I have a first-gen Parrot AR.Drone collecting dust. Great fun initially until I started reading about flyaways and then got too worried to actually fly the thing outside. Even nowadays I get the impression this issue was never solved. At the time it seemed like one of those widely-reported but never admitted-to things. I never understood why the software wouldn't just go into a fixed landing routine if the control signal was lost or if a watchdog tripped. Still really curious about that actually, if anyone here knows more technical details.

So yeah that and the battery was never good enough. Now I look at drones and it seems like you have either really really cheap, subpar options or incredibly expensive DJI-quality drones. Something that costs around $300.00 AUD and that could fly for half an hour at a time would be a great toy, but I get that the tech isn't there. So I end up feeling like they're great tech that's ultimately killed by a thousand little tradeoffs. At least for me; if I was into video then one would be great for some things. That's a limited market in the end though, I think.