The Future of Drones in the USA

Following our #drone experiment, we were contacted by Todd Medema, a tech entrepreneur in the USA and self confessed drone enthusiast.  He provides honest and down to earth technology reviews on Tech Gear Guide to help you make decisions about which bits of tech to buy.  

Todd wanted to share what is happening in the USA. Unlike in the UK, where the regulating body is the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority),  the airspace there is regulated by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). 

How Drones are Fighting to Change the World 

Early on a Monday morning in Washington D.C, a recreational Drone enthusiast lost control of his craft causing it to crash land in the front lawn of the White House. Uproar stirred across the political landscape and a familiar question was being asked on a larger podium than ever before: Are recreational drones safe and should we be regulating their use more strictly?

Of course the crash was completely harmless but it represents a question of safety that many are eager to answer.  How can we safely regulate these devices? Is the tech too advanced and potentially dangerous for the average untrained consumer? Should we provide licensing regulations and mandatory classes on proper use? The answer is unclear but what is clear is, like it or not, consumer drone use is here to stay.

Why we love them

Drones are a great hobby for people searching out new perspectives on the world around them. Sure they’re fun to fly around but for most, the real treasure lies within aerial videography. This exciting new hobby has captured the attention of millions with enthusiasts spending upwards of thousands in the pursuit of unbelievable videos.

The most popular means to create this stunning videography is to combine a professional grade drone with a GoPro camera. Simply turn it on and it’s practically impossible to not get stunning results.

Before drones, videos like these would not have been possible without renting a helicopter, which was of course virtually impossible for the average consumer.

Drone technology has opened the doors for an entirely new form of creativity and exploration.

Why they’re controversial 

There are some immediately obvious implications that appear when providing this kind of technology to anyone with a few spare bucks.  Having a floating video camera forces us to ask questions about our privacy we’ve never been faced with before.  Many fear that having a camera on a quadrocopter could lead to videos through our windows or even just watching us go about their daily lives on the street. No one likes to feel watched so regulating what and where we can record video seems inevitable.

In 2011 a drone videographer named Raphel Pirker was fined by the FAA to the tune of $10,000 for using a drone to film a promotional video for the University of Virgina.  Outraged, Raphel took the FAA to court and contested that the US government was operating under outdated laws from the 1980’s that were originally intended for model airplane use. On top of this, the ‘laws’ they were enforcing were not even enforceable by the government as they were merely guidelines and carry no force of law behind them.  The court ruled in favor of Mr. Pirker and dropped all charges against him.              

Now, as this ruling may seem advantageous for hobbyists across the globe, it’s sparked the FAA to begin a ‘roadmap’ to much more strict laws against recreational drone use. There are talks about putting regulations as strict as prohibiting flying at all without a license. Naturally, enthusiasts are not a fan of these propositions but luckily few of these laws will be able to even see the light of day before 2017, so many are working as hard as they can to keep these laws stifled before then.

The FAA claims that drones represent a risk for commercial airlines citing that over 200 cases have been reported in 2014 of drones getting too close to manned flights. They also cite potential terrorist hacking inceptions as a risk to all drone operators. While these are all good points of interest to consider, most enthusiasts believe some lax regulations involving clear flight patterns for commercial airlines and furthering technology into drone firewalls could prevent these issues.

The Future of Drones

The future of drones is extremely unclear for a multitude of reasons. The US government has closed off most airspace to commercial drone use, which has many potential investors in the technology waiting around for more clear regulations.  Speculators predict that if we can overcome the government’s regulations the drone industry could generate over 70,000 new jobs and $14 billion in economic activity in the United States alone. Where is all this money coming from?  From home delivery of goods to dusting crops for farmers, virtually hundreds of possibilities for revenue exist.

Just imagine the implications of having a cheap and easy to learn means of flying through the air.

• In Southern California former Navy officers are using drones to inspect power lines.
• Farmers are using drones to inspect their fields for dry soil or insect infestations.
• Amazon.com has a very publicized plan to deliver packages straight to your doorstep as soon as 30 minutes after you click the order button on their site.

Things we never imagined can all become a reality simply depending on how our government decides to treat the future of drones in the eyes of the law.

For now, the future of drones is in their hands.

Let’s hope they treat it with the respect it deserves. 

For more reviews on the latest tech, check out Todd's blog techgearguide.com

Drone Test 1 - Wrap Up

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                         ♪♪...we see you when you're sleeping, we know when you're awake...♪♪

BY tom hartland 

It’s still early days for drones in housing associations, but with one test under our belt we've got a lot to shout about. Let's take it from the top...

It started promisingly. The lab had a brand new drone (DJI Phantom) and the team had weeded out problems with a discharging battery, the GPS locating feature and delicate landing procedures. Following a few weekends of flight practice and hurrying to the local parks at lunchtimes, my drone control was coming along nicely, Amy could hold her own and Vicky had successfully outmaneuvered an Alsatian. Happy with its capabilities we started looking for opportunities within the business – and quickly arranged a fly-by for an enthusiastic portfolio team which would lead to our first test.

Then we hit a wall, or more a net, of red tape and governing policy. Flying in a built up area was one thing, but the civil aviation authority (CAA) tightly regulates flights involving ‘surveillance or data acquisition’ – something our proposed roof survey in Cheltenham would undoubtedly need. We were stumped. Gaining CAA flight approval required the pilot to be officially trained and certified, which came with its own complications of time, money and a lot of effort. We needed to get the Cheltenham property surveyed sooner rather than later, or risk losing all the interest we’d drummed up around the possibilities of drone technology. Various news articles had already made a lot of people sceptical.

I’d been down to the launch event held by local video producers’ Stone’s throw media. Their drone dwarfed our own 10:1, could fly stably in higher winds and had an independently controlled camera mount. It was an impressively professional set up, beyond what we could have achieved on our own. We got in touch with the boys soon after to explore working together on this roof survey. Taking into consideration the legal complexities and risk, opting to work with a qualified drone expert was the best way forwards.

Long story short - drone companies are still finding their feet. Stones’ throw had to do essential works, a different pilot had broken his hand (we didn’t ask…) and another crashed his drone the day before our scheduled survey. Amy eventually wrangled up a successful date and, chaperoned by Vicky and Matt, headed down to Cheltenham to meet the outfit on the day of the flight. By all accounts everyone returned happy.

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Our pilots used this high spec home-built drone to capture images and video.   

The survey had received an active interest from Bromford customers and members of the public alike. We'd let residents know of our intention to use a drone for roof surveying in advance, but didn’t expect them to wait around for a closer look! A number remarked how much better it was than having scaffolding erected and some stayed to watch the live stream of their rooftop from a cab on the ground – the pilot had brought along an oculus rift headset for those with a sturdy stomach to get an eagle eyed view. 

The true success of this test would be measured in a couple of days, when the pilots would send through the images and flight video. We already knew we’d significantly reduced the disruption to our customers compared to intrusive scaffolding put up over a number of days or weeks. We already knew we’d reduced the risk of men working at height and saved a considerable amount of money (regency stock is four stories worth of scaffolding...) for the business. But this would be worth nothing at all if the images were rubbish and we needed scaffolding to take a closer look.

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A new angle on roof surveying. The drone took pictures from all angles and view-points to give us a clearer impression of the roofs condition. 

The images arrived and exceeded expectations. The professional camera allowed us to digitally zoom images nearly to the point of reading the brand name off discarded cigarette butts, let alone examine the integrity of our roof tiles, coping stones and flashings. Now the portfolio team have the insight the life-cycle plan these customers homes with greater accuracy and certainty and can also examine the quality of repairs previously carried out. The team didn’t spot anything that required immediate restorative action – so the immediate cost, time and risk savings hold up.

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Matt giving the lab team a quickfire schooling in roof inspection terminology. Image courtesy of @PaulBromford

This technology will never replace being able to get up there to touch and feel the roof, we accept that, but it’s a pretty close second thanks to the clarity of the images.  There’s also the chance you might need to put up scaffolding regardless, especially if investigating a specific issue, so it’s knowing when to use a drone that is important (plus a pinch of good general maintenance).

Looking at our measurement criteria (you can find our test plan here) we can happily notch this up as a pass, but we’re going to keep testing the technology where common sense allows us - maybe in some circumstances we could even replace them with a barge pole, gaffer tape and a go-pro. We're working with the portfolio team again with another drone test again shortly. 

Note: You can read more about Vicky’s experience on the day and her top tips here. 

Tech that could make our lives a lot easier..

Following on from our recent lightning talk, Jamie Davies-Morgan, has shared his top gadgets and productivity apps to make 2015 that little bit easier for time thirsty individuals. Click the titles if you want to see the links..

Como App builder

The days of paying thousands to have websites and apps designed are gone. Como has developed a do-it-yourself, mobile-app authoring platform, which lets anyone build their own professional app, without having to hire coders, programmers, or anyone else.

IFTTT

“If This Then That” (ifttt.com) is a web service that combines many other web apps into one place which can then perform actions given a certain set of criteria. Here are just a few examples:

• Automatically tweet your favourite blog updates;
• Get a Text alert when you receive an email from someone important; or
• Automatically post a tweet asking your wife to get beer, if the temperature goes above X Degrees.

The website has a never ending list of recipes you can use to put the internet to work for you - and best of all no need for coding!

IP Cameras

This is essentially a high quality surveillance camera that can be accessed via a smart phone app, useful to keep an eye on your pet or perhaps a second home! They can be set to record continuously, notify you when there is movement inside a property, or just as a live stream for you to check as a when you want. They also provide two way audio, so you can hear what’s going on, and your voice can be heard from the camera’s speaker too.

Care to tell

If you need to do surveys , or ask for feedback after an event, think about Care to tell. This uses a digital data collection method- so no more incorrect email addresses and phone numbers with digits missing! This is thanks to the data validation that’s built in at the point of collection. It even collects analytics like how long each person took to complete the survey, their location at the time, and free insight tools.

There are countless uses for this sort of application, and the fact that a whole team can collate all their data into one repository really increases productivity and efficiency. 

Social Mention

Socialmention.com is a social media search engine. It enables you to search all social platforms for keywords on your brand to give a comprehensive overview of what is being said online. It provides you with a ratio of positive/negative sentiment, the number of ‘mentions’ of your business, how many unique authors there were and what keywords are associated with your search term, plus loads more!

Buffer

I can't really put it better than the company have themselves so in their own words: 

‘Buffer is a new and smarter way to share what you want to share on Social Media. What it does is simple. You add updates to your Buffer queue and it will be posted for you well spaced out over the day - and at the best times.

It’s like your magic box you can use anytime to fill with great Tweets, Facebook stories or LinkedIn updates. Just drop them in and you don't have to ever worry about when it will be posted, it’s all taken care of by Buffer for you.’

HIVE

You've all seen the advert, (and probably got the song stuck in your head now!), but there are some really cool features with this device. Hive Active Heating lets you control your heating anywhere and anytime from your mobile, tablet and or the web. It allows you to turn your heating on and off, set your heating schedule and adjust the temperature. Download the Hive app for free and it lets you set your schedule and temperature alerts. If you don't have a smart phone you can use text messages to control your heating.

Hopefully these apps have inspired you to think smarter about how you carry out everyday tasks in your work and home life.

They have undoubtedly helped me.