00:00This is Borneo and it's potentially one of the prettiest places that I've ever had the
00:05pleasure of riding my bike in. I've done the likes of Destelvio, the Mortarolo, the Gavia
00:10and the Concano and the only issue is I would love to share that with you but so far my
00:17pictures look
00:18a bit like this. If only there was a better way, well in this video I'm going to show you
00:23that
00:23there might well be. So come with me. Right, let's see if it follows.
00:30This is the latest Hoverair X1 Pro Max and you can think of it as a pocket-sized flying camera.
00:36Now you might have heard of Hoverair before. I first came across one of their drones a few years ago
00:41and was amazed by how easy it was to use and how good it was at not crashing. So what's
00:47changed
00:48with this new one? Well firstly, and this is an important bit for us cyclists,
00:52it's faster. A lot faster. The latest model can now follow at speeds of up to 42kmph and even
01:00short bursts of up to 60kmph. That's obviously handy if you're riding on the flat and I even had a
01:07go
01:07at trying to outrun it on some descents. I think this one is the top section of the Gavia and
01:12this
01:12hidden gem is the Monte Mountain. It is safe to say though that if you ride around Northern Italy being
01:19chased around by a drone then you can expect plenty of inquisitive cyclists to ask you just how it
01:25works or who's controlling it? Well, no one. It follows all by itself. Here's me trying my best to
01:32talk through some of the features whilst taking off the magnificent Concano climb.
01:37Yeah, it's got loads of different modes. So it's in follow mode now. I think it was on the high
01:44setting, but you can set like how high it is. So yesterday I had it in mid. Like a bird's
01:52eye view
01:52as well. And yeah, yeah. So it can go bird's eye. It can do dolly track as well. So it
02:00comes alongside
02:00you. So that's really good if I want to show off the bike or something. Yeah. And then, yeah,
02:07the biggest thing with this one is that it can, it's now a lot faster. So even on the descent,
02:14yeah. So recording up to 8k, it's got a proper wide angle lens on it as well, which is good.
02:19And then
02:20because it's so high quality, you can obviously crop into that shot. So, all right, so the next corner,
02:26I reckon we should try and drop it. Yeah. To have a race, see if we can drop the drone.
02:33Ready? Yeah. Go, go, go.
02:40Ah, it's still there.
02:45No. I think there's no chance to. No, not on the uphill. Where else? I think the main thing is
02:52the
02:53the obstacle avoidance. And it's just so easy to set up. Like you click one button,
02:58it's up in the air and it's following me. I can go past other riders and it
03:04follows me around them. It doesn't just fly into the back of them. I've even taken it mountain biking and
03:10like through the trees and it's really good. So I've just popped it into side track. And now,
03:17as you can see, it's flying alongside me. So you can check out my Haya Bianchi
03:23in full Celeste, of course, very Italian.
03:27This is kind of like a little, little race track here.
03:31It's also got this dolly track mode, which means that it will fly in front of me,
03:36flying backwards and record me talking to the camera, which is really rather clever. And I don't
03:43know how it does that. I wish I was good at good at reversing. So yeah, this is obviously really
03:47useful
03:47if you want to talk to the camera. So let me run you through a few more stats, although I'm
03:53running
03:53out of road. So I might have to do that back at base. The model that we've been using is
03:58the flagship
03:58X1 Pro Max and ours came as part of the cycling bundle. Now this includes the drone itself,
04:05which is in this box here, and that's got a battery fitted to it. We'll get onto that in a
04:10moment.
04:11Also in the box, you get a USB C to C cable, a carry pouch, protective pouch, and then the
04:18info guides,
04:19and all of that is in there too. But as part of the cycling bundle, you also get two additional
04:25batteries, a charging hub and power adapter, the beacon for your bars, and that goes on using the
04:33supplied mounts. So that one just wraps around your bars, or there's this little magnetic adapter mount,
04:40so it can go on a GoPro style mount basically. And then you also get a carry bag, which has
04:46this sort
04:46of clever design, so it zips up in the middle, or you can put it over your top tube if
04:51you want to carry
04:51your drone like that. It's got a carry strap for when you're not on the bike. And then the last
04:57thing
04:57in the box is these ND filters, which are basically sunglasses for your camera. So the camera in
05:04question, well, that's obviously here. It's on a gimbal. It can record in 8K with a 1 over 1.3
05:12inch
05:12CMOS sensor. What that means is it lets loads of light in. It's also got 14 stops of dynamic range,
05:20and apparently this lens is a custom seven layer affair. Now, I don't know much about that,
05:26but I do know that the ultra wide 107 degree field of view has helped me to get lots of
05:32mountains
05:33into my shots. All the controls are on here. So if I just press and hold this middle one,
05:40then it will start up. There we go. It's chirped into life.
05:46Current mode. Hover.
05:48So as it's just told us, it's in hover mode at the moment, and then you just use these two
05:52buttons here
05:53to go through the different modes. So hover.
05:56Zoom out. Zoom out. So that's pretty self-explanatory.
05:59Follow. Follow. So that's one that I've been using a lot of the time.
06:03Orbit. Orbit is when it will go around you. Bird eye.
06:08Pretty self-explanatory. Dolly track. Dolly track is when it's in front of you.
06:13Ski mode. Ski mode. I don't need ski mode because I lie on the floor a lot when I go
06:18skiing.
06:19Cycling mode. So cycling mode. I will explain that one. So basically it's designed to be more precise and
06:25stable for when you're on the bike. And you can use it in two different modes which you choose in
06:30the app.
06:30So narrow routes where it will track your path. So it will literally follow the route that you take.
06:37Or you can have it in open areas mode where it will basically take some shortcuts to save power.
06:43Now I mentioned earlier that it's really good at avoiding crashing. And so how does it do that?
06:49Well, it's got this big camera on the front. So it's looking where it's going and then
06:55avoiding any obstacles. It's also got a sensor underneath here. So it knows how high off the
07:01floor it is. And also a sensor on the rear for when it's flying backwards. Now you will notice
07:06that there's no side sensors. So when you're doing 360 spins, use a bit of caution. Because for example,
07:15if there's a big rock, then you might want to avoid that. Because the rotors are in this cage though,
07:20it is surprisingly robust. And if the worst does happen, then repair kits are available over on
07:26the Hoverair website. All right, well, it's worked on the mountains as if it'll work in a tunnel.
07:40I hope it didn't just catch me cross-chaining then. Cool tunnel. I think the other good thing is
07:46I don't have the beacon today on my bars. I do have my phone in my pocket, but I don't
07:53need it.
07:54You can just use it like without the phone as well. Yeah, no signal. No, you don't need
08:02to take anything with you. However, you can go into a lot more detail in the app to fine tune
08:07all those
08:08settings, choose your aspect ratios, choose how far away you want it to follow you,
08:14choose the resolution, the portrait or landscape you can do in the app. And then to actually capture
08:20the footage, all you're going to do is hold the drone out in front of you, click the middle button.
08:25And then when the light goes red, it's recording straight onto the 64GB internal storage, or you can
08:32pop in a micro SD card to expand that until your heart's content. So how long can you record for?
08:41Well, Hoverair says 16 minutes, but let's see how I got on.
09:24Well, that is seven climbs in Vormio completed. More of them shot on the Hoverair X1 Chromax. Let me know
09:33what you think of this footage down in the comments below. If you want to get hold of one, then
09:37we'll
09:37pop a link down in the description. Thank you very much for watching and we'll see you next time.
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