pokedrone

As if flying a drone around isn’t cool enough, imagine flying a drone that helps you catch the Pokémon in Pokémon GO that you couldn’t otherwise reach.

TRNDlabs released a video this week demonstrating their new Poké-drone product – and it looks amazing!

Just clip your smart phone into the remote control and a little drone flies out from the center of the controller. You can see live video from the drone camera on your smart phone and manipulate the drone with the ostensibly simple Nintendo 64-style controller.

Now you’re really ready to go catch ‘em all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI9fqH8zkNM

Sounds too good to be true right? Well, maybe it is.

The Poké-drone still appears to be in the prototype stage with TRNDlabs having no formal agreement with Nintendo to use the word Poké in their product name. There are also other issues. Firstly, the drone spoofs the GPS signal from your smart phone to Pokémon Go with the drone’s GPS signal and therefore you will have to jailbreak your smartphone.

Screen shot 2016-07-14 at 5.58.36 PM

Secondly, spoofing the GPS signal has been classified as cheating and Pokémon GO developer Niantic Labs has been reportedly issuing soft bans on players that do so. Thirdly, the camera connection between the drone and your smart phone also requires jailbreaking.

But let’s not give up – there is still some hope! TRNDlabs has reportedly stated they are eager to work with Nintendo to allow the GPS and camera inputs from the drone to directly connect to the Pokémon GO app.

▼ The Poké-drone looks so sweet!

Screen shot 2016-07-15 at 10.02.32 AM

TRNDlabs has a sign-up form on their website for people keen to keep track of these developments. I for one hope that one day we will be seeing these tiny drones flying all over the world catching Pokémon.

Source: Gigazine, The Verge, YouTube/TRNDlabs, TRNDlabs, Polygon
Images: YouTube/TRNDlabs