The idea of your own tech pet has been around for decades. From Tamagotchi to Zoomer robotic puppies, every once in a while we designed and redesigned our ideal best friends. But have you ever thought it could also fly and easily follow you during skiing, biking, surfing, climbing and also film you wherever you go? A bunch of tech-savvy Latvians from Jelgava have created just this. And by wherever, they really mean – wherever.
Passionate about action sports and savvy in unmanned flying objects, the founders of AirDog aimed to create an ideal friend for extreme sports activists. The gadget is beautifully simple – all it takes to bring it to action is strapping the programmable remote on owner’s wrist or helmet. This is the only time you touch the remote – AirDog does the rest all by itself. The drone takes off, follows you, films your every move and then lands back – all completely autonomously.
AirDog promises to perfect the use of GoPro, the finest sports videography equipment so far. The beauty of the new device lies in its elegant way of fussing data from the remote attached to the owner, processing it using a sophisticated algorithm and directing AirDog to always follow the sportist and film his movements. Active gyro stabilization guarantees that video footage is absolutely stable, remarkably smooth, and always in level with the horizon.
Edgars Rozentals, CEO and founder of Helico Aerospace Industries notes: “It took a year and countless caffeine-fueled hours, that were spent hacking intelligent flight code algorithms. From its roots the Airdog was designed to serve and obey those pushing the boundaries in sports.”
Foldable, fast, and tough, the drone can track and follow users and their trajectory, and capture every frame with ultra-stable accuracy. The AirDog has a flight time of up to 15 minutes. Zipping along at 40 mph, AirDog can keep up with even the speediest of action sports.
AirDog just took off on Kickstarter and the campaign will last till July 25th. The team aims to raise $200,000 in these 40 days. With the financial boost, AirDog will make it to production and into the hands of sports enthusiasts. Campaign pledgers will be the first to obtain the AirDog for $995 – $1,195.
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Marija Odineca is passionate about Baltic startup scene, visiting interesting Baltic startups and gathering their stories. She also coordinates the Entrepreneurship Support Centre at Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and Global Entrepreneurship Week in Latvia.
