Snap's Pixy drone is a simple and easy-to-use flying camera cheaper than the standard options currently available. The new drone marks Snap's official entry into the drone-making business.
But how can you get your hands on Pixy? And how much does it cost? Read on for details on how to order Snap's Pixy drone.
Snap Launches Pixy, Its Selfie Drone
Snap is making its way into the drone market. At the Snap Partner Summit 2022 keynote, the company unveiled its first drone—Pixy. It is a $230 pocket-sized drone that's nothing more than a flying selfie camera. As noted in Snap's blog post, the company prefers to call it a flying camera. Snap's primary focus with Pixy is simplicity, a key theme from the design to its functioning.
Pixy's key features include 16GB of internal storage and an 860mAh removable battery that charges via a USB Type C port. Unfortunately, the drone doesn't feature a microSD card slot for storage expansion. Pixy's video files are capped at 2.7K resolution, and you get 12MP selfies. Snap says a single battery charge can last five to eight flights with the default flight modes.
How Snap's Pixy Mini Drone Works
Pixy is easy to use since it keeps everything as basic as possible. First, straight off the bat, Pixy has no controller. Instead, it includes a simple dial that you can use to power it on and select one of the already pre-set flight paths. It has four flight patterns: hover, reveal, follow, and orbit.
As the name suggests, you can make the drone revolve around you with the orbit mode, whereas you can use the follow mode to make the drone follow you wherever you're going. Besides the four, you can also customize one of these flight patterns to your liking and save it as your favorite model.
Since it's a simple flying camera rather than a professional drone, flying it is a piece of cake. You place it on the palm of your hand, then push the available button to activate—and Pixy takes off. And if you want to stop recording and land the drone, simply put your palm beneath it. The software does everything for you.
However, you can use the force landing button in the Snapchat app if you need to land the drone instantly in case of an emergency. Drone crashes are a common occurrence, and that's why we advise that you should always perform several checks before flying a drone.
Snap has made the file transfer process as easy as possible to maintain the drone's simplistic nature. Pixy stores files on its internal storage, and you can sync them with Snapchat wirelessly or via a USB-C cable.
You can then access your image files or video footage via Snapchat Memories. From there, you can edit the image or video using Snapchat's editing tools and then share the file wherever you like. Our guide on using Snapchat's image editing tools may come in handy for this.
How to Buy Snap's Pixy Flying Camera
You can buy Pixy only in two countries at the time of writing: the United States and France. You can buy the drone starting at $230 by heading to Pixy's shop or searching for Pixy in the Snapchat app.
Alternatively, you can buy the dedicated Pixy Flight Pack that ships with dual rechargeable batteries for $20 more. According to Snap, expect your order to take 15-16 weeks to ship.
Should You Buy the Pixy Drone?
Whether you should buy Pixy or not depends on what you want. Snap's Pixy drone isn't here to take on more powerful and established industry players like DJI, Parrot, or PowerVision.
Remember that Pixy is a simple flying camera. Don't expect cinematic shots or high-end 4K video footage. So, as long as you know what you want, you have your answer right there.