Credit: Pixabay
Since the late ‘80s, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have changed the way we shoot images. In the last few years, the market for consumer-level drones has grown considerably with brands offering the latest and best in the world of Remotely Piloted Vehicles. The Yuneec Breeze is a 385g drone that is compact, easy-to-use, and smartphone operated $500 drone with a 13MP 4K camera and automated flight modes targeted.
The Yuneec Breeze, with an emphasis on selfies, is aimed at the largely ignored newcomer market and is the drone equivalent of a camera in you smartphone, albeit a slightly pricey smartphone.
Pros
- Low price
- Easy to fly
- Portable
- Safe
- Easy to use
- Easy image download and sharing
Cons
- Limited camera stabilization
Design
The Yuneec Breeze comes with a hard plastic box for carrying around that fits into backpacks and offers some protection in transport. The drone comes equipped with four powerful propellers and brushless motors.
The body of the UAV is made with plastic and handles well even in regular use. The material is durable enough to withstand minor bumps and crashes without significant damage to the Breeze.
Although the Yuneec Breeze lacks a controller, the drone is controlled via a native app that is available on Android and iOS platforms and comes with an internal memory of 16GB.
Image quality
The drone sports a camera that can capture 4K images from over 60m in the air. However, the Breeze has some shortcomings. As the drone lacks a gimbal for stabilization, it relies on digital stabilization, which is limited to full HD resolutions of 1920 X 1080 pixels and lower.
The use of digital stabilization also means that 4K footage from the Breeze may get wobbly when the wind picks up.
Overall, images captured by the Yuneec Breeze are perfect for social media like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. But they don’t compare with those taken by a DJI Mavic 2 Zoom.
Performance
The drone sells with two batteries, each with a capacity of 1150mAh and a total flight time of 20 minutes. Although this isn’t the best battery performance in the market, it’s still within the acceptable standard for camera drones. The batteries can also be quickly recharged in about 45 minutes.
The Yuneec Breeze is a GPS enabled slow-flying camera drone, and its design is to support its primary function as a selfie drone. The Breeze also comes with five flight presets, which are Pilot, Selfie, Orbit, Journey, and “Follow me” modes.
The drone, controller by your smartphone, offers ranges for up to 30 meters and 60 meters in altitude. The drone also comes with a nifty little failsafe case of it going out of range, the drone hovers for about a minute and returns to the last known location of the controller.
Final Verdict
The Yuneec Breeze is definitely a very different UAV to many on the market right now. It does not have the most powerful camera, the most capable gimbal, obstacle avoidance, or a wide range of modes but, then again, it’s not aimed at the sort of audience who would need that.
The drone does have little folding props, a secure storage unit for portability, can be used even indoors thanks to its infrared cameras.
Therefore, as something a little different, not meant for commercial work of any kind, it functions as an excellent welcome for newcomers, and I’d recommend it.
