At a press event on San Francisco's Treasure Island, drone vendor DJI unveiled its new prosumer-class Inspire drone with 4K video capabilities and announced a new Software Development Kit to allow third party developers to write apps that work with its flagship Phantom 2 Vision flying cameras.
Phantom SDK
DJI's new SDK allows developers to tap into a variety of data and settings available on Phantom 2 Vision Plus and Phantom 2 Vision drones. This includes direct access to the flight controller, providing altitude, longitude and latitude; status and error information; and home point and no-fly zone information (such as when operating near an airport).
The SDK also provides access to battery voltage and status; WiFi range, power and link status; ground station controls for setting programmed waypoints for automated flights; and camera and gimbal data for full control of photo and video capture.
Additional information on the new SDK is available at http://dev.dji.com. The company also featured a new sharing site for aerial photography at skypixel.com.
The new DJI Inspire 1
DJi also announced its new Inspire drone platform, a higher end offering 4K video capture on a new camera featuring exchangeable lens filters; the company's Lightbridge video streaming technology and a new flight control system featuring a downward facing camera that helps stabilize the unit even when it loses GPS lock.
These guys got free ones #DJI pic.twitter.com/HsaAYb85pJ
-- Daniel Eran Dilger (@DanielEran) November 13, 2014
The new drone was introduced with the help of Adam Savage Jamie Hyneman of MythBusters (above). It's priced at $2,900, about twice as much as the consumer-oriented Phantom Vision 2 but far less than DJI's professional grade S-1000, which starts around $7,000.
has reviewed DJI's Vision 2 Plus, which has been used to capture sneak peaks of Apple's mysterious showroom used to introduce Apple Watch and iPhone 6, as well as to present a tour of Apple's Campus 2 and existing Infinite Loop headquarters.
For those looking to buy the DJI Inspire 1, B&H Photo has them up for preorder at $2,899, with no sales tax collected for buyers outside of New York. The Inspire 1 is currently slated to ship on Dec. 1.