After more than a year of waiting, those friends who participated in the crowd-funding of the Lily Camera drones received an email from Lily “sorry sorry†today. Yes, Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial star who had been so popular overnight jumped again. Voted.
In September 2013, two students, Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow, who had just graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, set up the Lily Robotics drone company in the garage, just like young Steve Jobs. Their vision for their company at that time was to make a "flying camera" that could photograph people in the air without complicated manipulation techniques.
This "no money for passion" is in line with Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial spirit. In the spring of 2014, Lily pulled a considerable amount of investment. The investor is Shanna Fisher, who is a big investor in New York. Then, in May 2015, Lily drone’s cool demo video brushed up social networks, and the startup company Lily Camera stood in the spotlight with their first mass production product. , became the headlines of major media at the time.
This dazzling appearance of gadgets, in the beginning of homogenization of multi-rotor drones, with a distinctive get a lot of hardware entrepreneurs and players of all ages.
Lily Camera adds the features that many users have dreamed of.
When Lily just exploded, the industry commented. Indeed, the combination of portable, water-proof, throw-to-fly, and follow-on shots all merged into a small drone, which at the time was something that many drone manufacturers couldn't imagine.
QuestionedWood show Yu Lin, the wind will destroy it.
In the end, Lily isn't a "shower." For the time being, it wasn't mentioned. However, it was popular all night. Not only did it welcome the expectation of many players, it also attracted criticism from people in the industry. After Lily drove the circle of friends, it was questioned by practitioners from all sides of the industry.
At that time, people from the industry stated:
The possibility of rapid mass production is very low. This machine has several flaws:
The stability of throwing flight is not guaranteed, and throwing is not easy to lose.
The landing in the promotional video is almost impossible to achieve because the so-called camera used by them is positioned to land. As long as there is a slight error, the paddle will hurt people.
Lily still uses GPS tracking, which means that there will be a GPS module on both the aircraft and the controller's hands. All GPS data can be obtained, but following does not equal to following. Even if the aircraft follows, there is no guarantee that the controller is always in the camera. .
In addition, there is no difference in the stability of the camera without a PTZ camera.
There are many such comments, in general, people in the industry do not buy out Lily's explosion, but have questioned the safety and technical feasibility of their products.
Two skip ticketsIn the predictions of those in the industry, Lily's bounced votes seem to be reasonable.
Sure enough, in December of last year, Lily drones, which had been arrogantly bombarded by six months ago, sent out emails to crowdfunded users confirming the bouncing. The original date of shipment was February 2016, and this Once, Lily's excuse is:
In order to complete part of the software optimization, the hardware upgrades a level of testing.
Then the time was postponed to the summer of 2016, but no specific delivery time was given.
In the blink of an eye, the summer of 2016 has passed and Lily has yet to ship. May be eager to not redefine the summer like the old Luo, desperation, today sent a second sorry e-mail to the user, like a student who did not write homework and the teacher said "homework forgot", sorry to the user Statement, due to such problems as hardware, had to postpone the time again.
Lily gave a specific time this time - between December this year and January next year.
The development of drones was faster than expected. Just over a year after Lily had been quietly researching and developing, the drone market has undergone great changes. The direction of the drone and the vertical field are all beginning to be clear, and, with the rise of the concept of artificial intelligence, drones gradually began to move closer to the concept of "flying robots." If Lily was still a development strategy that was more than a year ago, it must be backward.
An industry source told Lei Feng Network (search "Lei Feng Network" public concern) :
Now that Shenzhen has an unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer making Lily-like products, all the functions can be implemented stably, and mass production can be carried out. I believe it can be launched soon.
Which one is specific, this person in the industry did not disclose, but he said that the company is financing, and there are institutions that have done their best.
From this point of view, even if Lily Camera fulfilled its promise to complete shipments by the end of this year, it is impossible to enter the Chinese market.
Do you know the Jibo robot? This robot is a frequent occurrence of bounced tickets, leading to the emergence of countless similar robots in the Chinese market. These domestic robots have already been sold at full streets, with low cost, low prices, and fierce competition. When Jibo enters the Chinese market, it is destined. Will fail. Lily and Jibo are one reason.
Indeed, there are currently a number of domestic drones that rival Lily, Zero-controlled Dobby, and infinite Hover Camera. The former have been shipping for a long time, and Lily is still Among the embarrassment, whether or not it can land is still unknown.
During the year, Lily gradually disappeared from the eyes of a business star in people's vision, has gone down to the altar.
Success or failureDuring this year, the entrepreneurial star Zano drone, which was in the same period as Lily, was declared closed down. The UAV brand that created Kickstarter’s European fundraising record successfully raised about US$3.6 million in November 2014, claiming that it would take half a year. In-house production of 15,363 products. By October 2015, the company had issued only 600 to scheduled users and 4 to KS supporters, and all drones lacked the key functions mentioned in the promotion at that time. In December, Zano officially went bankrupt and liquidated, and the supporters’ money was basically not returned.
In a report on the bankruptcy of Zano at the time, Zano’s most serious mistake was to set aside Flag and eventually failed to prepare for delivery to the user.
Lily is now facing the same problem.
It seems that Lily is not ready yet, so they have chosen secondary bounce tickets. But until the winter they promise delivery, what if Lily isn't ready yet? Will Zino send a bunch of incomplete goods like Zano? This is not impossible. If you really go to that position, Lily will never be lost. Conversely, for quality, if Lily beats the ball three times, it would be very difficult for Lily to have a place in the rapidly changing drone market.
In short, this winter is a key battle for Lily. It is a failure or rebirth. Look again in the winter.
Xinzhi is the public account of Lei Feng.com, which focuses on robots. We are concerned about the status and future of robots, and related industries that are integrated with robots. Interested friends can add micro signal AIRobotics, or directly scan the QR code below to follow!
