(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)

Hardwired

(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)

In Hardwired, AC Senior Editor Harish Jonnalagadda delves into all things hardware, including phones, audio products, storage servers, and networking gear.

I don’t really care about drones; while I find the tech interesting, I didn’t see the need to buy one or build my own. That changed with the Antigravity A1; while it is still a drone, the 360-degree viewing angle and FPV design means it is unlike any other product in this category. If anything, it’s a wearable as much as a drone.

The A1 has three distinct parts: the drone, the goggles, and a joystick. The reason why I wanted to use the A1 was because of the Antigravity Vision goggles; basically, you can see 360-degree footage in real-time while flying the drone via the goggles, and it is exhilarating. Usually, there’s a learning curve associated with flying a drone of this nature as it needs fast reflexes and understanding how to navigate a three-dimensional environment.

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(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)

A friend of mine is a hobbyist drone builder, and he had to use a simulator before flying his custom-built FPV drone. Now, I didn’t have to do any of that, because Antigravity solved that issue on the A1; you control the drone with a joystick, and all you have to navigate is just point it where you want it to go — it’s as easy as that. Honestly, using a controller to play games is more challenging than flying this drone, and the ease of use is a huge plus point with the A1.

The joystick has throttle and braking, and the 249g drone isn’t built to shoot through the skies at 80mph; instead, it is much more sedate (it’s limited to 35mph), and designed to make you take in your surroundings. On that note, the drone has two cameras that stitch the footage together, giving you a 360-degree view that’s stunning. There were issues with stitching the image in real-time when I got started with the drone, but a subsequent software update addressed that problem.

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(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)

The 360-degree view is amazing, and as you’re able to view it in real-time with the goggles, you do get the feeling that you’re flying (without all the associated risks). Antigravity has a suite of editing tools that lets you freeze stills from the footage, switch up angles — that’s an advantage of having a drone that shoots 360-degree footage in 8K — and create cinematic content.

The control mechanism of the drone couldn’t get any easier, and while there are three parts that you’ll need to charge, it wasn’t quite as much of a hassle as I thought it would be — particularly if you get the bundle.

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(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)

The Antigravity Vision goggles have 1-inch Micro-OLED panels with 2560 x 2560 resolution in each eye, and it has extensive adjustability — a must-have in a product of this nature. I was able to adjust the lenses relatively easily, and the goggles are light enough that I didn’t see any issues. The goggles connect via USB-C to a battery (it’s included in the bundle), and it lasts just under two hours before you need to charge it.

It’s a similar situation with the joystick; it has good build quality and makes it straightforward to use the drone, and it has a built-in battery that lasts four hours. The drone itself has a 4,345mAh battery that slides out — making it easier to charge — and it has a flight time of 25 minutes between charges.

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(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)

The drone gets a landing pad and return-to-home feature that makes it convenient to use, and it connects via GPS, BeiDou, and Galileo — I had no issues getting a strong signal while testing in Hyderabad, India. There’s 20GB of internal storage, and you can slot in a MicroSD card into the drone to store footage, and transferring it to your phone or Windows machine is about as easy as it gets.

On the whole, the FPV nature of the A1 gives it a clear advantage over other drones, and it’s just plain cool to be able to see 360-degree footage in real-time while flying the drone.

Harish Jonnalagadda is Android Central’s Senior Editor overseeing mobile coverage. In his current role, he leads the site’s coverage of Chinese phone brands, networking products, and AV gear. He has been testing phones for over a decade, and has extensive experience in mobile hardware and the global semiconductor industry. Contact him on Twitter at @chunkynerd.

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