Parrot Disco - the most USELESS drone ever!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- The Parrot Disco FPV was marketed as something you fly in the wild, in the mountain off a cliff, capturing amazing stable video. See the official marketing video here: • Parrot DISCO FPV - Off...
How could a drone that offered a whopping 45 min flight time still loose so bad to the competition? In this video we explore the features of the Parrot Disco FPV in a similar setting as the promo video and try to analyze why it did not succesfully attract any of the segments that the marketing seemed to be aimed at.
Thanks to:
Channel of Emelie Boss: / @emelieboss
Channel of Viggo Koch: / @viggokoch6998
Channel of Macs Moser: / @sparrowglider
I agree with you that the Disco failed because it didn't have a true market segment...at first. Then Parrot realized the Disco was perfect for agricultural assessment and surveying. It can cover a much larger area than a quad, and you can automate your survey parameters. Parrot discontinued the normal Disco, but still sells the Disco Pro-AG for professional users. Far from useless.
That I didnt know! Thanks for sharing! Sounds like a smart adaption in the marketing. It makes perfect sense to try to target a segment that isnt already a fortified hill.
No it isnt they create a new segment but its look like they dont know it then.
@@MattiasAllring Also don't forget, they are not the only ones that made a wing drone, and there are countless of vtol winged craft. It is not that loud, check your prop balance. If you decide to get rid of it let me know, unless shipping is to high.
@@tuttoto you do realize that this isn't my video, right?
@@tuttoto lol what vtol plane is it? Can you tell me its name? Really wish to get one.
"difficult to fly" says the man trying to land fixed wing in a dense trees area
I got a 4g lte and battery mod and i never have problems to land anywhere so i dont knlw what this man is talkin about
@@lilpumpskrt5449 i know if you call the disco the most useless drone ever, and having issues you probably shouldnt be flying
@@christopherlee3045 i fly fpv qwads so i dont use it often
Lilpump Skrt I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking about the dude in the video bro.
@@christopherlee3045 yes yes yes, you are wright, totally agree with you
Cant be useless if I just seen a video where a guy flew from 1 island to another island over 57 km away and make it back with battery left. 4g mod insane stuff
Dustin Dunhill. The best!
YESSSSSSS!
Here I am Dezember 2021… just bought a disco…
@@sanacca how is the experience going?
@@UserBR1010 superb 👍
23:12 "difficult to land" says the man who tries to land a fixed wing close to a power line
Its fixed wing drone, what do you expect. And you try landing in heavily forested area with a fixed wing and you say its useless. You are not objective
yea only a noob will fly there and land there hahaha so the review for the "noob" is very accurate :D
Niclas Horn Yeah, the setting was the best I had to compare to the setting of the official promo video with a bunch of noobs flying of a rock in the wild: th-cam.com/video/m1Fpq4inefg/w-d-xo.html
ive had one for 3 yrs, never ever had an issue. dont think its fair to call this " the most useless drone" when there are plenty of far more useless drones on the market. it was a game changer and still people all over the world are looking to pay big money for these because they are hard to find.
SO FUNNY. GOD HELP YOU.
Good vídeo, but you do not now how to land the Disco.
Learn how to fly buddy, it's not a VTOL wing !.. you need to setup your approach, low and slow for landing, once your at a height of 10-15 metres, than press the landing button, to cut the motor and glide it in. If you don't hit the landing button, you fingers will get cut up from the prop when you try to catch it mate !
Perhaps this is for category 5: the Cruisers, who just want to fly and have a look around.
Yeah, that could be a segment to approach. What are the key needs of a ”cruiser” and why is the Disco the best match for those needs? Why would a ”cruiser” choose Disco over, say, a Phantom 4 or Mavic pro?
I guess long flight times, long range, and a view like you’re in the cockpit of a passengers plane.
A Mavic or a Phantom gives you more the feeling of beeing a passenger in a balloon (well, a really fast balloon...)
Dustin Dunhill made some video’s about the Disco I believe
@Agent К_видео Yes
@Agent К_видео I've seen his videos, because of his videos, I converted my Disco into 4G LTE. You are right, all those flights beyond line of Sight in the USA are illegally performed. That's why I try not to go that far, although I'm guilty of having flown BLS sometimes...
Have a great evening my friend! Greetings from Douglas, Arizona 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾
@@MattiasAllring because quadcopters are not effecient and they are not very speedy or reliable. Quadcopters are better for aerial photography
I am not 100% agree ... it is wonderful 4G flying machine once it is soft moded. I personally spent hours in the air with modified batteries flying over 50-60 km of a distance that way. This is hardly achieved with any other drone.
True, but deploying all those DIY mods are hardly achieved by any substantial share of users. I get that it is an appealing product for techies, but that is just a too small segment to sustain the product. Unless Parrot figure out how to reach the broader layers of consumers, there will never be a Disco 2.
@@MattiasAllring True! 👍🏾
@@MattiasAllring DJI should buy them out and come out with a Parrot 2 .lol
The same mods on my disco, with them this drone just dont have competition and its awesome i love it. my next mod solar pannels to even longer fly and i now it works, crazy.
Yep... pretty stable aircraft. I have amazing distance and video...
this guy doesn’t experiment much..
"Parrot Disco - the most USELESS pilot ever!" First of all you need to fly and land it in suitable terrain and before you actually hit the land button you need to reduce the height to the minimum altitude. The Disco is an awesome drone with the 4G softmod and love it as much as my DJI Phantom 4 Pro. I could give many reasons to get one of these much underrated drones but will be wasted on you. On a positive note though, nice catch!
You just explained in your own words why the Disco failed on the market:
1. ”...you need to fly and land it in suitable terrain”
2. ”...before you hit the land button you need to... [do 90% of a normal landing procedure]”
Thats why it failed on the market in a nutshell.
It IS a cool drone. I do not argue with you on that. I have no plans of selling mine. But I stand by my point that it is a pretty useless alternative for what most drone owners want to do. Techies doing 4G mods are just a too small segment to commersially sustain such an ambitious product as the Disco. Unless Parrot figure out how to redesign the Disco into a drone that can capture one of the larger segments, there will never be a Disco 2. Thats all I am saying :-)
Dear bauhaus. Your logic has one flaw, that is exactly what this video is about: a sledgehammer, a 200mm lens, a microwaver and all other things you mention are all commmersially successful product with a clear market segment and use case. The Parrot Disco is, in contrast, a commersial failure lacking a clear target segment and use case. Before you jump to the conclusion that it is unfair to explain why it failed to capture 4 of the large market segments - try instead to explain what segment you think it is designed for and why it failed to deliver sales volume. My professional opinion as a product strategist is that it was not developed with a specific customer segment in mind, and that that is the cause of the market failure. It was designed around itself, not to a specific customer need i.e. Product Centric Design. The result is a high quality product that nobody needs.
There is no reason to be rude, bauhaus. The reason we come to diffrent conclusions is because we use diffrent scales. You reason Product Centric, I reason Customer Centric. If you work with design you should really read up on the difference. Yes, it is correct that the Disco does what it promesis to do. I do not suggest that the Disco is low quality, quite the opposite (apart from the packaging). It is the Discos high quality in relation to low market success that make this drone so interesting from a product strategy perspective. I can respect that the fan base of the Disco gets upset when they feel I am being unfair, but the commersial truth is that their view is commersially neglectable. Why? Because they where too few prepared to pay to little. It is an undisputable FACT that the Disco didnt sell. Yes, the Disco does most of what it promised, but from a strategic Customer Centric perspective that was obviously the WRONG PROMISE. This video is not a review of product quality, this is a analysis of a historically undisputably failed product strategy.
Bauhaus. Your personal attack has been removed. Do not bother to post any more comments if you cannot communicate in a civil manner.
bauhaus Correct, I am just stating my opinion! It is possible that I am wrong! Possibly beeing wrong is not rude, as it is not rude of you to not agree and possibly also beeing wrong. Rude is to engage in ad hominem arguments, attacking the person behind a thesis, instead of the thesis. This is an interesting topic to debate and there is no reason for any of this to get personal. The best counter arguments to the video has been pinned at the top so that everyone can see it.
I like how when he tries landing he keeps saying “it’s overshooting again” lol..
The parrot isn’t the problem lmao. The Parrot Disco is an excellent flyer btw. I use the 4G mod and get 3 hours of flight time. I launch it then go inside and sit on my couch and control it using my TV as a monitor. I have launched and flown it all the way to the beach which is 4 miles away. It’s absolutely amazing. It looks like he’s just coming in way too fast on his landings.
My advice is that landing the Disco is very similar to landing a real plane. My misstake was assuming that the whole final leg would be autonomous once the button is pressed. Obviously, its just the flare that is autonomous - so you still have to do 90% of the landing yourself. A DJI drone will land at your feet at the press of a button, which is why that is what the big segment of beginners is going for. The Disco is, from a market perspective, a curiosity that didnt fit any significant segment. 95% of the angry comments here are from guys running range tests with 4G-mods that 99,9% of the market would never engage in, for various reasons. The Disco is cool - I do not dispute that! However it is useless to the general market, because it does not have the right properties to fit any of the major market segments. Thats why it was a commersial failure.
Where can you get the mods needed for extra range and battery life?
R L I got the 4G mod kit for mine a couple years ago from UAVPAL.Com or you can still get everything u need from EBay
Have you ever heard of long range fpv?
Probably not
Man you use the Parrot Disco really wrong when you land, it's not an common RC airplane, it's a smart drone, have a lot of telemetry data that you receive it on the tablet or on the phone, when I lose WIFI signal and telemetry was also the first time when I crash landing the drone, and is not a drone for beginners, have 2 ways of assisted landing but some time you really need to pilot the drone in landing, look on few of my TH-cam videos and you will see what means to land the drone in little space (runway or circle landing)
I think this is the only TH-cam video in my life i have disliked. 🤪🛩️👌LOVE Disco for the right Money 🛩️
Such a dramatic and over the top review filled with useless information, quite unlike the drone itself.
The Parrot DISCO is a 'Dream Machine'.
Disco is a fabulous product. It is way ahead of the rest of the industry. It is elegant, super efficient, stable and produces amazing footage.
I think we might use the term ”Product” diffrently. Disco has some fabulous technologies. It was indeed ahead in its nieche (and probably still is, since nobody else seems to want to go that direction). It is objectively the most handsome drone ever made. Those are all cool technologies/features we can agree on (if we dont confuse these features with real user needs).
But claiming that the Disco delivers ”amazing footage” is just very far from the truth by any standard. Nobody with any understanding of photography would agree with such a claim. The dynamic range is rubbish, the resolution below average, the stabilizing software a joke. That is why 99% of videos of Disco is not scenery, but range tests flying straight from A to B. You just cant make good videos with it!
Do more videos like this!
You are a very good presenter.
Thanks buddy! :-)
@@MattiasAllring but "completely" useless at spelling ;)
I have a parrot disco with LTE mod and battery mod. Works really well and I can fly it 50+ miles at a time and 6 hours+. Way more efficient than a drone and I really enjoy the view too!
I have a DISCO and have NEVER had an issue landing. I dont try to land from150 feet up though. I'd be coming in JUST ABOVE the trees. I live on 20 acres and have High Tension Power lines over my landing area but that has never been an issue. I also have a DJI Air, MAvic Pro Enterprise Dual and an Inspire 1. You may just need more experience with fixed wing as they are VERY different from Quads. I use my Disco for Surveying and mapping as that is what it is best suited for.
wont you find an Ugliest place to fly?
i have 2 its the greatest drone ever fantastic wing when you know how eh
You are entitled to your opinion, but how do you explain that it didnt sell? Thats the purpose of this video. That the Disco failed to sell is an undisputable fact - I am just giving my best assessment on why. :-)
I agree i think its better then my drones and planes 🛩️😁
@@MattiasAllring They didnt sell at the price they were asking. But hard to find them available now with the 4g mods that you can do with them.
Can I have one
MattiasAllring You are not just saying why it didn’t sell. You said (from the title, that is clickbait, because is false) that is the most useless drone ever.
You didnt say it’s useless in stock version (that also is false), and the user mods doesn’t make it useless(responding to one of your answers).
Please consider the much higher number of dislikes and stop falsely arguing.
you cant land when you‘re 100 foot over the earth
It’s the most awesome drone for UAV lovers. Because it supports Ardupilot!
& Paparatzzi.
I figured out how to safely land mine on the very first try, its not rocket science if you read the instructions.
it is rocket science if you're trying to land it near powerlines, trees, on very rough terrain where the camera is likely to be damaged. The best use case is in big open fields where you can use linear landings with waypoints taking into account wind direction where you don't even have to control it, and it lands perfectly every time.
The Parrot Disco is a cheap version of a sensefly eBee. A combination auf eBee technology combined with parrot bebop tech. The eBee is drone for 3D Mapping. No Customer Journey or whatsoever. The just said: We can do that! Lets do it!
Thats exactly my point! The Disco could have been a great success if only product management first would have decided whom it is for, and then made sure to tick all the relevant boxes for that specific market segment. Too bad that there will probably not be a Parrot 2. With proper product management I think that defeat could be turned into success.
The Disco is an airplane, and you cannot fly an airplane like you are trying to do. Even the best Disco pilot will only be able to do a hand landing every now and then. Then your choice of airfield... I would never ever fly there and you can be glad your camera is still intact. Also you must always take off into the wind and even more importantly, land into the wind. When you land, you should in good time, pull the left lever all the way back as this will reduce the airspeed to about 40 km/h from 50 km/h. Once stable at this speed you push the right lever forward in increments to loose altitude without increasing speed too much. At 10 meters altitude, press the landing button and after a couple of landings you will be able to land with some precision. This is how you do it. And stay on the grass... No kalhyggen, please.
Look how Parrot markeded the Disco (link) - flying from a cliff, capturing amazing stable videos. There are not any flat grass fields near any such scenes. The place I chose as location I think is relevant as reference. I was landing headwind (have a real pilot licence for real planes) so I got that part of the basics covered. The test was to see if it is realistic that a noob (or anyone else) can unpack the drone in a similar setting as the commersial and get similar results. I think I have proven that that is not the case and the drone will dissapoint anyone inspired by the commersial. Hand catch was just a fun thing to try, not a requirement. th-cam.com/video/m1Fpq4inefg/w-d-xo.html
@@MattiasAllring I do not disagree with you entirely, only I think you were "noobier" than necessary. All Disco owners I´ve seen on the forums seem very keen to pick up advise and learn how to use the plane safely. What really is against the Disco is the short range from factory. That can be improved with the Uavpal 4G modification.
Technically the Disco is a marvellous machine, but for your reasons probably, it failed in the market.
They overprice it a lot at the beginig no doubt, but they dont expect how easle this drone can be moded with almoust no costs. Why they cant sell it ??? In my opinion price wasnt that big poblem. Drone who can fly 80km/h and about 40min without landing, with max range 2/3 km !!! I think range was a biggest problem with this drone without mods its only nice toy, but after upgrades its just blow away all competition.
I agree alot with what you say, Kamil. If the upgrades would have been supported, simple to install and sold through Parrot in same way as Apple App Store, then the product could have been much more successful. Parrot opened up to 3rd party development, but failed to exploit what came out of it to open the market. Again - poor Product Management.
I dont thinkt the drone is the problem here....
I have been thinking about your review and have come to the following conclusions:
a. Your use to flying standard quad-rotor drones, your finding the transition to fixed wing drones difficult and are therefore struggling to land the Parrot Disco successfully.
b. Your purposely doing worse than you normally would to try and prove your point of the video.
I believe that conclusion b is more of the case here. You come into your review very narrow minded and appear to have the belief that 'If its not DJI then its going to be a bad product' You don't go over any of the good software features this drone has, your only real negative point of the drone you had was that "its very hard to land" which seems to be more of a personal problem.
I own a Disco and a Mavic, I love both for different reasons. They are two capable drones that serve multiple purposes. I dont do anything professionally I just do it as a hobby.
Unlike in this review, I look at the strengths and weaknesses of the drones before I have an opinion, and ultimately whether I buy it or not.
I had a pilot license before I had a drivers license, so believe me I am quite comfortable flying a fixed wing and im more used to real planes than toy quads. It would not have been that hard (for me) landing the Disco in this spot if it was not a drone with ”autonomous landing”. What the landing part of the video shows is me (as a noob reading the manual) trying to wrap my had around how the landing feature works. Seems all that is auto is executing the flare (not explained in the manual). You have to do everything manual including controlling the decend of the final approach, else you overshoot. If you have to do 90% of the landing manual, I just dont see why an auto flare would be enough to tip the scale for a noob.
Anyways, my point is that unless you can make a wing design that is better than a quad drone for noobs or any of the other main segments of users - dont go for a wing design. Or pivot to another market segment, which is what Parrot eventually did. That was probably the right call, but really long term bad for us consumers as we are left with a viritual DJI-monopoly.
If the Disco would have been as easy to land as it is to launch and fly, it could have been successful with noobs, but it was not.
I think Disco is really cool tech, but terrible product design. Thats because I define good product design as beeing the BEST SOULUTION FOR A SIGNIFICANT MARKET SEGMENT. (I.e the best choice for a specific type of users that make up a large enough mass of the market)
@@MattiasAllring I agree with some of your points.
With the 4G mod you could say that it is the best for long distance flights.
And I feel once you got use to the landing of the drone and had a better surface to land on you would have enjoyed the experience more.
A negative of the disco is that you need a large flat open area to land. I live on the Broads National Park in the UK, it is extremely flat and open. This drone allows me to take long distance footage of the area, something I can't do with the Mavic.
It's a shame that one of DJI's competitors has dropped out as that allows DJI to charge more for there products. (Like Apple and smart phones)
to be a great drone the disco should be combined to the skeleton of the mini drone swing, giving to disco the Vtol feature and giving the 4G thing by series or at least a powerful trasmission system, not the crappy wifi
Man have you ever checked dustin dunnill channel? He did the 4g lte mod and dude goes flying really far away..... like 80miles away. Check him out and it is an easy mod
Will have a look! Sounds exiting, but very unlegal in most of the world.
To much poison in this review :)), not so true…even after 3-4 years, the only problem at that time was the price :)
I have it for 3 years. I think he is fantastic. and above all, almost indestructible. yesterday I flew with winds over 46km / h. I ran into a tree and ... it continues to fly. it's a great plane. I am waiting for a successor.
This man truly does not understand the purpose of the disco:
It's a plane for fixed wing fpv pilots and farmers, because it comes with the option of having a sequoia camera.
People, this is what happens when you like dji too much. You hate other brands.
That was hilarious. You are naturally funny thanks for making me laugh awful drone!!!! Have subbed
I not agree. I`m a land developer in Patagonia and the Disco is perfect for my special needs doing explorations of new land to buy and overview large extension of land to watch and planning the work on the land. Specially becouse Disco have the Flight Plan to preprogram the flight and footage before.
Happy to hear that you are happy with your Disco, Jorge! Mapping land and crops seems to be a good use, as pointed out earlier in the comments by another viewer. There is even a specialized version of Disco released for farmong, is that the one you use? It seems that after Parrot failed to get sales volumes in the big segmets of leisure droning, they refocused into niche markets. Sounds like the right move to me. :-)
@@MattiasAllring Unfortunately, Parrot stopped producing the Disco Pro Ag, and they created the bluegrass parrot for agriculture. The Disco Pro Ag is too expensive to be used only in land exploration, so the simple version of Disco is the best drone for my activity, and that's the one I'm using.
This is the problem when people buy a product and think they don't have to have any knowledge or experience of being able to fly by hand. The pilot should always be able to land the plane without a computer doing it for them
If thats your opinion ,send it to me ,i wil love this thing and flight like a steel
Ngl 3 years on and i still love this drone 😂 of course bit of tinkering but not much changed
you chose the worst place to land it! A field is great, not a rocky bumpy half hill lumber site
That spot is not a landing field - it is a nightmare and no strip also with wires next to it and in the turn around flight path. What is worser, the plane or the pilot ?
Dear Mattias, when comparing apples and pears, what should be the result. If a wing drone is called, it is true that she flies autonomously after FlightPlan like a drone. What you are comparing are MULTIKOPTER or flying tripods. Comparing the landing of a rotary wing aircraft with a wing is impossible and unfair. The disco is a wing for noobs that can not start and that makes flying easy, incl. RTH. In addition, you land, as in the start ... in the wind and not with the wind. You can control the disco when landing, then it works out too. Weak point is the camera in the nose (damaging) and the quality of the image. But how do you want to realize a stabilized image without gimbal? The price was unacceptable at launch, successes came only with the sale of the remaining stocks at 260-300 €.
And to criticize a device whose production is set for over a year, where even remnants are sold out .... is also useless! Look at the many videos on YT, there are already interesting flights and hand landings ... but all in suitable terrain. The disco is for relaxed flying,
Dear KartOpa51, when entering the market of fruit, first check if customers need apples or oranges. Parrots misstake was to think that there was a sustainable market for oranges, while the customers they intended to sell to compared with, and chose, apples. Its very easy to compare, and however unfair it may seem to you, thats what the consumers Parrot needed did. Making the mistake to think that competition comes only from oranges is exactly why product centric design often fail. Disco is just a very obvious case. I understand how unfair you think it is to compare a drone wing (yes it is a drone - read up on the definition) with drone quadrocopters, but thats exactly what the market did - much to the disadvantage of Disco. That Parrot managed to get rid of their stock by plummeting price is hardly anything that gave Parrot return on investment. There will never be a Disco 2 until Parrot figure out a profitable way to take a larger chunk of the drone market.
I think you are completly missing my point in this video. I am explaining why the Disco failed on the market. It did fail. It is a fact.
Dear Mattiass.... well It forces me to use stronger words for your inteligence, or rather its lack....
Its an AERPOLANE... your arguments are like complaining on aeroplanes that they dont land as helicopters~! You have quads and aeroplanes. Disco was ment to be AERPLANE not quad.
Aeroplanes fly longer in time and distance, and faster. They go FORWARD all the time what makes FPV very easy!
IT can soar! You put landing mode on and you can soar very long time....Quad eats up battery and you are nervous when it will die.
Disco is different thats all. Parrot has quads, but other drone producers DONT have planes.
Yes it true! You have to find a better place to land....like with an AEROPLANE! You dont land everywhere.
I had a lot of top model quads and with Disco I love to FPV, so please....either learn someting or stop telling rubish....
All the best
Dear Mazby2.... Your firm starting ad hominem argument on my intelligence would be less entertaining if you didnt follow it up by spelling ”AERPOLANE” in capital letters... LMFAO!
Lets refrain from further insults and return to the point of the video. Parrot targeted the same type of consumers with the Disco as all the other drone companies - see the promo video (link in description). It a historic and undisputable FACT that it FAILED on the consumer market. I try to give my best take on WHY it failed. I explain the concepts of Product Centric vs Customer Centric Design and explain my main arguments why this product falls in the previous category - i.e. it was designed around its features and not designed for any specific customer segments need profile. People didnt buy it because they didnt need it. Only a product centric fool would argue that a poor design choice could somehow be excused by the poor design choice. WHY did they go for fixed wing? That choice was probably less driven by customer insights than an introvert agenda to make cool specs. A wing might still have been a success, if only they had focused its features more on one customer segmet. That they didnt do, hence the monumental commersial failure.
The Disco is a PLANE, not a quadcopter or helicopter. It requires completely different skills and techniques for takeoff, flying and landing -- including a "50+ metres soft level runway" to land.
If you provided a car review, it would be like complaining it was not like a motorcycle!
I have a quad and a Disco, and have enjoyed both simply because they are totally different.
The Disco is Drone (see the definition) and it was targeted vs the same general market (see the commersial). It was not commersially successful. This video is analyzing WHY. In short, Parrot obviously didnt think through what the market needed and how to package their product towards that. One might go as far as saying the fixed wing approach was wrong (thats probably what Parrot thinks today), but I am not sure of that. All we know for sure is that it failed as it was designed. I would speculate that it could have been successful with a wing design if it had been more focused on a specific segment. As it is, it ticks 80% of the requirements for many segments, instead of ticking 100% of the requirements for one segment. Simply put, thats why it failed. Not because its a wing design and not because of the price point.
I think that Parrot Disco is most valuable than All of similar Fixed Wing Drone. Most Stable, Most long flying time. Most Portable... You maybe don't know value of fixed wing drone well.
I very much doubt the value of fixed wing in general for drone photography and beginners, compared to the alternatives. The Disco challenged the main stream drone market and failed. Thats a fact. That does not mean that a Disco 2 would fail, but Parrot would then need to really rework the concept to better fit one of the big segments. I would love them to try, as I think the concept could be reworked into a success, but I dont think that they will go at it again, since they lost too much money in the first failure.
your are just bad at landing the drone ...
Learn to Fly nanodrones before you try to fly a real one
so many are angry for he did not know how to land...thats exactly his point if the disco could be easily handled by a noob..to know if it can qualify for the fourth segment which is the noob market.
Exactly!!!
you are wrong.the parrot disco rocks you are just trying to make people not buy it.And this is the most badest videos ever!
What are you talking about? There is no need to stop people from buying it since the drone os not beeing produced anymore. Parrot stopped producing it since it didnt make money. The only way you can buy one is to buy it second hand.
I say it's a model aircraft with a camera. Have no problem flying those. Have been flying aircrafts and helicopter for years. But it's not a drone that you can use to make cinematic film. I like my phantom 4 pro. Have an amazing weekend, Andreas from Off Grid Sweden 🇸🇪
you can do cinematic with fixed wing ;) th-cam.com/video/Llq46sjFUdI/w-d-xo.html
Ding dong your opinion is wrong
JUST MANUAL LAND IT BRO, i can land it in my building roof
Pics or it didnt happen! :-)
It's not a useless drone just you're NOT a good pilot. This drone can travel very long distances at much higher speeds. It can be used for surveillance of a particular location. It is NOT for NOOBS looking for drones that land in one meter.
I totally agree that it is not a drone for noobs. It is also not a drone for photography and videograpy. In addition it is not a drone for traveling and not a drone for acrobatics. It is very easy to say who it is NOT for.
The problem is that not much market remains and it is very hard to say WHO it is for. From a business perspective, it is not far from the truth to say that it is not really a drone for anyone. Nerds soldering range extenders and 3rd party mods might be heart warming to the developers at Parrot, but essentially neglectable from a business perspective.
Cool technology, useless product.
@@MattiasAllring Yeah, is not a drone for anyone. As you said, this drone are more for people who like to use different mods and hacks. It can also be used for scientific research through various modifications.
Anyway, I'm glad Parrot has brought in consumer version of a more expensive drone SenseFly eBee.
From a business point of view it was expected that people would choose a quadrocopter as a much easier option to pilot and especially transported.I'm sorry the fixed-wing drones didn't catch the public.
After Parrot released Disco I expected DJI to come up with an answer to that.
Um, I don’t think you can really blame the Drone for failed landings, I hope you aren’t. You flying on a windy day. You have tall trees and a power line to contest with. So, what were you expecting.
I am explaining why the Disco didnt win the targeted segment. Key question in my opinion is what the segment that Parrot approached with their marketing video expected: th-cam.com/video/m1Fpq4inefg/w-d-xo.html
The purpose of this video is to explain why they failed to reach that segment. The location I chose is challenging, but still very, very much more flat and open than one can expect to be able to shoot videos in a scenic environment like the one in the promo. I get that if I, unlike the promo, would fly from flat booring field it would be easy. But thats not where the segments that the marketing video targetets would ever fly. It has to come down on a spot like this or smaller, else it will not capture that part of the market. Thats the test.
It was not windy - sensitive unshielded microphone. I would say maximum 1-2 m/s. It was so weak I was not even sure about the wind direction.
I see your point. I totally agree with you. About the only thing this Drone is good for is just clowning around. I use mine for just exploring and seeing the sights. I don’t fly and windy days because landing can be challenging. I have flown along beaches and open fields. I love it! But I’d never launch then try to land in the small park across the road which I can and do with my drones.
Bra kritik och om du vill sälja den är jag intresserad
This is very good and useful for search and rescue in my opinion...
its reallynot created to be hand-catched. Its actually made to crashland without breaking..
Negative! Read my previous post...👍🏾
😂
Bad introduction to the video don’t do that again I disliked the vid for that
You have to be kidding? Do the 4G mod, upgrade the battery to 2 x Titan 3500mah li-ion’s and fly for 2 hours with unlimited range with full manual control and live hd video feed. Current record flight distance is 90km’s. Post process your footage with ReedySteady Go. Its for people who just want to fly and explore, not for film makers. If you have flown a lot of fixed wing RC aircraft you would know this is about as easy for noobs to fly as you can get. Watch Parrots own how to fly videos on TH-cam, you just to need to fly it within a couple of metres of the ground in a stable approach and then hit the landing button. It is not an automatic return to land like a quad copter drone!
Oh, so you can do a nerdy 4G mod and fly illegal beyond line of sight? Cool, but utterly useless. There is no significant market for illegal DIY nerd toys. To use ReelSteady Go on the utterly useless dynamic range of the video output of the Disco would be like putting makup on a pig. And in addition, that makup was not available while the Disco was on the market. You may love the Disco if you like, but it is still a historical FACT that it failed on the market. Your opinion will not give Parrot back their lost investment. There is no reason to debate that. This video speculates WHY it failed to sell. Please deliver your alternative explanation to the lack of sales numbers, but dont pretend that your personal opinion can change history.
Nerdy? What.... and you making videos about drones and posting them on TH-cam isn’t nerdy 😂. At least I fly real aircraft as a real commercial pilot and post my videos. You just play with toys! This UAV flown in the right hands can produce very good results. In yours not so much😉.
th-cam.com/video/57qalO7aBnI/w-d-xo.html
Oh, so then we both have a pilot license! Not sure how that is relevant since we are debating drones at my drone channel. Not sure how claiming that the Disco can do great video content in ”the right hands” is an argument here, as you only have 14 followers on your channel. ;-)
Lol the intro
face palm
I beg to differ. It wont irritate people. Your dumb quads will with 4x the sound.
You may beg as much as you want, but the noice level of the Disco (at least mine) is still way, way more than any quad of any brand I have ever heard.
@@MattiasAllring What do you mean "noice"? Do you mean noise and no the disco is not loud I have heard one. You dont even know how to land a disco. You do not explain how it is bad either. And plus, the disco is not useless. It is a very cool and unique flying wing with very advanced tech. It is really great for long range fpv. Check out Dustin dunnils channel and you will see.
I disagree, but just because you have a different opinion doesn’t mean you deserve any hate. Nice video 👍
Parrot Disco - the most USELESS pilot ever!
I have +2000 follower and get paid for most of my flying. You have 38 followers and post unstable videos in your backyard nobody care about. I rest my case.
This guy: *Parrot Disco - the most USELESS drone ever!*
Also the Parrot Disco: *_Can use 4G LTE for long flights and is better at doing long flights than any other drone/RC aircraft_*
The 4G mod and battery extention packs seems epic, but utterly useless. Isnt 45 min of crappy, unstable video enough?
@@MattiasAllring Bruh those two mods make the plane more capable. (It makes the plane more useful!) Also, the 4G mod is meant for people who want to go 5+ miles away. And if you're cruising at 350 to 400 AGL and you just let the plane coast, the video is actually quite stable (unless if its windy but most people wouldn't fly very far in high winds anyway)
And also, the Parrot Disco isn't really a filming tool. A DJI Phantom 4 is like a flying camera, but the Parrot Disco is like a GA Plane shrunk down with RC control. Quadcopters and fixed-wing drones are very different.
I agree that the mods are super cool and makes the drone more capable. No doubt about that. Still, watch the promo for the Disco that is attached in the description. The Disco was clearly intended to.reach a wide consumer market, not just soldering tech nerds running range experiments. My point throughout the video, is that the Disco failed to focus on any major market segment and thus was never the top pick for any substantial user group. The Disco has epic features, however packaged in a way that did not sell. Way more people wanted to film, fly in dramatic nature and have a simple VTOL operation. A wing design was a risky move by Parrot, but could still have been a success if it had been more crafted around ONE set of users. In my opinion, either more focused on video OR more focused on flight experience with some kind of ”acro mode” OR more focused on noobs beeing able to autonomous land within 10m of the user running both approach and flare autonomous. As it is packaged, everybody gets 80% of what would make them choose the drone over other alternatives (exept the few soldering nerds that get 300%). Thats why the drone failed on the market - not the price.
You make a great video good work.
I think the problem you are having is trying to land it in a very difficult environment. Far from optimal. This is a fixed wing so you need to first come down in altitude before autoland.
I feel a few more flights with this under your belt you will get it.
I would have liked to see more actual flying. The perspective on the market was right on. :)
There's something wrong with your prop. It's not really that loud. Man it has wings - how else were you supposed to transport it ? Roll it up ? It's really easy to land (if you don't try to catch it unless you actually can) find a place with SPACE and push the button. Digital stabilization hasn't come that far yet, but it will be big in the future, then again, this is marketed as a FPV drone. It doesn't have the resolution to make anything for the big screen. The image stabilizer on this one is actually amazing, if piloted differently. You know it will all be much better with smaller inputs on your sticks. I love this wing. It's made for the joy of fpv flying. It's a fixed wing not a crazy agile stunt drone. It's even great for 3d mapping as it is - you don't need to get the insanely prized industrial one with the extra vertical cameras for crop analyzis etc.. The autopilot (that you really should try if you can't produce steady shots yourself) is very moddable it runs a linux variant and is strangely enough easier to work with than many DIY autopilots. The only thing wrong about it was the price.
oh yeah, the price dropped a few months after they discontinued the fpv version then it sharply skyrocketed later and is almost back where it started. I hope it drops back because I want to get 2 more to do the 4gLTE mod on it.
THIS IS QUITE THE MASTERPIECE of drone..imo. I also have to disagree with it being the most useless drone. Ive never owned one.. but i am going to buy one here soon. but looking at those that do own one. They are amazing drones....just capability of this drone which out performs pretty much every other drone.... is the fact that you can put the 4gLTE mod making this drone...on a whole another level......its been 10+ years and other major brands still havent emplemented this into their "NOOB" drones...much less their professional drone lines neither... but interesting perspective you have....
The parrot disco is my favorite drone, it is also one of the best drones. Please don't disrespect the drone before thinking about your piloting.
Best for you is not the definition of best product. It needs to be best for a significant market segment to be a good product. You obviously do not understand that a product needs to make money to be successful. It can only do that by selling. It needs to sell a lot to be successful. It will not sell a lot if it is not the best option for a lot of people. Disco is not the suitable choice for most peoples needs. Therefore it did not sell and Parrot discontinued the failed product. Despite cool features and small fan base of nerds.
Thats not a drone... its a plane! and its is useful, run it with 4G LTE...
4G LTE is really cool, but is it useful? For what, exept to do range experiments? Also, it is illegal in many countries.
The Disco is amazing - but it has little use, except as a science platform for tech nerds that like mods and soldering. Thats obviously a small market segment, as proven by the sales figures.
(And yes, it is a Drone. See the definition.)
@@MattiasAllring 4G LTE guarantees you won't lose video feed even if out of sight. Result is you wont lose your drone.
Hello, I do not think that the parrot disco is a useless drone, but it obviously has differences compared to quadcopters, for linear landing you have to practice and master it quickly and if you still have a hard time mastering that you can perform the automatic landing which does it in a way. circular and completely autonomous.
Not very useful video, the joke at the beginning with the French being the engineers doesnt make any sense either because this product (even more now that can be found new for 400$ and used for half of it) is top notch, it is very well designed and put together, it is for drone hobbyists, a small market, which has 0 to do with the engineering of the drone, period.
It's not useless u can make these go 40 miles away with about 200 dollars worth of software with 4g connections...its completely quiet while gliding doing this so it doesn't bring attention.
Well thought CLICKBAIT!!!! Atleast change your annoying ladies like posture in thumnail. lol
in If its not then; btw I am a software engineer and i know better than many ordinary users and i own three units of parrot DISCOvery. Parrot disco was a pioneer in open source engineering and miles ahead of others till date in overall engineering hardware and software. You can do softmod and run it for hours over lte for hundreds of miles, can any other rtf product do it? No. thanks and peace!!5
Fact: It didnt sell.
@@MattiasAllring Truth: You Bought It lolll. Market and good engineering are two complete different things.
This might be to hard for you to understand, but a product can be useless even with skilled engineering and awesome features. The undisputable fact that Disco failed to sell was not due to lazy people at marketing department or stupid developers. It was due to poor Product Management. The product specification handed to the developers didnt match a need on the market. There is no major market segment for which the Disco is the best solution. The small die-hard community of fans making 4G mods might warm the hearts of the staff of Parrot, but is neglectable from an economical standpoint. There will never be a Disco 2, unless Parrot figure out how to reach the masses. That can only be done by focusing on a major segment and designing the requirements to fit that segments needs better than the competion. Introvert product centric development does not win market share.
come on, if there is no truth in my saying, why are you wasting your time? stupid developers?lets not talk rubbish. Check ur video dislikes. wise men dont oppose whoever disgrees with them. I apologise if untentionaly i said something that u didnt like.
BUT its very easy to talk and find faults , very easy, but very hard to invent something. Unless you have invented something you dont know how the process goes and how difficult is it to develop give birth to new idea new product. failure or success is different virtue. You made a video on a product discontinued for years and i just gave my technical opinion which obviously is beyond your grasp, as in my opinion only that person has right to say something who first studied and mastered that subject not every layman joe about technicalities. Im a product team leader. Have you ever developed a single product thats in market for sale? i dont think so.
lets not talk bad something legendary and im sure all engineers and persons of technical background will agree with me. thanks.
I didnt make this video to insult the developers of Parrot nor the small die-hard community of Disco fans. I made this video because I am intrigued by how a very cool piece of technology could fail on the market. I am a senior product strategist and frequent speaker on these matters. The diffrence between Product Centric and Customer Centric design is one of the key topics I am typically invited to talk about. The root cause of the failure of the Disco is interesting to me to analyze in retrospective, and in my opinion, a text book example of failed Product Centric design. I am NOT saying Parrot has poor developer, nor poor marketing people. Quite the opposite! The failure is,in my opinion, poor Product Management. Product Management is responsible to pinpoint a specification that will position the product as #1 for a targeted segment on the market. They did a sloppy job identifying what that segment that would be and what it needs, resulting in the developers being handed a specification that when developed became a product that very few people have use for.
Whats your obsession with ad hominem argumentation? Wise men challenge the argument, not the people behind it. Does it matter if I have developed successful products on the market? Read my LinkedIn profile if that matters to you. Does it weaken my point that a lot of die-hard Disco fans dont like to have their favorite drone scrutinized? No. Its a fact that the Disco didnt sell. I analyze the reasons for that out of my passion for business strategy. If you would like to put forward an ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS for the FACTUAL market failure of the Disco, then please join the grown up conversation. Otherwise, please browse away to content of your preference.
Have flown this for 3 years...
IT IS AWESOME DUDE... 4g.... add a receiver and use your own transmitter...
Can fly around 150km roughly if you use a 5000mAh batt
Dear Mattias Allring
Allow me to disagree with your opinion regarding the Parrot Disco, because you have not been able to get the true benefit of this wonder. I'll explain how I've done it.
First, planning is fundamental, I use it in topography and photogrammetry, in fact I am a topographer or surveyor, as they consider it in your country.
To plan with flight plan, you must draw the waypoints as a simple grid setting the height and speed, save it with a name, then go to photo editing, tilt the camera to 83°, delete the video recording and you replace it with photos, save it again and completing the planning, you proceed to raise it. Once in the air and activating the program, you begin to press the button to take photos every 3 seconds, you will see that it saves the photos practically from above and you can process them on the PC with ad hoc programs.
Success and study this method, greetings from Chile.
Not the most informed or educated review i have seen
Someone managed to mount a DJI pocket Osmo onto it and the result wasnt bad at all. As you can see from comments here people have taken the base product and modded the heck out of it from increase batteries, stabilised 3-axis gimbal, 4G mod etc - Their original RRP didnt make them very popular but when Parrot discontinued the product and sold @ 1/3 the RRP people lapped them up.
It is interesting how much awesome mods there seems to be. Too bad Parrot didnt manage to leverage all this creativity into sales figures. I guess whats missing is how to bridge it too the masses. I speculate that if the mods would have been plug n play and sold through Parrot it might have changed the fate of the product. What do you think?
I agree disco is awful i bought one was gonna do all the mods . Took it for a test flight an it flew into a tree broke into pieces . Its really hard to land i had so many failed landing attempt fails . Before the crash 3 crashes in total . Third crash nithing left of the drone. DJI is the boss an always will be . Only problem is they not allowing a 4g mod like the disco to do a super long flight .
Just press the landing button when you are at 30 feet hight and in the direction you want !
The landing button just stop the motor ...
Even for the noise I don't understand what you are talking about ... it's like most planes.
The video title should have been
"Attempts to automatically land a disco in your hand"
Sorry but that was boring to watch you try this ...
Its more for people who actually want to have fun while flying and see a little bit what the drone sees. Landing is not that hard, you just suck at it on purpose, or you just suck at it! Maybe you shouldnt press the landing button 100m above the ground and wonder why its not coming down, LOL
What idiot is going to fly an rc plane between the trees and electricity cables. You know it's a plane, right!! The Disco is super coolI i love it
When a drone is caught in a forest...
Does anyone care....
I think this video perfectly represents a time wasting love-hate relationship, only in this case between a man and a Parrot Disco. Whatever man, I love the Parrot Disco, it is very well engineered, and I dont think that it‘s a failed product.
It all depends on the key question about the price point: for 300€ as sold in summer 2018 you have a market
the FPV for fun flyers that can wait for perfect conditions and then might not need a gimbal.
The 4G mod changed the game at all - and you would be able to market it today again and more likely for a full 5G network.
Get me a better Plane than the Disco
@@austntexan Yes. With fixed wings I only have the Disco experience and I get that you said. I doubt there are anything on the market like the Disco. The complains I have with the Disco is the camera quality and it's fragile to land. Besides that it's an awesome automated machine. And with the flightplan and 4G capabilities even better. It's a pity there are no more Discos bean made and another newer version of it.
This was a great and hilarious review! Also, I agree with just about everything. This drone seems really cool and it would have been fun to try one out, but I just can't figure out why I would possibly want to own one. I couldn't use it for anything.
Thank you, Danni! :-)
Beautiful scenery for sure and drone might be crap , but the place you're trying it out in is hopeless, far from ideal for a fixed winged drone . I wouldn't even fly a quad there.
Not for the casual beginner like this guy. No one in their right mind would fly this from their home in a neighborhood. It is meant for surveillance. Not for casual flying, although you can use it for that but you're not going to have much fun with it.
Maybe don't fly a fixed wing aircraft from a small field in a dense forest of tall trees.
Just saying.
the failed landings is you flying it like a quad copter instead what it is, an Airplane. also that location sucks for airplanes. much better place for quads.
@@austntexan the filming you could do with a disco is pretty much all I plan to do with a quadcopter but to me the quad could provide more stability to the view.
@@austntexan not directly giving Hollywood any of my money if I can avoid it. Ill catch it for free later.
@@austntexan I bought the Bebop with sky controller and almost destroyed it so I put it back in the box and haven't touched it since. I'm thinking I'd like a mavic 1 or 2 but it'll be a far off day when that happens. Got so much other stuff to spend my money on, toys like that will have to wait.
@@austntexan I'm wanting a 1500 GW. Used to have a 1500 Vulcan. That was my first bike. Had a small fender bender with a car, fixed the bike myself and sold it for $50 more than I paid for it.
No offense but, this drone is not to be flown as a toy. Its actually pretty good for shooting videos. Like the videos you see on televisions at the mall. I actually dont see this as a bad product.
Shoot. If you want to sell yours, I'll take it. There are dozens on eBay actually selling for more than MSRP.
What f*cking clickbait. I guess airplanes are useless too because they're not choppers? Gimme a break...
I found it very difficult to get all the way through your video without commenting about everything that is wrong with your "Failed Landings" . First , lets start off with the area you are flying in . Not the best for trying to hand catch . Nice to be in an more open area without 125 ft tall forest all around you . Try a football field. 2nd , I never hit my land button on my controller. I just bring it in low and slow and let it touch down with motor running . It will shut off automatically. One day I might hit the button just before it touches ground , but always afraid it will then climb and do a circular landing by itself .
Now the biggest issue I have with your assessment of the Disco . First off I dont consider it a drone. Drones are more in the multirotor category or military category. These are fixed wing planes meant for enjoyment of flying . Video is not terrible , but all my DJI drones take better video. I have put a Gopro hero 7 on top of my Disco and video is great .
Also , my drone was purchased when the price dropped to $300 , and if they were still around at that price , I would buy several more because there is nothing around that can compare to it for long distance flight plans , and I am talking about RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX planes.
This video is about why Disco failed on the market. It did fail. Its a fact. It is also a fact that it is a drone (read the definition), not that it matters.
I know how to fly, have had a real pilot license since I was 16, long before flying drones. What I was testing in this video is if the ”Autonomous” landing would be so easy that the average joe would be able to straight out of the box start and land it in a setting similar to Parrots promo video (see the video in link above). I expected it to handle the decent by itself, which it obviously does not. I realized that and could learn to hand land it within that first battery, but I strongly disagree that the supported landing support is enough for beginners looking to do anything outside of a football field. The field I was on was not really a problem once I learned that you have to do the whole approach manually - the Disco only assists the flare. A bit silly, since 80% of the landing is already done when it is time to flare. Having to stand on a football field to fly is a dealbreaker to me and most people wanting to create interesting content. But that was not how Parrot advertised it - the promo is in a similar setting as I and most other drone enthusiasts seek to fly in. The field I flew in was similar.
@@MattiasAllring Not trying to start an argument about this . It is a fixed wing drone by definition. You can get interesting content from anywhere ,even flying over trees like you are doing. But to say it is USELESS like you did in your title is a bit much. Don't know if you are looking for click bait (that's why I am here) . My landings are smooth and are all done without hitting the land button . My brother has about 15 RC planes and is jealous of my Disco. He wishes he could get some of the features it has , without going through a lot of trial and error and cash.
It is a drone. It is a fixed wing. Those are not mutually exclusive. I am sorry if anybody feels sorry that I call the drone USELESS. What that word means to me is not that it is low quality or shitty. The Disco is of great quality! What i mean is that it can perform very few jobs and fit very bad to the needs of the market it intended to capture.
For me, working proffesionally with product strategy, how they managed to fail so bad on the market with such an ambitious project is very interesting.
@@MattiasAllring OK , so the most useless drone in my opinion would be the DJI Spark. I just got rid of mine because I had no need to fly it. The camera is not very good. It is possibly the slowest drone (6 mph) , unless you put it in SPORT mode.
Define useless. That something sucks does not mean it lack usage. The Disco is cool, but lack practical usage outside agriculture. The Spark is widely used to learn to fly, but is also used very frequently by travelers and even real estate agents. Its tool built for purpose, be that it is a low budget tool. If you say that the Spark sucks, I am with you. But it is not useless. And its a commersial success, so expect a follow up Spark 2 or Mavic Mini soon.