Gadgetory

this is me getting ready to try my hand at being a burglar I'm gonna see what happens when I sneak into a backyard of a house in my own neighborhood in a suburb south of San Francisco what I saw is this surveillance drone made by a start-up called sunflower labs it's startup Hope's wealthy people will start buying these next year to ease their minds about raccoons that are checking out trash bins in the middle of the night or to keep burglars away if it comes to that I knew what to expect but imagine if you were a real burglar confronted by a buzzing airborne camera if somebody's on your property doing something they shouldn't be doing and I'd draw flies out I'm pretty sure they're not that continue drones are a hot item in the world of tech mostly for things like monitoring power lines or creating show-stopping real estate listings home security could bring the technology to average homeowners too when costs come down here's how sunflower labs technology works first come the sunflowers yard lights that actually are bristling with sensors a vibration detector can tell the difference between footfalls and car traffic and motion sensors can tell I'm a human not a deer or a dog if sunflower labs computer thinks I could be trouble it'll send a phone alert the homeowner can push a button to automatically launch the drone to take a look in this case you can see me snooping around the backyard the drone isn't too loud when you're indoors but take it from me somebody skulking around the property is going to notice when the drone the burglar will know that they've been noticed and it's very similar to either a security guard at the very least a dog that's barking at you the drone that has no offensive weapons it is not going to go up in your face it will fly probably about 20 feet above you the drone itself looks like a standard quadcopter but it's designed to be relatively quiet and to land automatically and it's weatherproof base station of course there's the main security camera the security camera is specifically made for low-light conditions so you can see it well at night and at the very bottom is our landing camera which locks in on to the landing beacon of our system in order to bring the drone down the viability once it slides into this landing station these contact points at the bottom of all the motors actually touch the charging ring and the drone stays always fully charged the system won't be available until 2020 and it'll probably cost hundreds of dollars a month like a high-end security system but eventually sunflower labs expects that prices will drop and federal limits on drones will ease today the regulations do impose the restrictions on how the system can be operated but we believe that within a year or two the regulation will catch up and allow something this to be fully legal and the function that's fine with me because honestly I'm pretty sure I would make a terrible burglar