Most drones ship with a remote control that uses two joysticks for flight control and has either a built-in screen or connects to your smartphone to show the camera view and useful information like altitude, flight speed, and location. The A1 is a little different. Its remote control works with one hand, and the included Vision Goggles headset shows the camera view and flight data, with head tracking that moves the camera view around.
The Vision Goggles are a strict requirement for flight (Credit: Jim Fisher)
The Vision Goggles look futuristic for sure. My visual observer (and spouse) told me that I looked like Anakin Skywalker in his Phantom Menace pod racing helmet when I put them on. Interestingly, it puts screens on both the inside and outside. The outside display is placed over the wearer’s left eye and shows a view from the drone camera when you’re flying it (the idea is that friends can check out the scene as you pilot), plus it shows the status of firmware updates, so you needn’t strap them on to check the status of your download. The Goggles connect to your home Wi-Fi network for over-the-air firmware updates, with no app or computer required.
Inside, the Vision Goggles use two 1-inch Micro-OLED displays, each with 4K (2560-by-2560) resolution. Each lens uses an exterior knob to adjust the diopter power (from -5 to +1) and is positioned on a slider so you can tune pupillary distance to match your vision. The goggles aren’t meant to be worn along with eyeglasses, however, and while Antigravity offers a 300-degree myopia correction insert as an optional accessory, you can’t change the lens inserts to match your prescription as you can with headsets that are meant for content consumption like the Apple Vision Pro. This is a problem if you require a more complex prescription, for instance, I have a strong astigmatism in my left eye, so I only see sharp text and details on the right side of the screen, while the left half appears a little blurry.
The Goggles show a view from the A1’s lens during flight (Credit: Elisa D. Keller)
Aside from my gripes about my poor eyesight, I’m happy with the picture I see in the Goggles. The view from the drone’s camera takes up the entirety of my field of view, is sharp enough for navigation, and importantly shows no discernible lag. Telemetry data (altitude, speed, and distance from the remote) are displayed over the image, though I’ll note that this information is only shown in metric, which is fine for nearly every country in the world save for the US, and there is no option to change them over to imperial units. The transmission range is definitely shorter when compared with DJI’s O4 transmission system; however, the picture garbled and broke up when I flew the drone toward the extreme limits of my observer’s line of sight (around 2,200 feet), but that’s still plenty of operating range. If you do fly far enough away to lose connection, the A1 will initiate a return to home flight by default—you can also set it to hover when the signal is lost, but I’d recommend sticking to the defaults. You can set a custom altitude for the return trip via the Goggles’ interface.
The Goggles work in conjunction with the Grip controller to navigate through menus. The Grip has motion and orientation sensors and shows a virtual pointer on-screen to scroll through the A1’s floating menu panels. It’s pretty intuitive—you can see its virtual cursor move around the screen as you wave the Grip like a wand.
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The A1 has two flight modes, Free Motion and FPV. In Free Motion, you’ll use the Grip controller to point in the direction where you want the drone to fly and pull the trigger to put it in motion. The throttle is analog, so you can press it gently to fly slowly and pull it all the way to go at top speed. Free Motion works in conjunction with head tracking, so you’ll move your head to change the camera angle, and fine-tune the flight path by using the Grip to position a reticle that indicates the exact flight direction.
If you want to ascend, you can tilt your head back toward the sky, and you’ll look down toward the ground to descend, and the angle of either path depends on how far you tilt your head. As an alternative, you can always ascend or descend without craning your neck. The controller has a slider that rests naturally under your thumb; it controls the altitude, as well as starts the motors, takes off, and lands the drone. Likewise, if you don’t want to have to turn around to start flying in the other direction, you can use the Grip’s control wheel to rotate the drone. The Grip also has a big red button that works as a brake with a short press and initiates automatic return to home with a long press.
The Grip controller uses different textures and control surfaces so you can find the button you want while wearing the Vision Goggles (Credit: Jim Fisher)
An FPV (First Person View) flight mode is available as an alternative to Free Motion. The FPV mode is pretty similar to Free Motion, but relies on the Grip’s motion-sensitive controls and doesn’t follow head tracking. I tried it a little bit, but I strongly prefer the Free Motion system for flight control. I felt like I had more agency over the drone’s flight path in Free Motion. On the other hand, the FPV mode includes a “Virtual Cockpit” mode that adds a whimsical animation to the headset view. You can choose between a witch’s broom, airplane, spaceship, or a few different types of dragons that you can ride through the sky. I tried some flying time with the dragon animation, and it definitely gave me the feeling of riding off to Alduin’s castle on the back of a dragon in Skyrim. The animation doesn’t show up in your finished videos, but you can enable screen recording in the Goggles, so you can show off the feature on social media if you want to.
In addition to manual flight, the A1 also includes a few automated modes: Sky Path, Deep Track, and Sky Genie. Sky Path is a waypoint system that lets you fly to different points in space, save each location, and subsequently have the drone repeat that path on its own. Deep Track lets you select a moving target and have the drone follow it automatically. And Sky Genie has the drone fly in a preprogrammed pattern; you can make it circle around a point in space (Orbit), pull back to reveal a subject (Comet), or fly in a corkscrew pattern (Spiral).
The A1 always flies forward. Its 360-degree video system reduces the need for lateral camera movements, as you can always pan over to the side or rear to get other angles in the editing room. It has two nose-mounted cameras that the A1 leverages for obstacle detection, and it also has obstacle sensors on its undercarriage. The drone automatically stops in place when it detects an obstruction, an effective, but basic, safety system. DJI has a leg up on this front; its Advanced Pilot Assistance System 5.0, included in the Mini 5 Pro, Air 3 and 3S, and Mavic 3 Pro and 4 Pro models, changes a drone’s path to fly around a barrier all on its own. That said, the A1’s obstacle sensors stopped the drone in place several times during my tests, both when I was intentionally trying to trigger it and when Sky Genie paths would have otherwise gotten the drone stuck in a tree.
The A1 is rated for Class 5 wind resistance, which means it should operate on days with 24mph gusts. I performed my test flights on a mildly breezy day; the weather report told me the wind was around 10mph with gusts of up to 17mph, and I was constantly inundated with high wind warnings when flying above treetop level. The drone never got stuck, but it definitely struggled against the wind at times, enough that I’d caution buyers to check the weather report and avoid flying on breezy days.
The A1’s top and bottom lenses are used for video capture (Credit: Jim Fisher)
I’d also caution anyone who is prone to motion sickness that you may have a hard time using the headset. I’ve had no problems with nausea when trying other FPV drones, I had a good experience with both the DJI FPV Combo and Avata for instance, but I felt truly awful after my first 15-minute shakedown flight with the A1—I had a headache for a good hour after landing and felt like I might lose my lunch and was worried that I might have to skip this review entirely. Thankfully, I didn’t have any problems on subsequent flights. I spent more than an hour flying the A1 a few days later and didn’t feel ill at all. But if you are prone to car sickness or reach for the Dramamine when you’re out on the water, it’s likely you’ll feel ill when flying the A1.
