| Nixie | |
| Developer: | Christoph Kohstall, Jelena Jovanovic, Michael Niedermayr |
| Type: | Wearable camera drone |
| Releasedate: | Unknown[1] |
| Price: | "Slightly higher than GoPro" (expected) |
| Cpu: | Intel Edison chip |
| Graphics: | 1080p HD images and video |
| Weight: | < 0.1abbr=onNaNabbr=on |
| Website: | www.flynixie.com |
Nixie was a prototype small camera-equipped drone that can be worn as a wrist band.[2] [3] [4] Nixie can be activated to unfold into a quadcopter, fly in one of its pre-programmed modes to take photos or a video, and then return to the user.[5] Competing against more than 500 other participants,[6] Nixie's developers became the winning team in the development track of the Intel's Make It Wearable competition on November 3, 2014, thus securing $500,000 in seed funding to develop Nixie into a product.[7] [8] [9] [10] [11] The developers stated their goal to develop the drone into the next generation of point-and-shoot cameras.[10]
, the device was in development and was not commercially available.[1] On December 26, 2017, Nixie Labs, the drone's maker, stopped doing business and surrendered its corporate registration in the State of California.[12]
Nixie is a drone that unfolds into a quadcopter and is worn as a slap bracelet.[13] It weighs < 0.1abbr=onNaNabbr=on, captures full HD images or video, and syncs with a smartphone.[5] The drone uses an Intel Edison chip.[6] In October 2014, Nixie prototypes had good functionality, but lacked durability and design perfection.[2] [5] At that time, an important engineering challenge was to identify flexible, light, and durable materials to achieve the look of concept renderings.[5] [13] In November 2014, an updated prototype added image recognition capabilities to identify the user,[14] and the primary goals were improving propellers, motors, and object navigation.[8] The overall goal for the project was stated as building a light, portable, and user-friendly drone that could serve as a "personal photographer".[5] Accordingly, the drone was named after a playful water spirit Nixie of Germanic mythology.[4] In the media, Nixie has been described as a "wearable selfie drone"[4] and as a "wearable camera drone",[8] with such images being nicknamed "dronies". The developers emphasized that Nixie is intended for taking framing-worthy pictures and videos, not only selfies.[14]
Even though a wearable camera drone was suggested to have applications in rock climbing, mountain biking, and other adventure sports,[5] [3] in November 2014 the developers announced plans to market Nixie to a niche audience of rock climbers first, before expanding to a general audience.[15] [8]
Sensors and motion-prediction algorithms are used to guide Nixie along one of four pre-programmed paths for taking photos or video.[5]
According to Wired,[5] the first Nixie prototype was built by Christoph Kohstall. After tinkering with a quadcopter that he received as a gift, Kohstall built a drone model of eyeglasses with propellers, as well as a prototype that could dive underwater and then reemerge from under the surface.[5] To better address the poor usability of quadcopters, he then had an idea to create a "flying wristband" with a camera. Kohstall's partner Jelena Jovanovic was involved in creating the first prototype and later became the project manager.[5] Together with Michael Niedermayr, Kohstall and Jovanovic entered the 2014 Intel's Make It Wearable competition as team Nixie led by Kohstall.[4] Once the team became a finalist on September 3, 2014,[2] [4] [16] [17] Nixie received significant amount of attention,[2] [5] [3] [4] and > 5.9 million views on YouTube.[13] As one of ten competition finalists, the team was provided with mentorship, design assistance, technical support, and $50,000 for further development.[2] The team presented the final prototype at the Intel Make It Wearable Challenge Finale on November 3, 2014,[18] winning the $500,000 seed funding grand prize to develop the prototype into a product.[9] In their second interview with Wired,[8] the developers indicated that their primary goals for improving the drone were optimizing propellers, motors, and object navigation, as well as miniaturisation of Nixie.
Life
. 8 October 2014. 29 September 2014.