Amazon’s $35.99 Drone

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 11:57AM EST · Published Mar 15, 7:11AM EDT

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Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) sells drones for up to $9,999, according to a 24/7 Wall St. analysis from earlier this month. Currently, it is promoting one that is much less expensive. At $35.99, the cheap product can actually be called a working drone and not some simple toy. The difference between $9,999 and $35.99 shows what Amazon does across thousands of product categories: setting price points to draw as many customers, and sales, from it as possible.

The Eachine H8C Quadcopter with 2.0 MP HD camera 2.4G 6-Axis deadless mode RC quadcopter drone RTF Mode 2 does not qualify for free shipping, which requires an order to total $40. Beyond that, its basic features make it attractive, most especially for the first-time drone owner.

Among its features:

2.0MP built-in camera
Headless mode
One key to return
Rolling 360 degree
Remote controller has the indicator light, low voltage alarm function

In other words, a spy device with helicopter rotors.
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The device shows how far technology has gone to create a cheap but powerful product. A 2.0 MP webcam sells for as little as $7.61 on its own.

And “headless mode,” according to Drone Arena Knowledge Base:

The functioning of headless mode is pretty simple. The only pre-requisite is that before taking off, you’re required to position the drone in such a way that its front is your front. Since yaw (the left stick on a Mode 2 controller) anyway doesn’t have anything to do with orientation (left is left and right is right all the time, regardless of where your drone is pointing at), it is how the drone reacts to rudder (the right stick on a Mode 2 controller) that changes.

When you take off with the drone pointing in the front, algorithms inside of the drone’s micro-controller ensure that any directional change is compensated. In other words, even when you turn your drone 90 degrees to the left, it’ll still go forward when you push the rudder forward (on a non-headless mode drone, this would make the drone go left).

Essentially, this helps keep the operator from losing the drone.

The featured Eachine H8C Quadcopter does have one big drawback. Its battery lasts only six to eight minutes and needs 60 to 80 minutes to recharge. But what can consumers expect for $35.99?

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.