Potensic Atom Follow-Me Mode

The Potensic Atom's Follow-Me mode is one of its "intelligent flight" modes.  It's a really nifty feature that uses visual tracking probably based on contrast and size of the subject that it's following.

So far, I found two things that will or may confuse the drone:

1) If something like a tree comes in between you and the drone, it will immediately lose visual sight and therefore visual tracking of you.  It's not a smart drone that can predict where you might go based on direction and speed, but perhaps it's a good thing.  Just imagine riding down a road and you pass under a tree with another vehicle and as we emerge from under the tree, the drone picks up the other vehicle to follow.  That would be terrible!

2) If there are objects of similar shape and size as you, the drone might get confused and might then lose track of you.  This happened to me once when I was riding a motorcycle down a stretch of a parking lot where there were some people toward the end of the stretch.  The drone lost me and stopped in the air.  It hovered there, not knowing what to do so I had to regain manual control over it.

The Follow-Me mode is certainly a very cool feature that I like a lot.  The more I play with it, the more I like it.  Perhaps, only if the drone can follow me based on the GPS location of my phone or the controller.  That would be super awesome!

You can get the Potensic Atom from Amazon.com here: https://amzn.to/3MQWWEq For Canadians, I got my Potensic Atom from Amazon.ca here: https://amzn.to/4gb6YO8

Potensic Atom: Two Bad Things About It

So, I have some gripes about the Potensic Atom.  I recharged the three batteries I have two weekends ago.  I was planning to take the Atom out last weekend to test the Follow-Me mode again but the weather wasn't great. Today, the weather was perfect so I rode my motorcycle out to find a place where I could safely test it in.

Two things I found out:

1) The batteries were already down to 60% capacity!  After just two weeks, the batteries were draining on their own by 40%!!  I had only 20 minutes of flight time per battery then.  I better make sure I recharge them fully everyday when I'm travelling.

2) The Follow flight mode wasn't great. It doesn't have smart AI that would track you as you move in and out of shades, or when you disappear for a second under the canopy of a tree. Yeah, it's not smart at all but it's expected. It's not a full blown computer inside the Atom. Well, at least I know now how to use properly.

After about 20 minutes of flying, the drone knew it was running out of juice so decided to return home. I had feared that it could happen so, as always, I had placed the drone in a clear spot with an uninhibited vertical take-off path. My test was within a short distance so I could just ride back to the starting point.

It's still a great drone!  I got my Atom on Amazon.ca here:  https://amzn.to/4d9qzeP.  You can get it on Amazon.com here:  https://amzn.to/4erWFDp