UDI RC Discovery FPV Review
"Fantastic value for money with features included that you'd expect on drones more than twice the price!"
Some new features like Return to Pilot and Headless Mode make this a significantly better entry level drone. Pilots new to drones will be delighted as these make their lives much easier and more fun. It’s worth stressing the HD video recording is a good upgrade and means you’ll get some fantastic quality footage. At the end of the day though, this drone is so, so much fun to fly.
If you want to buy a ‘first drone’ or pick something up that you’d seriously enjoy flying, get this. The UDI Discovery FPV is definitely a great ‘fun’ drone at a price that won’t break the bank.
Overall Rating
Design
Battery
Features
Performance
Ease of Use
HIGHLIGHTS
- The official app that comes with the drone (UDI RC-FPV app, because we definitely need more capital letters in our lives) should be downloaded. This lets you fly your drone using your phone without needing a transmitter! Saves weight when out and about or on a bike / hiking.
- We received an extra portable battery pack with our box, which we thought was interesting. The websites for UDI and USA Toyz don’t actually mention one, so this pleasantly surprised us! This let us charge the drone’s on-board 2600mAh battery while in the field, which was great.
- This is becoming a bit more standard these days, but again we love the Return to Pilot (RTP) ability. How often do you get a drone that’s this inexpensive but also has a working RTP function? Not very often indeed.
- We really like the blade guards on the Discovery drone. This is because they’re made of a composite material that’s really lightweight. This makes the drone look bigger and easier to spot when flying further away. Close encounters or brushes against obstacles also won’t drop the drone out of the sky. We like this very much!
- Acrobatics, because everyone loves acrobatics! The Discovery drone can do flips and three-sixty stunts. Rolls can also be achieved in any direction just by pushing a button. We know the camera is the main selling point here, but this really is a lot of fun!
OVERVIEW
UDI makes a number of boats as well as flying drones. This is their newest release, the Discovery FPV. There are a lot of features included here that people starting out with drones would really need, and the professionals also want. That makes this camera drone very well suited to a lot of different types of pilots.
When UDI first made the Discovery drone, it sold like hotcakes. The formula was simple: good performance and a strong, durable drone combined with a really, really low price. The next step for them was the Discovery HD, which again sold tremendously well. The idea again here was simple: keep everything you had before but now let’s add a camera. Now, the next generation is ready to be unleashed. The FPV version of the Discovery is cheap and has two batteries in addition to a portable battery pack. We’re willing to overlook the WiFi (i.e. not really a 5.8GHz drone) to go ahead and try this out!
The base drone is effectively just a 23cm / 230mm quad drone. The blade guards made of composite material make it look a lot bigger, however, and makes a ‘canopy’ for the drone. It’s very lightweight and importantly it’s very flexible, so a single knock won’t send it cracking. Lots of bending before cracking is very useful, and the propellers can’t really be interfered with from the sides as a result of this durability. One thing that a lot of people might miss is that this protects the circuit boards really well too. Bumpy landings are therefore less of a concern (but still to be avoided if possible!).
Underneath each motor are LED lights that help with orientation as well as an extra one on the nose which tells the user which mode the Discovery FPV drone is in at any one time.
The other features on the Discovery drone won’t be mind-blowing, but will be fantastic value for money at the price. The return to pilot (RTP) feature is excellent - all it does is fly back to the transmitter so it doesn’t work off of a GPS. Once the drone returns to you, though, you need to land it yourself. It will fly back to you and hover, and you can then choose to continue flying or land it.
If you want to film some really nice sweeping, longer form shots from the camera, Headless mode is perfect. You can also get some great panoramic shots and keep track of moving things / people / other objects in a film. You can capture 720p HD video or stills from the on board 2MP camera, while transmitting a live feed directly to your smartphone via WiFi! You can simply load it onto the tray which sits on the top side of the transmitter.
Your smartphone will be thanking you - the UDI RC-FPV is quite possibly the best drone we’ve ever seen that can be flown with a phone. There are loads of controls for the camera which of course are built in, but there’s a lot more as well. You have the choice of what they call the Traditional Control, which displays two joysticks on screen. You would use these just like the gimbal design sticks on a radio. There is also a Gravity Induction mode, which is great. This uses the drone’s on board sensors to help guide the drone. If you tilt your phone forwards, the Discovery follows suit! Everything in the app is available for you to use, with one exception. The Return to Pilot (RTP) feature needs the Discovery drone transmitter to act as its home location.
SPECIFICATIONS
Memory:
Micro SD
Screen:
4.3" LCD
Length:
340mm
Width:
92mm
Height:
330mm
Radio System:
2.4GHz
Electric Motor:
4
LiPo:
2 x 1S
Charger:
USB
Gyro:
6 Axis
IN THE BOX
Um, did anyone say “some assembly required”? Kind of not really. The Discovery FPV drone more or less asks you to pop some AA batteries in the radio and download the app. Then read the manual (always!), because in this case it’s actually really good. Every step from opening the box to flying the drone is done in a meticulous amount of detail with good images alongside.
IN THE AIR
When we tested the Discovery FPV, we were a little concerned because it was quite a windy day. So we were extra careful when cycling the throttle all the way to max and back again before putting the flight pack on. Getting a feel for the drone on the radio screen, we could see that we were on low rate mode, or mode 1. We slowly then took off.
The drone began to drift away noticeably even with small amounts of wind, but as soon as you test the controls you realise the Discovery can comfortably compensate. The Discovery drone is very responsible and can tilt impressively far to try and counteract the wind.
So that’s all great for mode 1, but what about mode 2? We switched it up, and wow oh wow. This thing is quite speedy indeed! It can bank turns very swiftly as well as any beginner / notice drones. If you’re a pro it will still satisfy you though, as the responsiveness is great. One note though: around the five minute mark we got a beeping that indicated the low voltage cut-off (LVC). We kept the Discovery FPV drone going a little longer to see how much life we could actually achieve, and it more or less hit 6 minutes 30 seconds bang on, just as the box said it would.
We tested the Return To Pilot (RTP) feature and the flip function the second time we sent the drone up. The manual said to gain a lot of altitude and be wary with your throttle to keep the drone upright after flipping. Please take heed of this advice! After flipping, the drone does drop quite a fair bit, mainly because of the camera on the bottom. As soon as it flips just keep on the throttle and that helps a lot. You can probably get a lot better performance when flipping if you remove the camera. We then tried it in Headless mode, which you need to use if you want to use the RTP function, and took the drone about 15 metres / 50 feet out. We hit the button, and the drone very quickly came back to us which is great. Please don’t forget that it returns to the radio, NOT to where it started flying from. We then cancelled the RTP by moving the stick on the right to reassert our manual control when it was a bit closer.
Finally, we wanted to go and grab some aerial footage! We recharged the drone and put a micro-SD card into the camera. Launching the UDI RC-FPV app, we then powered up the Discovery drone and went for it. On the phone, the live feed was phenominal and you get a really nice view of everything the drone sees. All the control icons are along the top of your screen and don’t block anything. The WiFi setup also means that you do get some latency but it really isn’t as much as thought it would be.
Once we got to altitude, we then put the drone into a spin and started snapping photographs. You could review the still images straight away on your phone which was really nice. Video was also excellent, with a super crisp image. That said, you can only watch video after you take the micro SD card out and download them elsewhere. The one warning we would give is that when the Discovery drone was travelling very quickly, there was a lot of jitter in the final video. We’d probably recommend travelling at slow/steady speeds and avoiding wind for the best results.
BOTTOM LINE
In the entry level drone market as well as the hobbyist one, UDI have done an amazing job. We were skeptical about the WiFi rather than 5.8GHz drone, but it seems to have worked out quite well. The Discovery FPV drone is really enjoyable for just flying around. It’s not the most obvious entry level model but anyone with even light experience or a simulator would be fine with this.
The Discovery can bang out a serious amount of speed and manoeuvrability in mode 2 and anyone would have lots of fun with it! The camera as well as the rolls and flips (because, fun!) make this a great all rounder. There are also spare parts included in the box which is lovely. Given the price, it’s very difficult to see how you can get better value at the moment. Enjoy flying around, acrobatics and taking some stunning imagery with UDI’s Discovery FPV drone!