Flir has placed their chips and are betting on drones!

At DS Drones we feel this is the right move. The industry is just ripe with innovation and new uses are being discovered every day. Flir cameras are already extremely useful and are used every day in many industries. Currently they are used by coast guards to watch the borders. Flir is used for examining solar panels, currently by hand, where a few panels being shorted out could mean as much to a 10% decrease in efficiency across the entire grid. Recently because of a make-shift Flir camera attached to a drone the coast guard was actually able to spot a boat smuggling drugs across the border.

Flir’s new purpose built drone camera

With this knowledge when I tell you that Flir is now making a camera designed to mount where a goPro camera would, for $1,999, you know its time to get excited. This $1,999 piece will turn your average DJI Phantom 3 into a drone capable of doing the job of a currently $25,000 drone. Flir VP Jeffery Frank was quoted as saying recently “At the end of the day, the nature of the drone itself really needs to be good enough to get the job done. Often something as simple as a DJI Phantom is perfectly adequate.” This is good news for DJI who have recently seen their drone in the hands of nearly every industry out there.

In a similar move we have recently seen Ambarella moving towards drones as well with their new purpose built camera chips for next gen drones. In a recent release Ambarella stated that 10% of its revenue in the most recent quarter came from cameras made specifically for drones. This definitely supports Frank’s quote which I fully agree with myself. Frank was quoted as saying, about the drone market “I’ve been through a number of bubbles in my career. From my perspective, drones serve a real valuable purpose. There’s a true value proposition there.”

I could not agree with him more…. They are also extremely fun!

What do you think of Flir’s move towards drone mountable cameras?
Do you anticipate this will be a beneficial movement for these professional camera manufacturers?
Would you like to have a thermal camera on your home drone just for kicks?

Lets us know, we are really interested in what you think.