
Show HN: Sortable/filterable table of Quadcopters/drones - d2p
https://www.thedronechart.com/
======
Zikes
Thanks for putting this together! I've been meaning to get a drone for a
while, and it's starting to look like it's about the right time for it.

From the perspective of a first-time buyer, what I would most like to see
added is pricing. As I'm sure you intend for this list to become more
comprehensive, I would also like to see negated filtering, i.e. whereas you
can filter by all drones that do currently have a feature, it would also be
helpful to filter the list by drones which do not have a given feature.

~~~
d2p
Thanks for the feedback!

Pricing keeps coming up, so we're going to look at what we can do. We don't
want to get into providing accurate prices (they change too frequently and
it'd be a game of cat and mouse; and the intention is not to be a price
comparison site) but it's been asked for enough that clearly we need a way to
at least show the difference between a $50 toy and a $3000 rig.

I'm curious about the negated filters - why would you want to only consider
things that _don 't_ have a feature? If you don't care about a feature, you
can ignore the filter for it, but why (for example) would you specifically
want something that doesn't have GPS or doesn't have Altitude Hold?

~~~
Zikes
I totally understand the pricing issue, and I think a rough estimate would be
perfectly fine, even if they were rounded. A "price range rating" might also
work, e.g. $, $$, $$$, with each rating representing e.g. $0-99, $100-299,
$300+.

The negated filters are mostly for when I would anticipate the list to be much
longer, so that after you've decided which features you definitely _do_ want,
you can say "this list is still too long to narrow down my choice, so I'll
just check off a few features I don't necessarily want but which most
assuredly would also affect the price".

~~~
d2p
> "this list is still too long to narrow down my choice, so I'll just check
> off a few features I don't necessarily want but which most assuredly would
> also affect the price".

Wouldn't the price filter remove the need for this (while also ensuring you
don't discount something based on the assumption that features always add to
price)?

Currently the filters are nice toggle switches, but we'd have to change the UI
to support "doesn't have", so we'd have to come up with a good UI and be sure
it's really adding value to really do it.

Thanks again!

------
unstatusthequo
Maybe add category for "follow me mode" and other fancies?

Seems like list could be expanded. Magic, GoPro, etc

~~~
d2p
This currently exists as an "Intelligent Flight" column; though I expect we'll
need to split it out soon when the support features vary more across models.

------
mdonahoe
I feel like "avoidance" and "intelligent flight" being Y/N fields is a bit
misleading.

How did you score that one?

Seems like a large scale of abilities. Does the mavic really have avoidance if
it can't do multiple directions like the phantom 4 pro? Is the avoidance 100%
bullet proof?

As drones get more sophisticated and capable, the metrics will need to evolve
too.

~~~
d2p
I was under the impression that P4 and Mavic has the same (forward and
downward sensors)?

You're right though, both of these fields are a bit vague and I think in time
they'll need splitting out; but I think for now they're probably ok (as some
reasonable forward avoidance and some ability to pre-program a flight, whether
it be waypoints or following).

------
d2p
We've started building a comparison chart for Quadcopters and would appreciate
feedback! Only just started but I'd ask for feedback to make sure it's going
in a good direction.

[https://www.thedronechart.com/](https://www.thedronechart.com/)

The goal is to be a really simple chart of popular drones and specs that can
be sorted/filtered/linked to to help you quickly see which drones might suit
your needs. It won't include reviews or other subjective content, just
facts/specs/etc. (and no prices, because they fluctuate too much). In the
future it might do drone vs drone comparisons but for now it's going to just
be a filterable/sortable table.

All filters persist in the URL so you can easily share links, eg for drones
with GPS and gimbals, the link looks like this:

[https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gimbal=on&t-gps=on](https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gimbal=on&t-gps=on)

You can also click the Share icon next to a drone to highlight it and move it
to the top - this also goes into the URL so you can send someone a filtered
list with a highlighted recommendation. Eg., a GPS-equipped list with the
Mavic Pro highlighted is like this:

[https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gps=on&dr=dji-mavic-
pro](https://www.thedronechart.com/#t-gps=on&dr=dji-mavic-pro)

All of this is generated (sadly not in realtime) from a public Google Doc
(there's a button at the bottom of the page):

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ac0f5RKq86v-_mDdjb08...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ac0f5RKq86v-_mDdjb08mXq6-eQj3sr7ier2yiFEixE/edit?usp=sharing)

Although editing the doc is restricted to us, anyone can add comments. This
means the community can help fill in the blanks or correct things with
comments, and we will frequently review the comments and update the real data.

All feedback is very much welcome! What things you think should filterable?
What columns are missing? What columns are useless fluff? Should we exclude
really cheap toys? Flags are intended to show where the drones are available
to purchase (we're only adding US/UK for now) but if it turns out 99% are
available in both, we might just ditch them (there's a filter to go with it,
but it's hidden while the data isn't fully populated).

We'll continue working through populating more data over the coming days;
apparently there are a lot of quadcopters out there! ;)

Note! The site does include affiliate links/banners (but fairly minimal, we
detest ad-heavy pages as much as the next guy). I'd really love to upgrade my
Syma X5HC to a Phantom 3 Standard so I hope this might help towards that in
addition to being a useful tool for others.

