HoverAir AQUA idzie pod wodę, a DJI i Insta360 lecą!

In the selfie drone market, something seemingly nonsensical is happening.

Quite recently, two giants, DJI and Insta360, almost simultaneously announced

drones that record in 360 degrees.

The Avata 360 and the AntiGravity A1.

We will soon learn about these drones along with their prices.

I think it will be less than a thousand, just for the drone itself.

Both companies are targeting tens of millions of content creators.

Both are revolutionizing the way framing is done.

One flight, infinite perspectives.

And at the same time, a small company, Zero Zero Robotics, the makers of

HoverAir drones, which almost went bankrupt six times in the last decade,

announced something completely different.

A waterproof drone that takes off from the water, floats like a buoy, and

is expected to cost nearly fifteen hundred dollars for the basic version.

This is a fascinating question about strategy.

Do market leaders know better and is 360 degrees the future, or has this small

company found a niche of 80 million surfers, kayakers, and kitesurfers

that is large enough to profit from and sustain itself in the market?

In this video, I will analyze this strategy and answer the question of

whether specializing in waterproofing is genius or market suicide.

Collective edition.

Hosted by Maciej Dzierżek.

Now, the first thing we need to understand is this: when DJI, which

effectively controls the consumer drone market, and Insta360, the leader

in 360 cameras, both bet on the same product, it's not a coincidence;

it's the same strategic vision.

Drones recording 360-degree footage solve the problem of content creation.

You have to be both a pilot and a camera operator at the same time.

Framing, tracking the object, choosing the perspective—all of this you do in

real-time with a traditional drone.

Technology like tracking helps, but you still remain the director

of this live performance.

With a 360 drone, you fly further, record everything around you in

one flight, and then choose the perspective in post-production.

Want a front shot?

No problem.

From the side?

Got it.

From above?

You have it.

From one flight, you can extract 10 different shots, transition

the camera, and change scenes.

What's fascinating is that it changes the philosophy of content recording.

Fewer flights, more footage.

Lower risk, greater flexibility.

For creators on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, this is a game changer.

Less work in the field, significantly more possibilities in editing.

And now, notice the scale of the market.

Hundreds of millions of people create content on social media.

Tens of millions of them are potential customers for a 360-degree drone.

This is a huge and continuously growing market.

Zero Zero Robotics looks at all this and goes in the opposite direction.

No, we will make a waterproof drone.

At first glance, it looks like madness.

The leaders are going one way, and a small company with a history

of near bankruptcies is doing something completely different.

And I think there's a method to this.

It's not just that DJI, by releasing the Neo 2, doomed Zero Zero's flagship

product, the Hoover Air X1 Pro.

You see, waterproof drones are a category that essentially doesn't exist.

SwellPro makes professional waterproof drones for $3000, but

these are large, heavy machines that require piloting skills.

Power Vision tried with the Power Egg X, but it requires adding

external pontoons, and you have to put that egg into another egg.

No one, literally no one, has made a lightweight, autonomous selfie drone

that is truly waterproof, weighs under 250 grams, doesn't require

expensive licenses, and that you can just toss into the air and fly.

Hoover Air Aqua is supposed to be the first product of its kind in history.

And here comes the key question of this video.

Is the niche for waterproof autonomous drones big enough to build a business on?

Let's go through the numbers.

And here's something that surprised me during the research.

This niche is much larger than I thought.

Significantly.

The global market for water sports equipment is worth, depending on

how you count, around 40 billion dollars and is growing by 5% annually.

But the most important factor is the number of people, or potential users.

Surfing has 20-35 million participants globally, with 4

million in the United States alone.

This group is growing the fastest among young people.

Kayaking and water sports have grown by 87% since 2010.

In the U.S. alone, nearly 38 million people participate in these activities.

Stand-up paddleboarding adds another 10-15 million potential customers globally.

It is one of the fastest-growing water sports.

Interestingly, 45% of participants are women, significantly more

than in other water sports.

Jet skis, kitesurfing, sailing add several more millions.

In total, conservatively speaking, there are between 80 to even 100 million active

water sports enthusiasts worldwide.

Now let's compare this with the market targeted by 360-degree drones.

Social media content creators?

Hundreds of millions of people.

Everyone with a phone and an Instagram account is a potential customer.

Plus, every content creator needs content, but not every kayaker

needs videos of their trips.

So yes, the 360-degree market is much larger, maybe even 10 to 15 times bigger.

But there's a twist.

The 360-degree market is large, but also crowded.

DJI and Insta360 will be fighting for the same customers.

They will compete on price, features, and ecosystem.

It's a war of attrition, and it's between giants.

The waterproof market is smaller, but Hoover Air will practically be alone

in it, without direct competition, allowing them to set premium

prices, just like they did with the HoverAir X1 Pro until the DJI Neo 2.

In management, this is called a blue ocean strategy.

Instead of fighting in a bloody red ocean full of sharks, you find yourself

new, untapped, and safe waters.

The question is whether these waters are deep enough, whether they hide

an Atlantis full of treasures, or if they are simply empty.

Let's do some quick math.

80 to 100 million water sports enthusiasts.

Let's assume that 1-2% of them will buy a specialized waterproof

drone in the next 5 years.

That gives 800,000 to 2 million potential customers.

With an average price of around $1,000, that's a market worth

between $800 million and $2 billion.

For comparison, GoPro, which targets a similar group of people, generates

over a billion dollars in revenue annually, selling 3 million cameras,

and GoPro faces significant competition.

So, the niche is large enough.

Not for conquering the broad market, but for a solid, profitable business.

Provided that the product works.

And here's the real catch.

And now the third thing.

The technology itself, because the promises are impressive,

but the devil is in the details.

Hoover Air Aqua is not just an ordinary drone that has been sealed.

This project required a complete redesign from the ground up.

Let's start with what catches the eye.

For the first time, the Hover Air design is not foldable.

It's a rigid frame in bright orange.

It looks different from anything else on the market.

And that's no accident.

Hinges collect salt and sand, trapping water.

Sealing moving parts is an engineering nightmare, so Hover Air made the

first simple decision: no folding.

And the smartest thing about this drone?

It can float.

Imagine, the battery runs out, the drone lands on the water and just floats like a

buoy, it doesn't sink, it waits for you.

If a wave flips it over, it performs a turtle flip maneuver, rights

itself, and can even take off again.

Basically, it's clever physics.

A design resembling a hydroplane, proper weight distribution,

low-density materials, and voila, a drone that floats on water.

This eliminates the biggest fear of any drone user over water.

You know, that moment when you watch your several hundred-dollar equipment

flying over the sea or a lake and you think, just don't dive, not now.

I remember my concerns about flying the X1 Pro in Turkey.

Really, before I let it fly autonomously over the waves, I

carefully considered the risks.

But the real technological innovation is the millimeter-wave radar.

Standard drones use optical sensors for positioning.

The problem?

Water reflects light unpredictably, causing the drone to get confused,

maneuver erratically, and potentially crash into the water.

Millimeter-wave radar works completely differently.

It penetrates water splashes, fog, and rain, measuring wave height.

It allows the drone to fly just 5 cm above the water's surface.

This is the first such implementation in a consumer drone.

Technology from autonomous cars and industrial systems adapted

to a flying selfie drone.

But waterproofing came at a cost.

First, the gimbal.

The Aqua only has a single-axis mechanical gimbal; the rest

is electronic stabilization.

For comparison, their own X1 Pro Max has a two-axis gimbal and records in 8K.

Aqua maxes out at 4K at 100 frames per second.

Why?

Well, a three-axis or even a two-axis gimbal has a lot of moving parts

that are extremely difficult to seal.

It's a conscious compromise.

Secondly: the propellers.

They are shielded from the top but open from the bottom.

What does this mean in practice?

It won't land safely on your hand like other Hover Air drones.

It needs a landing pad or, well, water.

Or possibly being caught from above, which is the opposite of practically

every other drone on the market.

Thirdly, it lacks obstacle detection.

Aqua is designed for open water, not for flying between trees

or capturing urban scenes.

It's a specialist, not a versatile player.

But they did manage to fit a screen in the drone for instant preview of the results.

It's supposed to be fast, reaching up to 55 km per hour, and Hover Air provides

up to level seven wind resistance.

It's quite fascinating because the technologies used in this drone come

from a completely different field than flying, namely underwater robots.

Neutral buoyancy, pressure seals, corrosion-resistant materials,

ceramic bearings, or titanium screws.

These are all solutions from ROVs, those remotely operated underwater

vehicles used in oceanic research.

Zero Zero Robotics took technology from underwater robotics, where equipment

costs tens of thousands of dollars, and is trying to adapt it to a consumer drone

priced at under fifteen hundred dollars.

It's like early Tesla; they didn't invent new battery chemistry, they took

proven cells from the laptop industry and made a breakthrough through structural

integration and energy management design.

Innovation through adaptation from another field.

And now the most important part of this story, because you see, the technology