There were a ton of drone companies at CES. Among them was Trace Live Network, which was founded by the same people behind Toronto-based Slyce as well as Calgary’s Business Instincts Group. Trace is working on an autonomous drone capable of live-streaming what it sees. Earlier this week, the company announced partnership agreements to help populate its content network, but the Trace booth at CES is all about the hardware.
We swung by Trace’s booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center to check out the drone in action. The booth on the show floor is smack bang in the middle of a village of drones and UAV manufacturers, and Trace was one of the companies lucky enough to actually be able to fly their drone inside the convention centre (many couldn’t because they had no net or plexiglass around their booth). As soon as you see the Trace FlyR1 in action, you understand why the convention centre doesn’t want drones flying in open air space.
What makes Trace’s technology different from the countless other drones out there is that it is capable of following you using just a camera (no GPS or controller required). It uses the company’s own visual intelligence system to lock onto someone or something and then it just follows that object or person around until it/they disappear from view. Once it can no longer see what it’s tracking, it will land gently on the ground, it’s all-consuming need to follow you to the ends of the earth suddenly forgotten.
The demo we saw was extremely exciting, but Trace isn’t just focused on drones. The brains of the drone is encapsulated in a little package called the TraceR1. This is detachable and can be mounted on any one of the company’s devices. Other available mounts include a tripod, and a little car.
Based on the booth and the marketing materials available, the intended use seems to be extreme sports. A skateboarder can set the drone to track him or his board and then shoot his own stunt video without having to worry about setting the camera up at the right vantage point or trusting a friend to get the right angles. Theoretically, though, the TraceR1 could be used to film and live stream anything at all.
Check out the demo video below to see the TraceR1 being used in tandem with the drone attachment (the FlyR1).
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