more accessible to a wider audience.
The drone features one of the more popular Line Friend characters, Brown, a melancholy brown bear, in a mini camera drone that lifts off in the palm of the hand, allowing families and kids to capture and share video and images.
The drone is a re-skinned DJI Spark that fits in any bag and can be launched in seconds while shooting 12-megapixel photos and 1080-pixel vendors via a two-axis gimbal. The drone features an obstacle sensing system and automated flight modes, and DJI claims it is the first consumer drone that can be controlled by hand gestures alone.
Spark was introduced about a year ago with features such as QuickShot, which automatically creates a 10-second video from your flight, and is social media ready. It also comes with TapFly and ActiveTrack modes that make recording video or taking pictures easy with simple flight.
Line Friends is a global character brand and is a subsidiary of the mobile messenger app Line. The characters have been expanded into a merchandising business with 109 stores globally.
The Line Friends drone is available now on the DJI website priced at $399.
