If you ever needed evidence that “selfie drones” are the hot thing for 2016, you can find it in last week’s reports from the International CES show that a startup named Lily Robotics has collected 60,000 pre-orders for its flying camera, amounting to a potential $34 million payoff.
Supporting evidence came in the form of other selfie drones that were shown off in Las Vegas, including the Qualcomm-backed Ying quadcopter and the crowdfunded Onagofly nano-drone. Still other selfie-copters are waiting in the wings, including the tethered Fotokite Phi, the watch-controlled Hawk and the Nixie wearable drone.
Selfie drones are designed to follow you at a standoff distance and take videos, guided by your smartphone’s signal or a homing device you can tuck in somewhere.