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people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #67,437 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★★
Exactly what I needed
First, let me clarify something. The official safe maximum range on the Karma drone is 3200 ish feet. However, there is a setting in the Karma remote that allows you to disable the "safe" distance option.
I have personally flown the Karma successfully about 5600 feet (a mile is 5280 feet) before it decided to automatically return to the take-off point. And by the way, it was very cool to see it autopilot itself the entire way back to me. Once the drone is back in range there is an option on the remote to regain control.
The Karma drone package is by far the best deal for the majority of people. For $1100, you get the drone itself, battery, backpack, gopro hero 5 black camera ($399 value), gopro stabilizing stick (actually very cool in and of itself, $299 value), and a few other attachments.
The camera of course can be used separate from the drone; and the camera is pretty cool. It is waterproof to 30 feet without a case, can be voice controlled, touch screen (with on screen editing functions), and of course video that rivals more expensive camera systems.
The handheld stabilizer is much more useful than I thought it would be. It, along with the hero 5 internal antishake mechanism, result in a butter smooth picture even while hiking, mountain, biking, etc. It makes a big difference watching footage during mountain biking without and with the stabilizer. Without the stabilizer footage can be nausea inducing. WITH the stabilizer, it was like watching the star wars speeders flying between the trees.
Oh, and so far, the Karma drone works pretty well. I've had one episode of GPS loss but was able to land it with some difficulty. But as far as I know, none have yet to just fall out of the sky (the battery issue has been fixed).
I'm getting about 18 minutes of battery life. However, the Karma will return to you with about 2 minutes of battery remaining, so expect about 15 minutes of useful flying time. (Let's see, 18-2 = ... you get the idea).
The battery charges to full in an hour. I bought two extra batteries and have two chargers. Works very well for me.
Overall, very happy with my purchase. It's really the drone purchase that made the most sense for me.
Hopefully this helped
March 2017 · Electronics