In case you missed Shark Tank last Friday night, I wanted to tell you about a new type of drone that all five sharks invested in. It’s called PhoneDrone by xCraft. Each Shark contributed $300,000 for five per cent of xCraft. Combined, the Sharks now own 25 per cent of the startup.

The company captured the hearts of the sharks because it is the only one of its kind that inserts your smartphone in the body of the drone so it becomes the brains for navigation–GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi radios, a high-resolution camera, and an on-board computer. 

By using smartphone components, the xCraft PhoneDrone can retail inexpensively at $250. The one glitch I see in this whole scenario, is that you truly need a second iPhone to use the auto-follow functionality and other added-on feature.  I don’t think too many folks own two smartphones. 

It’s going to be very interesting to see how many people think it’s a good idea to allow their smartphones to fly in the sky. I get the heebie-jeebies just leaving my iPhone in a room I’m not in. 

PhoneDrone also recently launched a Kickstarter campaign. Check it out here. I’m not sure what is going to happen to the  Kickstarter campaign which already  raised over $65,000. The goal is $250,000.  
I’m going  to follow the introduction of the PhoneDrone and see if other companies follow this route to reach new low price points.