The DJI FPV drone darted into our lives this week like a slightly friendlier Sentinel from The Matrix. But one of the most intriguing things about it, other than those otherworldly looks, is how much its launch felt like a GoPro event.
With vertiginous videos of wingsuit fliers, drifting cars and motocross riders, it was all a little more extreme than your average DJI drone event. In fact, it was barely distinguishable from GoPro’s crowd-sourced highlights reels.
There are a few good reasons for this. Firstly, the DJI FPV is a bold new step from the drone king onto GoPro’s home turf of capturing hi-octane events at close quarters. But it’s also an attempt to turn drones into a kind of extreme sports simulator, and hints at a shared history with GoPro that could have turned out very differently.
Before we fly back to the early days of drones, what exactly is the DJI FPV? A speedy ‘first-person view’ drone that comes with a…