INTERNATIONAL: Popular smartphone manufacturer Vivo has plans for a new “drone phone”. The Chinese company is busy developing a smartphone with a detachable camera module. Vivo apparently filed its patent last year and the first prototypes are already being tested.
The flying camera module pops out from underneath the phone. The mini-drone has two cameras and sports four propellers. It’s equipped with two infrared sensors meant to keep it from bumping into other objects and is operated directly via the phone’s screen.
It’d be great for holiday videos and a must-have for social media influencers, but there are some doubts about whether Vivo’s idea for a new phone will fly. The drone would take up valuable space inside a smartphone and its size would make it fragile and easy to lose. Regulations surrounding drones are also becoming stricter. In Cambodia, permits are required to fly drones in Phnom Penh and at Angkor.
While it might be a while before you can get your hands on the drone-phone in Cambodia, Vivo is moving at light-speed with other models. It already has a gimbal on its smartphones and its first foldable smartphone will be released later this year.
