Several weeks ago Vantage attended CES with the Extreme Tech Challenge as one of the top-ten finalists, and, as the picture suggests, we finished in the top three out of 1300 applicants! Next stop is Necker Island in early February to pitch a panel of judges including Sir Richard Branson himself.
The Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) is one of the largest startup competitions in the world, and CES is the stage for a round of live pitching. You can check out Tobin’s pitch below — it starts around the one-hour mark:
XTC’s video below will give you a better sense of what will happen on the island. As co-creator Susi Mai mentions, it combines fun and business in a unique way— hard to beat a beautiful setting and the company of inspiring and smart people.
It was incredibly satisfying for us to receive this level of validation from such a well connected and experienced group of judges, especially given the impressive competition. But what matters most to us, above all else, is delivering a product to you that enables an out-of-this-world level of creative freedom and satisfaction. Building and improving upon a product with Snap’s level of complexity requires rare and amazing people, a worldwide network of technology suppliers, and of course, financial resources. The community we will be meeting with on Necker Island will help us continue to expand our capabilities on all of these fronts, so we can make sure to stay on the (figuratively only) bleeding edge of what’s possible and serve you for years to come. (And yes, the chance to go kitesurfing in the caribbean from a billionaire’s island is nice too. But then we’re back to work!)
In the meantime, the Vantage team continues to refine beta units, get more Snaps in the hands of beta testers, expand and improve our production line, and and work through a myriad list of logistical challenges. We’ll be sending out a more detailed update on delivery progress later this week, as we know all of you are eager to get your Snaps. The short story for those who can’t wait is that Snap is working well and scale up logistics are the primary hurdle between now and you getting your Snap.
Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for following our progress, as always!
— The Vantage team
© 2024 Vantage Robotics
Well done Team VR & Good Luck on Necker Island!!.
I’m also glad to hear that you are refining the beta units so then we can all get our hands on one in the not to distant future, so we can start to produce some great life memories to be enjoyed over & over again.
Thanks Dale!
Great job team! Have a wonderful and successful trip! Happy you represent the Kingdom of Thailand!
Thanks Mark!
I too would like to extend my sincerest congratulations and would like to mention how proud i’m feeling to be part of this startup. It’s going to be better than ‘really good’ to get one of these machines! And can’t help but mentioning that good things indeed come to those who will wait, thanks VR Team.
Thanks Chuck! We’re really thankful to have your support.
Congratulations to the Snappiest team around. A friend is a good friend of Sir Richard Branson. Trust me, you’ll like him and LOVE Necker Island. My team’s processor chips are used in many quads on the market, so they are a passion of mine. I look forward to updates and availability.
Again, CONGRATULATIONS!
Thanks Napablue! We’re excited to get you flying.
How about spending a bit more time on production, and a little less on promotion … Unless Sir Richard is paying your way to Necker Is., that money would be much better spent on your getting your customer’s Snaps built and delivered!! You might think about this while kitesurfing .. to keep you grounded!! Would have liked to hear Tobin’s pitch, but not about to listen to a bunch of crowd noise for an hour .. there is no “fast forward” on the video!!
Believe us that we are spending a vast majority of our time on production, and promotion takes a very very small part of our time.
That being said, there are many sides to a company, and bringing a new piece of tech to market involves more than just time in the office. Building relationships with industry leaders can lead to critical resources and support that will help in Snap’s production.
If you go to our facebook page, we have a posting where you can fast forward that video. We will try to repost something here that will allow you to fast forward next week.
Just checked … you charged my credit card $915 on Sept. 25, 2015 … and still nothing to show for it … C’mon guys, that’s pitiful .. and you’re off to Necker Is. for ‘recognition’ .. or is it for money for ‘development’ … What happened to “charge on delivery”??? Pretty hard for me to recommend your Snap to my friends ….
This is a pre-sale. Charge on delivery was never talked about. If you would like to cancel your order, shoot us an email at [email protected].
Hi guys,
great accomplishment, congrats. On the other hand I can’t be more irritated about the information you have left for us in the last paragraph.
It is no surprise, that snap still is in Beta, yet I was caught off guard to learn, that you refine Betas to get those in the hands of testers. This does not sound like a software challenge to me. Therefore this is my first concrete questions for whoever will reply to my post: <>
The fact, that VR still faces logistical problems makes me uneasy. I was under the impression you struggle with production ramp up. So here is my second questions: <>
I’m really sorry to spoil the party over the good news with XTC. No doubt, this is a great achievement for you guys, your effort and product. Unfortunately this piece of news is perceived as very bad when it comes to delivery. Honestly, I doubt you deliver snap by easter. That’s roughly 12 weeks away, given your progress over the last couple of weeks.
I assume most of us pre-ordered a flying camera and yet we aren’t able to get an understanding how good it is camera wise. Yeah, I’m able to read the specs and all that, but for me the Mavic Pro is your competition. While Staaker hands out products for people to test and share their footage, you have the Betas under lockup. I wonder, why that is?
Just send this thing to one of the youtuber, who actually test drones for a living and then we’ll see. At the end I must state, I think your product is (still) inferior and you damn well know it. Sounds harsh, but I’m running out of excuses why you act the way you are….
This post was not about production. It was an update regarding CES and XTC. We will be coming out with another post regarding your questions and these issues.
ooops, your comment plugin left out my questions:
Are you altering the hardware due to knowledge gained by Beta testers?
Do you struggle with production ramp up and (!) with logistical challenges on top of that?
Congratulations, i am very pleased for all of you and hopefully this seal of approval means snap is going to meet it expectations.
I have previously commented regarding scheduling and you guys are obviously still grappling with it. However I think dirk has represented many of our views and questions on that quite succinctly I am keen to read your response.
Instead, I would like to take the chance to re-emphasise how enthusiastic I am about snap and that we are all hanging on here in the hope if getting what should be a remarkable piece of tech. All the more so when the accessories become available.
The fact that we are still here shows that we still have faith in the project and though frustrated, we are still rooting for your success with both production and XTC.
Hopefully all will go well for you and it will make us all feel vindicated in sticking it out. I hope you’ll bring back lots of video!
In the meantime, im looking forward to the update this week. Will that be tomorrow? Or are you working at the weekend? Hopefully we we will get to see some videos, along with some more detailed information.
PS. Don’t forget to send a few drones out for review before you leave?
Marcus
Thanks for your support Marcus. We are really excited about this, and can’t wait to show you Snap first hand. More updates to come.
Congratulations VR team. Considering how broad the XTC challenge is and how many advanced quad copters already exist in the marketplace I think it speaks volumes that XTC chose VR as one of the 3 finalist. Many critics over the past year have compared the VR Snap to other quad copters and perhaps not seen the full potential of the innovated and unique features of Snap despite a very large and diverse quad copter marketplace.
I’m actually very shocked that Snap made it to the XTC finals. Not because I don’t think Snap isn’t an outstanding product but in case people reading this blog aren’t aware…. take a quick look at the other two finalists. Snap made it to the final three along with a revolutionary gel designed to stop traumatic bleeding within seconds without the need of manually applied pressure and a company that has designed a 3D printer that allows you to re-use the plastic compound you used to create your 3D print over and over again.
No offense to VR here but those are two very significant new technologies. As far as I know, this gel and that 3D printer are the very first of their kind anywhere. It’s not like there are other options for consumers right now in the marketplace in these categories. The fact that there are dozens and dozens of quadcopters in the marketplace right now and that Snap still managed to make it to the finals with these two incredibly new and innovative products says that there is a lot more to Snap then it’s simple specs on paper. Surely for the judges to feel that Snap deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with a new technology that could save lives or at least make it a lot easier to save lives and the first ever re-usable 3D printer plastic compound is pretty remarkable.
Please do get that new update out on time as the pre-xmas update left people with more questions I think rather than answers. I feel the community is really looking for a very significant update. To the point where I think we’d all be happy to receive our snaps a day or two later in order to get a high quality thorough update now. Given that it’s already Thursday, I think you may have meant to write “later next week” instead of “later this week”. Please take the time to make it a thorough one. I fear a lot is ridding on this next update.
Great job VR team and best of luck in the finals.
Thanks Kevin!
Well done guys!! Awesome top 3 especially considering the other 2 finalists!!! I’m sure safety was a big factor.
I’m glad I live in Sydney as I should still have some awesome weather left to play with SNAP before winter arrives!! (ie. maybe autumn hey). Looking forward to timeline update;)
I only Preordered mid June 2016 so haven’t been waiting as long as some understandably frustrated others, but I do think people forget this is a startup when they compare VR with other well established companies & products.
Having access to all that business knowledge & networking on Necker Island will be priceless & can only help VR & SNAP succeed.
PS. Don’t forget RB has grandchildren & I’m sure he’d love a drone that’s safe around children to post pictures on his blog ??:) lol
Thanks Russell!
I am still massively frustrated. Y’all are a constant source of disappointment for me.
Good work VR. Thanks for the update. I hope you are shipping to Australia soon. I was burnt to the tune of A$50,000 by another start up software company in Australia that kept providing product updates but never delivered. I hope I don’t get burnt by my investment in VR ??
Thanks Jex!
I don’t think anyone reading this positive story can help but read between the lines. It sounds to me that you’ve reached a technological crossroads not a hardware impasse. The fact you’re now excited about being on an island with people who have deep pockets also makes it sound like the kickstarter money has run out. No matter how good your tech looks on paper and in short vid clips, the tide will turn rapidly and your supporters will bolt if you don’t start setting real deadlines. I for one am losing patience. 15 months and counting…
Rob, every penny from every pre-order is held separately from our working capital. We are a privately funded company, not a crowd funded company. We will only invest your pre-order funds when we enter full production. We have not, and will not tap into those resources for payroll, engineering, prototyping, testing, marketing, or any other non-manufacturing expense. At any point before shipping, you can cancel your order for a full refund.
We entered this challenge months ago, and are incredibly grateful to have advanced this far. However, the vast majority of our company will be back at the office pushing through all the logistics required to scale up production.
Rob,
Vantage never ran a kickstarter campaign, they have been and are funded by actual private investors, not people like you an me. They can refund orders practically as soon as you request it. If they were a kickstarter then they would be in the same boat as Lily – being directed by the courts in San Francisco to refund 34 million in orders that never materialized. Food for thought.
Thanks Tibor
On the topic of private investers, at 65:25 in the top video there is a picture of the team. In the photo there are some impressive logos such as google, HP, VW. Are these your backers or the background experience of your team?
Background experience of our team.
Congrats guys, enjoy Necker Island.
Looking forward to the delivery update.
Thanks Toby!
I’m having two fears to deal with and the frustration of how easy it is for VR to offer your money back when you comment on how long it’s taking to get your product, you’d think the response would be more caring about keeping all your customers. I also fear you offered pre orders to early in the game, now myself and lots of others are tired of listening to why the product you promised would be ready for delivery almost up to a year ago. My last fear is if this takes any longer to produce and deliver the “advanced technology” in it will no longer be high tech. Part of my aggravation is waiting for what was promised, I pre orderd mine on September 22nd 2015.
Sorry for your fears and aggravations here Scott. We spend a good amount of time and energy sharing our excitement, ensuring our viability, and apologizing for our delays. If someone writes an essay about how disappointed they are, we try to acknowledge and respond to their issues. If we cannot, however, soothe someones feelings, we want to let them control how to move forward. We are very appreciative of our customers, but don’t want any unhappy customers to feel trapped with their purchase.
We understand that delays are really frustrating. Believe us that no one is more frustrated than we are. We cannot change these delays, nor can we change the date of our initial pre-sale launch. However, we do stand firm that Snap will have a place in the current market, and is quite ‘high tech’.
Hello,
When is the next update?
We are drafting another update now.
When will delivery be??
We don’t have any precise dates yet, but will post another update shortly.
I agree with a lot of people on here that something “fishy” is going on with this company. There have been a ton of delays with the product, and though they have been quick to respond to questions and comments, the substance of the responses haven’t really provided any indication the snap will be shipping anytime soon. Obviously, they are having issues, and are afraid to say the real shipping date is months away (I’m guessing late fall) rather than “weeks away.” They haven’t provided any substantive proof otherwise. Seriously.
Bringing a new piece of tech is incredibly complicated, Scott. While this doesn’t really excuse our delays, please understand that these setbacks are not uncommon, and there are many successful products that took longer than expected to get out the door.
If you ask ‘when will my unit be shipped to me’, our response hasn’t really changed: we don’t have a precise timetable despite making good progress. We understand that that is not the answer you want to hear, and that you would like more substantial, but we cannot guarantee anything past that.
The fact is that our design and software is quite strong at this point, and we are only really dealing with logistical issues involved in mass production. We have many partners involved in sourcing, assembling, and delivering this product, and a delay at any point can hold up everything. We will not point fingers at our partners, but have been working through these issues together. There is progress everyday. While we may not have any substantive proof for you, we live and breath Snap, and are quite confident you will be flying well before ‘late fall’
I think initial bad review are in order from ALL preorder customers. There will be backlash for all of these broken promises.
Please let me know your approximate shipping date
I would like to cancel the order if it seems to pass the beginning of February.
It’s hard to wait anymore.
I’ve been waiting for more than a year.
Re. the answer you got from from VR .. “Late Fall” … TWO YEARS FROM CHARGING MY CREDIT CARD???
YGTBSM is the only appropriate response …
A commenter speculated late fall. It was purely that, a speculation from a customer. Our response was that Snap will be in full production well before that.
Please reassure me on one issue.
Will Snap cost $1295 retail?
If not, what actions will you take?
Please speak in a manner to not be misunderstood.
Please be fully transparent.
James,
As always I am very appreciative of your clear & precise answers to questions posted here, even if the reply is now what we want to hear(or yourselves for that matter).
On a side note have you any more pictures of the carrying case you can share with us?, also some more videos would be greatly appreciated to keep moral high?.
Many Thanks
Thanks Dale! We have been jamming with a lot of development stuff recently, but will try to post some more pics as soon as we have a moment!
While we may not have any substantive proof for you, we live and breath Snap, and are quite confident you will be flying well before ‘late fall.’
You were also quite confident this would ship last year (why else would you advertise shipping summer 2016 on your website).
Your responses have been VERY VAGUE, which leads me to believe “late fall.” Again, I challenge you guys to provide more substantive proof otherwise.
Sorry you don’t believe us here Scott. What information would you accept as substantive and specific enough for your standards?
Michelle (and Barrack?) is currently at Necker “recovering” … maybe you’ll cross paths?
James please just give a straight answer as to when we can expect to receive our preordered snap? Frank
Frank, there are too many variables at play, and we don’t have any precise dates. We are drafting another update to go over the current issues, and hope that that will shed a little light on the situation. Our estimates have at least a few more weeks of beta, and scaling up right after that. Sorry we can’t be more specific here.
Granted, you guys do take the time to personally reply to a lot of inquiries on here… but when people ask for more substantive updates (i.e. Pictures, etc) you have the same type of response…. you are busy with other things, and such “update will be done shortly.” When asked for a realistic shipping date, you respond with “just a few more weeks.”
This stuff is getting old. It may have worked for “just a few months,” but now, like I posted earlier, it’s obvious you guys are having problems… because you can’t get into pinpoint specifics. Post videos. Post pictures. Videos of your testing. Pictures of all of your betas being shipped. A screen shot of your app. Anything, other than “we have had unseen delays, but we will be getting back to you very shortly.”
Just to clarify, answering a comment on a blog takes about 15 seconds. Going on a hike to take some awesome images, editing, and posting takes much longer. Pinpointing a shipping date when dealing with a ton of variables that are not 100% in our control is not realistic.
That being said, we do have a lot of unentertaining footage from Snap. We have a private vimeo account where we keep videos from our test flights (our youtube channel is focused on footage for the public). If all you want is boring videos that show us testing in our backyard, we can make those public. I will change the privacy settings on these videos and send you a link today or tomorrow.
I will also try to take some more pictures of our assembly line, and post them to instagram/facebook.
OK Scott. Here you go. We post all our videos to the public on youTube, but also have a private Vimeo account for keeping track of all our internal videos. We are testing everyday, and using this footage to fine tune our settings, find bugs, and improve our software. These videos were not intended to be public. None of them are terribly spectacular, nor have they been edited in any way. However, if you are interested, we have just made several dozen of them public. We will try to post more in the coming weeks. https://vimeo.com/user25547420.
Also, we did a small flight next to our assembly line today, and took a screenshot from the phone controller. This gives you a sneak peek of both our assembly line and our mobile app. Nothing special, but it is pretty much exactly what you asked for. You can see the pic on our instagram or facebook page.
Please let us know if you have any other suggestions. Thanks again.
I feel like yall need to make a blog post ….on how yall make blog posts…… which would explain to everyone why its takes yall soooooo long to release blog posts.
haha. Solid burn.
– When do I get my snap?
– We can’t give you an exact answer.
-I preordered (Insert time here) years ago!
-Sorry we will have you flying in a snap.
– When do I get my snap?
– We can’t give you an exact answer.
-I preordered (Insert time here) years ago!
-Sorry we will have you flying in a snap.
– When do I get my snap?
– We can’t give you an exact answer.
-I preordered (Insert time here) years ago!
-Sorry we will have you flying in a snap.
– When do I get my snap?
– We can’t give you an exact answer.
-I preordered (Insert time here) years ago!
-Sorry we will have you flying in a snap
.?
James, I commend your saint like patience.
Thanks Chris!
Too many delays that are feebly kicked down the road w. “update soon”, “a few more weeks/months” … NO concrete explanations … always very vague and non-descriptive …
Compliments sound like they were written by employees, considering their wording that counters your customers’ complaints.
Tired of waiting, and too many frustrating non-explanations to everyone.
How do I get my money back?
No employee has ever commented in disguise as a customer. Some friends and family have sent words of support from time to time, but very infrequently. Please email us if you if you wish to cancel your order.
Same question here – this has been too long too vague to keep trust that this will come to an end (a positive one soon) – so how do I apply for a refund ?
Philip
Email us at [email protected] to cancel your order.
Actually – perhaps you enlighten me (us) as to why we should wait if the Mavic Pro now is readily available – what would we be missing if we would not wait for the Snap ?
DJI is a great company, and the Mavic is a cool product. It is a very different type of camera than the Snap though. Mavic and Snap are both small, 4k flying cameras with many similar features. But Snap is really designed to be used around people. Every feature has been focused to make Snap provide the simplest, most intuitive, and safest experience so that you can capture those amazing aerial images around your friends and loved ones without having to be an experienced pilot. And, as your needs vary, Snap’s extensibility will allow for you to specialize your experience.
This XTC blog post was posted on January 19th. Within it, it says: “We’ll be sending out a more detailed update on delivery progress later this week, as we know all of you are eager to get your Snaps.”
The week of the 19th was last week and this week has 2 days left to it before it is over as well.
I think the VR Snap community really needs to see that detailed delivery update post today or tomorrow. Even if it requires everyone at the VR headquarters working on it and delaying snap development by a day. Granted it’s only been a month since the last major production update but I think everyone is getting super duper antsi-pants. lol.
@rsugden,
I believe from previous posts if you email [email protected] with your order ID transaction number from your confirmation email they will sort you out pretty quickly, unless somebody can correct me?.
Trust me I know how hard it is to wait as I cancelled a while back but then came back onboard after cancelling my Mavic order, but My mind is clear now & I will wait for my Snap.
Thanks Gizmo!
@Gizmo2001
Could you share why you cancelled your Mavic in favour of Snap ? I am leaning the other way right now so would appreciate to learn about your thoughts behind that. Thanks !
I’m interested in Gizmo’s answer as well but my take on the Mavic pro is that it’s flimsy and unless you are ultra careful with it and have previous drone experience, and only fly it in wide open areas, chances are you’re going to smash it to bits and at the very least break the gimbal on it. Racing drones are starting to go a similar route that snap has for people who want to start drone racing but don’t want to have to buy new parts after every single race. The other shortfall of Mavic is it doesn’t have side or rear obstacle avoidance. So not only is it flimsy but it has no fail-safes for side crashes, top crashes or reversing crashes. Yeah it fits in your pocket and that is pretty awesome but it’s just too fragile and dangerous for my liking. The Phantom 4 Pro on the other hand is one heck of a piece of equipment. The P4 Pro is designed for a slightly different user but I’d say there are more reasons to buy a P4 Pro then there are to buy a Mavic. I’d rather carry a large back-pack and not destroy my investment and or hurt someone in the process then have the added advantage of portability. Note that P4 Pro still has open blade props and can still cause damage. Not to mention it’s significantly weight and lack of break-away design. Anyway…. above both of those options, I’d rather wait a little longer and have a safe, robust, crash “resistant” portable drone. And Hopefully with full 360 obstacle avoidance in the future. = D
p.s. Emphasis on the “a little longer”…..
thanks – but the Mavic has at least forward object detection – the Snap none for now, right ?
BTW – I put my order in on 9/9/15 so here too the emphasis is on robust and performing, but also on when…
I have an Inspire I, Phantom 3A, and Mavik Pro … of all 3, the Mavik Pro is the simplest to fly, has more features, and equivalent video/photo performance .. Cancelling Snap due to lack of performance and response by manuf.
I just was reminded by my better half as to the number one main reason why we remain patient for Snap over the Mavic or even the P4 Pro and that is cause I really REALLY want to be able to film my dog and kids. Like cool dramatic drones from a canoe in the middle of the lake. Or from an outdoor pool or even just on a hiking trail. Can’t do that with the Mavic. Pretty sure if I brought the P4 Pro on a mountain bike ride, even with its 7 obstacle avoidance sensors, I’d probably get beat up or have my drone grabbed by another rider and smashed into a tree for me being a hazard to other people on the trail.
With Snap. I am more confident that others won’t be as hostile towards me when flying it around them.
BULK UNEDITED VIDEOS!!! ?
Christmas come very early this year.
Enjoy!
I take it back. Vimeo is obviously youtube’s younger handicapped brother. I haven’t seen such frustratingly slow Internet media since trying to watch porn on dial up in the 90’s.
Vimeo is actually a really solid site. We haven’t had any problems with them being slow.
Hi,
About my decision to return to the Snap after I had waited a couple of months for my Mavic(Apple got mine in stock the day before I cancelled it, I had a link to someone well placed in the Company in UK so I rang him & they stopped it being shipped, so I’ll have made somebody else in the queue very happy!)) & had flipped & flopped backwards & forwards almost every other day.
Trust me it drove my poor wife crazy with all my time spent on line looking at reviews both good & bad & almost going blind reading many forums.
The main points & differences for my own personal use are.
Safety First.- I think I had got swayed by the huge public prescence of the Mavic with really cool videos & it was easy at
first to get swept up in the hype without thinking clearly & just wanting a drone NOW.
But I rewatched some of the early Snap videos including the day at the lake standing out to myself(No not
For the very pretty lady in the lake!) with it being flown in manual control & how close to the children
It was when in the woods & near to the house. No matter how good the Mavic is(it is good) I would be
Scared of a gust of wind or the child getting excited & trying to grab it or a flight fault ending up injuring
them.
There are a multitude of other scenarios which are too many to mention where this may end up with a nasty
outcome.
Damage – I won’t t go into to the sad tales of many inexperienced Mavic owners who thought that they did not to either
read the manual or take time to learn how it handled & also the unfortunate owners who due to no fault of
there own their Mavic went haywire & there was extensive damage due to its fragile design.
With Snap I think this risk is diminished greatly due to it’s innovative design & therefore it will leave more money
in my pocket to order any of the add on’s when they come to fruition.
Modularity – Mavic is a great drone, there is no question about it. However once you have that platform you are really
stuck with it unless you take into account purchasing the new improved models when they come to makrket.
Whereas with the add on’s already in a tested prototypes stage this opens up many more possibilities for
different usage, I have many in mind both personal & business but each to our own.
I could rattle on for hours but as I’ve said we all want a Snap/Mavic or other platform for our own personal needs & Snap fits mine perfectly so I will sit & await it eagerly!.
Thanks Dale. We love hearing customers identifying the best qualities of Snap!
Vimeo link is now dead?
Strange. We haven’t had any issues with the link I posted. However, if you search ‘vimeo vantage robotics’, it should pop right up.
Any chance of the link to the Vimeo videos please?
Looks like you got this all sorted out. Let us know if you still have issues here.
Gizmo,
Just go to vimeo.com/user25547420. Or you can go to the root vimeo page and search for Vantage Robotics. I hate to spill the beans but I’ve been stalking their vimeo page for months, every so often I would catch videos before they were set to private 🙂 I’ve gotten to see a lot of video over the last several months because I’m a stalker 🙂 It helps that some of the uploads were on Sunday nights, Friday afternoons, I’ve kept quite about it, but now that James has given everyone the key to pandoras’ box I’ll step out of the shadows 🙂
V/r
Tibor
Tibor, do you remember any favorite videos that are now private? I pretty much just picked out the most recent dozen or so, and a few dozen of my favorite videos. But if you have any special requests, I will try to make them public again.
ya that dosent work….
Strange. We haven’t had any issues with the link I posted. However, if you search ‘vimeo vantage robotics’, it should pop right up.
Tibor,
I tried searching Vimeo & only could find an old promo video, @James or anyone else can help with the link please?.
Cheers in advance.
Altan/Gizmo,
Standby, I’ll try to get something fool proof. The link doesn’t seem to work, but I was watching videos on my personal laptop earlier….
V/r
Tibor
Guys,
Here’s the magic recipe: On the vimeo home page type in VantageRobotics One word, just like that, and the lake swim video comes up – click that video, then when the page loads for that video – click on Vantage Robotics below the video on the left – it will appear in bold with the small PRO icon next to it, that will take you to the page with 52 videos accessible.
V/r
Tibor
Google searching ‘vimeo vantage robotics’ also worked well.
Tibor,
You have become my new best friend in a Non Spooky or Stalking way!!!.
Cheers Buddy.
Getting to see all the videos really has been what has kept me pacified 🙂 It’s my security blanket so to speak. I know, it’s sad, a grown man needing a pacifier, but hey they have $915 dollars of mine, which is a lot of money to me that could be helping my savings account earn just a little bit more interest, and I like to see that I might get something to show for the $915 that I spent 6 months ago (I know some have been waiting since the pre-order campaign started 17 months ago). So, I monitor that site diligently grasping onto every little video that pops up for usually only a few hours. So, seeing as James just let the cat out of the bag yesterday evening, I feel it necessary that everyone gets to see the videos as I have without broken links.
V/r
Tibor
Thanks for the post tibor i feel the same as you do, really not sure if i want to wait much longer.
James,
You really need to give Tibor a big pat on the back for helping us see these non spectacular videos that you mentioned!.
We don’t need “Spectacular” videos all of the time but Hey it would be nice.
I’ve just quickly previewed 2 of the many videos & it has lifted my spirits as this is what I & others have been asking for, some raw footage without the bells & whistles.
Also it may help to keep people invested when they see the progress that has & is being made.
**Apologies to all for my previous post about my reasoning behind my Mavic v Snap decision as I had it all nicely paragraphed but when I hit post it went “Helter Skelter”**
Glad it helps Gizmo! We will make sure to post more.
I will wait. I’ve been flying an Phantom wannabe (Cheerson CX-20) for a year now, and yes, I salivate over the Mavic, and wish there were a few features that were originally going to be in the SNAP, like a separate video transmitter (non-wifi, but that entails more FCC clearances and everything that goes along with it), but the design of the Snap has a target audience, and the FPV flying crowd is not their target audience. So, I have two children that I’d like to film safely, and I have a desire to not piss off people in public with my quad copter due to safety concerns. My Phantom wannabe (Cheerson CX-20) was my get used to flying before I buy something that I would have convulsions over if I crashed it quad – so the Snap appears to be two very important things: 1) Safe around people, 2) much MORE survivable than the DJI offerings.
I see much potential in the Snap – and I see Snap as a thing, and not a need, which also helps with the waiting – but I still am SUPER anxious to start flying it up here in the Pacific Northwest in places I’m allowed to fly quad copters.
Cheers all.
V/r
Tibor
“Tibor, do you remember any favorite videos that are now private? I pretty much just picked out the most recent dozen or so, and a few dozen of my favorite videos. But if you have any special requests, I will try to make them public again.”
James,
I honestly don’t remember much about them – what I do remember is seeing Tobin help out two different “beta” testers, at least I think those were beta testers, those videos were uploaded and gone over the last three-four weeks. There was one beta tester that was not visited by Tobin and his video was pretty darn solid as well, unlike most people who I’ve seen Tobin “let” play with the Snap in prior to beta testing videos were a bit wobbly. You released several that I had not seen as well.
“Google searching vimeo vantage robotics’ also worked well.”
James,
I’m pretty sure googling was how I stumbled upon the vimeo page funny enough. As soon as I saw you guys had one I created my account and followed it.
Thank you Tibor and James !!!!
Sure thing! Looks like Tobin posted a 9 minute video showcasing a bunch of the automated flights this morning.
Thanks for letting us see those videos. Very cool. I think I watched almost all of them today. Can’t wait to get mine!
Great. Glad you enjoyed the Joe!
Thanks for heeding my advice. Though I may come across as an (insert whatever here), it’s constructive criticism… don’t be like Lily was… misleading their customers, and then arguing with them when called out. You did the right thing by making those clips public.
Thanks Scott. Your criticism was valid, so no offense was taken. Please send us any other thoughts you have in the future.
Finally!
Now we have some videos that show us something. I would thank you for finally releasing the video, however, this should have been done a long time ago! You guys should be able to see that you have pushed your customer base to the edge of reason and we should not have to bully you into releasing some videos!
I tried to leave a positive post at the top of this page as it is a celebration of XTC’s recognition. BUT, you still have not released the next update! I cannot think how you could say it would be released within a couple of days and yet be over a week to deliver it if you have not intentionally LIED. This is B/S.
There are many questions from comments that you have NOT answered. These need to be answered HONESTLY. When you open up to pre-orders you are making a contract of faith with your customers, you have repeatedly and KNOWINGLY misled your customers with what at best can be called “misleading statements” (what anyone who isn’t an arsehole would call lies). This is not keeping your part of the contract. Now you need to be opening yourselves up and telling the truth. Investors might find that unusual, even off-putting, but your customers will appreciate the opportunity to be able to make an informed decision. and it would show a bit of respect. (Something severely lacking in the previous tripe you have been releasing.)
UPDATE NOW – good news or bad
ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS – not just replying with more bollocks
DON’T BE DEFENSIVE – I don’t care for your excuses and I don’t think anyone else does either.
Step up to the challenge, act like a decent human being, show us some respect, be honest and open. Let us know what is happening, what is not happening, what we can expect to see arrive and when.
Whoa. Pump the brakes here. Those are some serious accusations there, and are simply not true. It is understandable why you want to see a bunch of videos from our testing, but there are a lot of reasons why we didn’t open up this vimeo channel before. Further, there are many scenarios that involve us wanting, and planning, to post another update sooner than we have that don’t involve ‘intentional lies’. We understand that everyone is anxious to get flying, and the wait is frustrating. We apologize for this discomfort, and are doing everything we can to get you in the air as fast as possible. If you would like to continue this conversation, please email us at [email protected].
Super super sweet videos especially the newest one that Tobin posted. I mentioned this months ago but I think Snap’s auto framing functions are the best in the industry right now. Far superior to the competition even the big boys. I really think Snap is the only one where you can get awesomely autonomous framed shots due to whatever algorithms you guys programmed into it. I really think this is the drone that most of the home video people want. All the GoPro / Camcorder people. Ugh can’t wait! More excited then ever!
Thanks Kevin!
“We are going to delay sending out the first shipments until the end of July. Our target is to ship all pre-orders by the end of September. The first 5% of pre-orders sent out in July will be part of our “Voluntary Beta” program (which we explain in-full below).”
“We plan to ship the bulk of pre-orders in November and December.”
“and plan to ship to our pre-order customers in December.”
It’s one week until february you deserve this kind of outrage when you make misleading claims like the ones above Look what happened to Lily. They are involved in a lawsuit for false advertising.
There are some serious, fundamental differences between getting hit with delays which affect a target date and using competitor cameras and passing them off as your own.
A super big Thanks to Tibor…your info about the vids were just whar i needed to wet my pallet and pull me back into that warm feeling i first had about this snap bird…cant thank u enuff…tks buddy…im again very excited…especially about how great and stable i see that the camera is working now…yiippee!!
Thanks Chuck (and Tibor)!
Gizmo, Frank, Altan, Chuck,
You guys are most welcome. I’m glad I could help. As we all still anxiously await all the logistical problems to be solved, I hope that the Vantage team now knows without a doubt that we (the customers) just want to see how the product is coming along, no fancy music, cut scenes, or animated logos required. Save that for the advertisements to draw the masses to Snap. We are hanging on to be the first (well, after the beta testers, and anyone else who has had a chance to see Snap in person) to fly a Snap.. Great weekend to all.
V/r
Tibor
James,
Actually – now that I’ve had a minute to think about it – you guys used to have the prototype videos on there, with the Sula, and Seraph models – those were cool to show what you guys started out with – But my favorite video of all was the chasing Eric video – where the Snap is used to chase Eric (the blonde little boy) around the back yard, that was by far my favorite.
V/r
Tibor
Thanks Tibor. That is Joe’s son. We just released a bunch more videos, including that one. Ton’s of old prototype videos too.
wow! i just read the quote above from Scott, ur all gonna laugh . . . i thought that we were all being given new shipping dates and that we should brace ourselves for another ‘almost’ year of waiting…lolol, ok guess it wasent that funny but it w a s that funny when i reread scotts posts ‘including the one below the first one’ …w h e w… heheh still laughing, and glad i didnt have a heart attack lol
The Vimeo videos were exactly what I needed.
It is real, and it is an amazing machine.
Thank you for putting those out there for us to see.
You have 100% restored all of my confidence in Snap.
Y’all do what you need to, to make the machine that you envisioned and engineered.
All we have on this earth is time to spend and wait for the future to come upon us.
Vantage Robotics is the future.
Thank you,
Thanks Paul!
Funny chuck. Sorry you read it that way. Who knows though, these quotes might end up becoming truth… albeit one year later.
Thanks for the Vimeo link! Any idea when the next update will be released?
Tks Scott, i hear ya, i sure hope that isnt the case, one thing i noticed in watching the latest video is a couple of places where the gimbal made some strange side to side vibration movements, anyone else notice what im talking about? …anthow, this vid was done just a day ago so looks like they’re working on some of these issues still, im sure they will get them fixed before we get our snap.
These videos are shot while testing, often right after making a lot of changes. Whenever you change the firmware, you risk breaking a different function. You shouldn’t worry too much about it.
Hey Vantage team,
Are we getting an update on shipping? It mentions in the post that there would be one later in the week of this post. It’s now two weeks after that.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Been watching 20+ of your Vimeo footage. Can’t wait, but have to 😉
Thanks Peter!
James,
I just watched the newest videos – including the one titled James first flight. Is that you? Or a different James? If it was you – what you think? I am actually Super excited about that video – because if that was actually your first time flying – that looked EXTREMELY easy to fly! I really like how you guys included the Audio – that highlights just how easy the Snap is to fly – you guys – really that was FANTASTIC! I don’t think I have been this excited about any other video PERIOD. If that REALLY was the first time you ever flew it. My CX-20 took many, many, many flights to get comfortable with – That one video makes Snap look extremely stable and I hate to say, stupid simple to fly. Really guys, I am extremely excited now – I’m even OK if you guys delay until the end of March, I finally finish my IT management degree and I’ll be able to actually enjoy my weekends again – and it will be that much more enjoyable with Snap in my backpack to all the PNW locations I want to take it with me to.
V/r
Tibor
Thanks Tibor. We actually recently hired a second person named James. I was filming though.
It was his first flight though, and it is incredibly easy to fly.
I know there’s a few of us that are putting up a lot of comments lately on the blog but I can’t help make yet another post what with all the vimeo footage being released. First off, James, you kill me. I loved your first flight. Haha. Tibor was way more user interface focused then I was when I saw that video. When I saw it I couldn’t help but notice just how sexy the snap looks close up! The shiny black frame looks totally out of a Michael Bay Transformers movie. Love it! Anyway. I’m shallow what can I say. My next observation is a comment on how small that battery is. Those batteries are COMPACT when seen in someone’s hands outside in the field! Damn nice!
Moving on to more important things then James. (lol).
FreeForm Tracking Elevation. OH EMM GEE! Yes yes yes and more yes! That’s the first video that fully represents what I’ve been going on and on about through various blog posts for months. Snap is the absolute first fully capable drone ever created for full autonomous video capture of mountain biking and hiking and whatever else on a mountain. I can’t get over how amazingly near perfect that video was. It’s adjusting its elevation downward in lead mode autonomously while keeping the subject in frame via lock on to the smart phone! Man oh man once people start fully catching onto the full potential of what just happened there! Every mountain biker, skier and snowboarder is going to be rushing to get one! You can’t do this with the Mavic. You can’t do this with the P4 Pro. You can sorta kinda do this with Airdog but Airdog is a follow me only drone with very limited capabilities and as mentioned previously, I highly doubt anyone is going to be happy about a flying lawnmower flying above their heads. I still don’t think many other people have fully grasped the full potential of what this means…. Maybe I’m the only hardcore mountain biker / snowboarder on here that’s been following snap since 2016 but this is so huge to me! I have to say it again. Full featured, full capabilities, 4 K, gimbal stabilised, autonomous free form follow with subject tracking and elevation compensation in LEAD mode! I’m not going to get any sleep tonight now! File 0041. Virtual Wire Tracking with elevation compensation….. Also the next most epic shot for sport videography and ALSO may I add, not currently available in any other drone on the market as far as I can tell. Again, maybe airdog but airdog is not a full featured quadcopter. It’s a follow me only drone with very limited capabilities. You can’t even fly it freely so it doesn’t count in my opinion.
Can’t wait to push Snap to the limits to see how fast she’s able to follow bombing down a hill. That’s it for me. I can’t watch any more VIMEO until this thing is ready to ship. Too much teasing.
Kevin
Thanks again Kevin. Different James, but I was recording. The freeform elevation feature was just recently built out. We were not sure if it would be ready before launch, so didn’t want to promise anything. There are some limitations on it. Most notably that older phones don’t have an altimeter, and will change elevation solely based on GPS coordinates (which are very imprecise). Otherwise, as you can see, its pretty solid.
Kevin, I think I’m almost as excited as you are about the free form tracking with elevation. I specifically asked if snap would be able to do this for snowboarding and was told that it would not be able to do this. So I was very much surprised to see these videos with this capability. Awesome guys. Keep up the good work
Sorry Joe. We discuss a lot of features that we plan on implementing. We didn’t want to promise it until it was ready.
Thanks Joe for validating that I am not crazy. I was starting to think that I was missing something cause of how little attention this feature has gotten. Like you said, since they told you that it wasn’t a feature planned for snap, maybe this feature was just added very very recently. Anyway this is a big game changer. I knew free-follow would work in lead mode cause I grilled VR a while back on that but this is just game changing for guys like you and me. I stress that once the potential of what this means fully sinks in with everyone, people are going to go crazy for this. I can picture Snap being sold along side mountain bikes and snowboards with its own display case and display video’s and people just going nuts. Kinda like how the GoPro display Cabinets look like at Best buy. Drool drool and more drool. Even if another drone on the market had this feature (which there are none)….. Snap would still be the only drone you could really use in this way because, as I mentioned before, there’s no way hill operators or local mountain bike associations would ever be “cool” with an unsafe open blade drone flying about. This is going to open up an entire new world of mountain biking videography for the Utah / Arizona areas where so many epic trails are on open crown land. Hopefully if Snap gets some sort of exemption from FAA, then people will be able to fly their snaps at local ski hills too! Half-pipe auto-follow 4K epicness! So excited!
Cool to see footage of some of the planned prop types. Any forage of the 1hr flight time silent props that we saw pictures of in the XTC presentation?
Thanks Toby! The flight endurance accessory is super exciting, but not yet ready to show off.