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When searching for the best follow-me drones, make sure you determine the features that are right for you. We recommend that you choose a drone with great visual recognition technology or GPS transmission. Make sure that it has a high-quality camera that captures HD video. Considering all the features they’ll need, they probably won’t make a great indoor drone. When buying a follow-me drone, always make sure it has a good flight time, sufficient distance range, and intelligent flight features. Be sure to also check out our list of highly-rated drones.
After analyzing over one hundred different drone models with a range of features and different prices, we have determined that the DJI Mavic Pro Quadcopter is the best follow-me drone you can purchase today. Continue reading to find out more about this model and our other top picks for the best drones.
Award: TOP PICK
WHY WE LIKE IT: The DJI Mavic Pro uses excellent drone technology, especially its follow-me mode that allows you to position the drone, frame your shot, and capture high-quality photos with precision and ease.
The DJI Mavic Pro excels in all of its features, beginning with excellent 27-minute average flight times. That allows users to cover up to eight miles off one charge. The drone can transmit a live video stream with a transmission range of up to 4.3 miles away from you. It’s also incredibly easy to fly with great automatic smart flight mode features like precision hover, obstacle avoidance sensors, and automatic leveling. All of this is achieved with two high-quality sensors that make it one of the safest drones to fly.
The Mavic Pro’s camera system is fantastic as well, featuring 4K video capture at 30fps and a 3-axis gimbal stabilizer for smooth footage. This drone is extremely easy to position for tracking and at different altitudes. Once set, it maintains a level height to the ground, even on uneven terrain. You can toggle on a Tripod Mode that optimizes the drone’s movements to capture sharp photography. It also has a very handy Gesture Mode that allows you to simply gesture at the drone when it’s tracking you to take pictures. The DJI company’s patented ActiveTrack Technology allows you to use a hybrid of precise GPS tracking with visual recognition for more dynamic, reliable tracking performance. Its functionality rivals the best professional drone on the market.
Award: HONORABLE MENTION
WHY WE LIKE IT: The DJI Mavic Air boasts a long list of intelligent features that enable it to do almost everything automatically, including following a subject, sensing and avoiding obstacles, following a flight path, and more.
The DJI Mavic Air 2 is an advanced drone that’s packed with intelligent features, like Ocusync 2.0, which allows video transmission from the drone to your device at an impressive range of up to 6.2-miles away. When you’re in tracking mode, you can use the Spotlight 2.0 smart flight feature to have the camera precisely lock onto a subject no matter how the drone is flying within space. The Mavic Air 2 has omnidirectional obstacle sensing, meaning it’s hyper-sensitive to its environment in three different directions: forward, backward and downward. That makes for smooth flying and precise obstacle recognition and avoidance, which is especially important when operating around trees to avoid crashes.
The Mavic Air 2 also has an intelligent flight battery that maximizes flight time to 34 minutes. The battery power provides accurate real-time battery life updates and can sense any instance of overheating. The drone’s camera delivers 4K video at 60fps and 48MP photos. It truly has one of the best video cameras. If you’re tracking a vehicle, like a car or a bike, during extreme sports or outdoor sports, the Mavic Air 2 will keep up at speed of up to 42.3 mph while in its intelligent Sport Mode.
Award: BEST FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
WHY WE LIKE IT: One of our favorite drones, the DJI Spark auto-follow drone, is all about fun, which is why it makes it easy for people to launch quickly, capture fun videos and pictures, and send them to your phone or other devices, and share them directly on social media.
The DJI Spark is a fun, easy-to-use drone with the benefit of DJI’s high-end tech and software. Launch the Spark within seconds from the palm of your hand with its Quick Launch feature that kicks on by simply recognizing your face. This feature is fantastic for a quick selfie, along with its intuitive gesture controls that allow you to frame the shot and take photos with your hand gestures. You can also turn on Palm Control Mode, which allows you to operate simple basic movements with your hands.
Capturing 1080p HD video and 12MP photos is just as easy, with precision tracking through ActiveTrack and intuitive, one-touch capture in TapFly mode. Content can be delivered to your smartphone. The DJI GO 4 app allows you to quickly compose and edit cinematic videos and photos, then share them directly to your favorite social media platforms. For additional social media tools, you might also want to invest in the best vlogging camera to keep the content flowing.
Award: BEST FLIGHT EXPERIENCE
WHY WE LIKE IT: The Yuneec Typhoon H Pro has six brushless motors to power it through the air, which provides fantastic stability and constant distance when hovering and following you in follow-me mode.
The Yuneec Typhoon H Pro takes your drone flight experience to new heights with a six-rotor propeller system. This enables precision flight control and added stabilization, including a fail-safe mode that triggers automatically if one of the rotors should fail. The design proves especially useful when experiencing winds during flight. Typhoon H will automatically return home at that point and when battery life is too low to avoid crashing.
The tracking on this drone is fabulous, featuring eight different smart flight modes that will help you make use of its fabulous 4K Ultra HD camera. The Typhoon H will track you as far out as 150 feet. You have the option to have it orbit you in a circular motion while keeping the camera focused on you. The camera has a full 360-degree range of motion, 98 degrees of which can be captured by the wide-angle camera. A 3-axis anti-vibration gimbal ensures a smooth range of motion. For additional options, you might also want to check out our best selfie drone buying guide for smaller models with similar capabilities.
Award: BEST PORTABLE DESIGN
WHY WE LIKE IT: Somehow, the DJI Mavic Mini manages to include advanced visual tracking recognition and a high-quality camera into a drone that folds to about the size and weight of a smartphone, which is ideal and lightweight for taking it with you wherever you travel.
If you want a powerful drone with fantastic portability, the DJI Mavic Mini is the super-compact camera drone you want. As a sub-250 gram drone, the Mavic Mini is just slightly heavier than a smartphone and folds up to only 5.5-inches for easy transport. Its lightweight design enables it to achieve a great 30-minute flight time even with a smaller battery than standard-sized drones, plus it’s a good portable drone.
The Mavic Mini uses the same high-quality CMOS sensor as other DJI drones, which gives you use of fabulous and steady tracking features. You can use the DJI app to control everything, so there’s no need to bring an extra controller with you if you’re traveling light. The camera is mounted to a 3-axis gimbal and captures up to 2.7K HD resolution video. It’s a great gift for anyone looking for the best drone for traveling.
Related: You may also want to take a look at our best foldable drone.
Award: BEST FOR VIDEO
WHY WE LIKE IT: The DJI Mavic 2 Zoom allows you to capture true-to-life colors and vibrant gradients in incredible 4K HD video quality. Highlights and shadows look amazing, and manual aperture settings make getting the perfect video effortless.
The DJI Mavic 2 Zoom delivers some serious video via its Mavic 2 Pro Hasselblad camera with 2x optical zoom. Videos and images are processed with the camera’s patented Hasselblad Natural Colour Solution that optimizes for enhanced, true-to-life color detail with a fantastic dynamic range. You’ll notice a stunning difference in lighting and gradation when capturing aerial shots of natural landscapes, making it an excellent choice for aerial video.
High-quality video captured in 4K HD resolution offers fantastic lighting contrast, great color tones, and vibrant highlights that will get you that cinematic shot. You can manually adjust the camera’s f/2.8-f/11 aperture, which provides excellent control over the lighting and smoothness of your footage. The camera’s 48mm telephoto lens is the ideal size for capturing cinematic, professional-looking video. You can also extend its 2x optical zoom up to 4x with digital lossless technology, even when shooting in full HD. Plug this device straight into the best 4K TV for outstanding playback footage.
Award: BEST FOR STILL PHOTOGRAPHY
WHY WE LIKE IT: Filmmakers and professional photographers will make the most of the DJI Mavic 3 Cine’s 4/3 camera sensor, which has a fantastic dynamic range when capturing light.
The DJI Mavic 3 Cine is a pro-grade filmmaking and photography drone with a 4/3 CMOS Hasselblad Camera. The Hasselblad is an extremely compact 4/3 camera that captures 4K video at 60fps and 1080p quality images.
The Mavic 3 Cine offers incredible focus control, allowing users to manually adjust the camera’s aperture to achieve the exact shot and depth of field you want. DJI even created an optional remote purely for focus controls, the DJI Focus, that you can opt to purchase to get the most out of your camera settings. At any rate, the camera captures 12.8 stops of dynamic range, which produces incredible detail in shadows and highlights. There are additional control options for the camera, such as manual control for aperture, features we love in the best digital cameras.
Award: BEST ON A BUDGET
WHY WE LIKE IT: The Holy Stone HS100 is a fun self-following drone for the budget-conscious enthusiast with some surprisingly advanced features not usually found in entry-level drones.
The Holy Stone HS100 boasts a wide range of fantastic smart features for a drone at a friendly price range. Its follow-me mode provides automatic, accurate tracking that keeps you centered in the frame of the camera. The camera lens provides a 120-degree wide-angle panoramic view. It is also adjustable up to 90 degrees vertically, which provides great versatility with your camera angles at this affordable price.
For the cost, it’s amazing that you can capture video in up to 2K HD resolution and transmit it directly to your mobile device. The drone’s flight controls are intuitive for beginners, including one-key takeoff, options to hold a specific altitude, and an automatic one-key return home feature. The return home feature initiates automatically if the battery is about to run out. One tip to extend your flight time is to bring fully-charged spare batteries in case the first battery runs low on juice. Its four rotors are designed to be wind resistant for added safety and stability when capturing photos and videos. It’s a good choice if you’re in the market for the best drones for beginners with a few added features.
Award: BEST INTERFACE
WHY WE LIKE IT: The Holy Stone HS720 Foldable GPS Drone maximizes its high-grade construction and fantastic camera with a smart remote controller interface, including an LED screen. This gives users the ability to operate the drone without a smartphone or smart device while still getting real-time flight info. For a truly remote experience, you’ll have to try one of the top-rated fixed-wing drones.
The Holy Stone HS720 is a very portable, compact foldable drone made from high-quality materials with durable construction that’s great for beginners. This durable drone really stands out with its fantastic controller interface, which allows you to easily view flight information like battery life, location, speed, and a first-person view from the drone.
The intuitive controls make it easy to initiate automatic tracking and other one-touch actions at a range of up to 0.6 miles away. Capture video with ease in 4K HD resolution. It’s a decent option for anyone looking for the best FPV racing drone with follow-me capabilities. Moreover, you’ll want to compare FPV vs GPS drones to see which one fares better.
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Award: BEST FOR BEGINNERS
WHY WE LIKE IT: The Altair Outlaw comes in a complete kit that is ready-to-fly. The common-sense controls and flight assist features are ideal for novice drone pilots to have a safe flight experience without worry.
For those just starting out with drones, the Altair Outlaw is an easy-to-use drone that provides everything you need for a successful flight. It offers a great range of intuitive assisted flight features and flight capabilities, like one-touch takeoff and one-touch landing. It will also automatically return home upon the touch of a button, when it goes out of range, or if the battery is getting low.
Those easy-to-use flight features extend to its follow-me features. The drone’s 1080p HD camera will lock onto and follow you when Follow Me Mode is activated, allowing for easy HD video recording and high-resolution images. You can also toggle on Altitude Hold Mode to keep it at the same height while tracking you. Waypoint Flight Mode allows you to direct the drone to lock onto certain points of interest, coordinates, or follow a flight path. It’s a great choice if you want the best drone for kids.
Follow me drones fall into two categories based on the technology they use to keep track of the subject. There are drones that use GPS technology and a transmitter to keep connected with the operator. The other category is drones that use recognition technology to identify and track their subject. The latter category has become the most popular tech among consumers, so we largely focused on drones that use this type of follow-me technology in our search.
A drone’s camera and capture quality are just as important. We only looked at drones with a 2-axis gimbal camera stabilizer to ensure that photographs and videos captured in flight are smooth. We also only considered high-quality cameras that can capture images at full HD resolution or higher.
From there, we looked at the practical considerations of operating the drone, like flight time, follow-me range, and overall signal range. All drones needed to have at least 15 minutes of flight time, which is still not enough for some of the longest-flying drones, but it’ll work. We looked at drones that could maintain accurate tracking at a range of at least 5 feet. For overall operating signal flight ranges, drones needed to maintain a signal of at least one mile.
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