From the interwebs:
"Nixie isn’t going to be on this Christmas’ shopping list and is simply a concept at this stage."
and
"The Nixie prototype, as it is now, looks like it could break at a moment’s notice, and resembles more a school science project than the next big wearable."
and
"Nixie is currently in prototype stage and as an idea, was born only ten days before the deadline for the competition. But despite having a lot of work to do, the team's pitch convinced the judges not only that the product is brilliant, but that the team has a viable business plan and can make the product, quite literally, take off. Prize money will be used for improving the propellers, motors and object navigation, as well as miniaturisation of the whole product."

I still think Intel got conned.

What this tells me is that everybody sees potential but that what they showed in the video was pure concept design. They have a very long road ahead of them still. My key issues are and remain:
Getting the booms to bend around the wrist so as to bring the motor pods back together.
Fitting the electronics into a format that will fit onto a wrist.
Maintain an acceptable level of performance for an acceptable level of time.

Funny thing is that they mention all of the things I've commented on:
Propellers, miniaturization, and navigation.

I would add form factor and battery life. But Props will be a key issue as getting efficient props at this size is very difficult and maintain tolerances in production.

Skillful as in skillful editing.

Theoretically the whole circus act could almost be pulled off with lighter than normal pucks, allowing the puck trajectory of the first and third shots and a quick wrist shot 2nd (which is very ulikely for a 7yo). In any case the pickup before the juggling looks all wrong - could have conceivably been done with a ball just to make the editing easier.

Take a look at something like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLamA97C14A
to compare the stick and skating skills and puck physics of a more probably real 7yo without the drama.

I personally think it's a beautiful watch, but even if I were Bill-Gates-rich, I wouldn't buy such an excessive luxury item. Obviously this isn't the only watch that Patek Philippe make - it's just meant to be a show piece, the best of the most complicated pure mechanical watches. The watch itself is a marketing tool (Look at what we can do - surely our $5000 watches are better than $5000 Rolex!)

It wasn't made for a Saudi prince, unless it comes in a color other than gold. Maybe someone with such large wrists as Kim Dotcom...
Celebrities like Schwarzenegger or Stallone wouldn't wear this watch because it's not manly enough.

The Gist:

Guy in business suit looking thoughtfully out of window.
(Doubtful anyone who designs fine consumer goods, *actually designs consumer goods*, wears a suit). Maybe its supposed to be you! You avant-garde millionaire, you!

Person sketching watch designs. This is probably semi-close to reality, though they don’t show the hundreds of designs the visual designer creates that are dismissed at whim by the aforementioned, assumed (but inevitable even if not shown) suits.

People fiddling with plastic representations of what one would assume as the model for said watch design. Maybe realistic, though with the caveat that two people are sitting there going over said physical design, in any serious discussion concerning the actual physics of the end product. I can *not* imagine that nearly the entirety of this process today, both visual and mechanical design, are not done digitally.

Okay, there’s some CG. Because CG is the next step, rather than the first, least expensive step in any design process today. Who wants to quickly model everything in a matter of hours when you can fabricate expensive, physical material for iterative testing?

Holy shit, was that guy just looking at a wood cutout? I can’t even think of a shitty, sarcastic/realistic remark about that one. I might have misunderstood that shot.

Alright, now we’re machining shit. You can’t really fake that with a few grand for marketing. That’s the real stuff. (1.5m in)

No, they don’t sand/polish things by hand during the fabrication phase. That’s entirely too inaccurate and subjective to the assembler to leave up to human hands. (But hey: it’s a 2.5 million dollar piece of metal, so lets make those buyers feel good about their money spent).

Oh look: gemstones! (???) That's kingly.

More faux machining that is veritably inferior to quality mechanical assembly.

Oh shit, someone just turned a nob!

3.5 minutes in, and we see some actual hand-polished work that is legitimately viable to perform by hand.

Hey lets sand those nodules off the finished pieces, and micro-inspect those printed markings, because nothing about us says “accuracy” without a fallible human to do it. Also: what are they printing shit on there for? Was it pushing the price to $3mil to engrave the timestamps on the faces? That better be the highest quality electroplated coating, but even then I can't imagine that's superior than a tactile, physical representation.

Now they’re hand-engraving the sculpted ornamentation, but it’s one more point I can gladly give them because those kinds of human touches let you know at least some sort of artisan was involved. I can appreciate that, though realizing what I just said causes me to reflect on the inaccuracies of mass-production, and why we would take one over the other…

More microscopes. (Because if one notch is off, it’s back to the furnace for you!)

Awe shit, payday. A guy in a suit looking confident is walking towards your building!

Finally, the gear assembly. It certainly looks fantastic, photographically speaking. I can’t help but notice that all that detail is lost to hundreds of textural indentations or are due to stylized alternating polish/grinding. However, I’m confident that spending $2.5mil on this product would get me the absolute, most accurate, unnoticeable details (hand-made!) within a micro-millimeter of accuracy. Those indentations are like chrome on a street-racer in the 90’s: the more you have, the greater they perform.

@~8min, I’m pretty sure no one works like that at their desk. That posture would kill you in a month.

They know you can’t spin the head of a watch while it’s on your wrist, right?

Awe! It’s got 5 ringtones! That’s way more than any other watch I’ve even heard of! Except everything that doesn’t cost $2.5mil.


If I can take anything away from this that’s even remotely positive, it’s that at least millionaire shitheads are now being just as suckered as the rest of the consumer base. Let me sell ONE of those watches, and I would have enough money to overtake their business within a year, except for that I don't have the greed, dishonesty, and overall lack of morals that it would take to set up a quality factory, and trick such dickheads into buying (even superior BS) products.

I hate this device with every fiber of my being.

It's an ostentatious, gaudy and useless bauble built for privileged, elite parasites. It holds no value in any society. The unbelievable waste of technology and resources that has been diverted to the creation and acquisition of such an embarrassing canker brings shame on us all.

Anyone who purchases one of these monstrosities should have it strapped around their neck as they're paraded in front of the community that they embezzled their wealth from.

In a just society, these would be worn on the wrists of the underserved homeless people who dragged these oligarchs off the top of their pyramids and bludgeoned them in the gutter.

Do a search on the Proto X or Syncro from Estes. They are great little quads.The Crazyfly doesn't support FPV, they have a small programmable quad (Which is quite an achievement BTW, not to downplay what they have done, and the multiple features make it a pretty cool little platform). But Is not really all that close to the Pixie. They removed all of the plastic from a #19 Keychain FOB Camera(You can find them all over Ebay) to save weight and are placing it on top, it can only record and not broadcast, hence no FPV as shown on the Nixie. The induction charging is very cool, and I don't know much about it but it seems like that would take a long time.
A gauntlet is a much better solution IMO than what Pixie is showing. It can then be used as a home location as well as something for the quad to track. It is also very similar to what AirDog.com is doing with a wrist band.
Thanks for the link on the crazyfly.
FYI, I'm not saying that certain things in the Nixie are impossible (Many of the individual pieces are possible in some form) I'm just saying that as they present it in their video it is not currently possible, nor do I see it being available for purchase by open market consumers within the next say 3 years. But I do think that you will have "Dronie" based quads in several different form factors, including wearable, pretty soon.

I concede many of your points, and don't understand some others, but it would seem that this

*related=http://videosift.com/video/nano-crazyfly-drone

is pretty damn close to the nixie already, except for the slap bands and the pretty cover. Maybe mount it on a gauntlet? Then it could be magnetically assisted in 'landing' on your wrist.
I know the 'crazyfly' isn't autonomous, but good software could make it remotely computer controlled. Close enough for me.

Yeah, but they are looking for funding, so someone is going to pony up. I watched the video. Most of what they show is a Hubsan FPV quad that you can get through places like Banggood it uses a spreadspectrum 5.4 system to broadcast the video and a 2.4 system for control, but it does not have any autonomous capabilities. Hubsan makes some of the best stuff out there and we work very closely with them. The wrist thing is cludgey, and while it conveys the idea (You can see the needed twist I was talking about), it wont get them anywhere near their presented final design. Wifi would be an option, but it would require a wifi hotspot be built into the quad. I know we aren't talking about components that require a bunch of power, but we are talking about small batteries, so every mV counts. Especially for something that is wearable.
Now the Hexo+ is very much like the Airdog. Both seem very viable and are using existing technologies. My only concern about either is what do they do about object avoidance and low battery response. In either situation you can wind up losing the vehicle or injuring someone. Most higher end quadcopters have the ability to Return To Home (RTH) which is great since the pilot is in a stationary position, but put a pilot on the move and things get weird. If you are out surfing and the quad gets a low battery warning due to either a battery failure or having been waiting for 30 minutes for you to catch a wave, where does it go? It could go back to the take-off position, but if you drifted from there then it will need to calculate that distance and make sure it can get back. Salt water and electronics don't play well together. If you take your quad with you for a ride on a skateboard down the boardwalk, how do you make sure it doesn't hit a light post or a tree while it is zipping after you? You could fly at a higher altitude, but the zoom lens on the camera may not be enough. Hexo+ has a video of the founder riding a skateboard while the quad films. Notice that he stops short of going into the wooded area. I wonder why?
There are issues, but at least in both cases I think they are starting from proven technologies and have footprints that are achievable.

@My_design good info, thanks.

A few things though:
they're not actually looking for crowdfunding at the moment (at least, it's not on their website http://flynixie.com/ )
there are some videos of them launching a proof of concept from the wrist http://youtu.be/_VFsdPAoI1g
but admittedly, you don't see it fly and it's not a slap band as of now.

I have a gopro and it does broadcast, although not in HD in real time. You can connect it over wifi to your phone and see the shot as it is being framed with about a 2 second lag in SD. Both of which are fine as long as the footage is captured in HD. I'll grant you the weight is an issue, but most of that is in the battery and the housing. Nixie wouldn't need a housing, and I'm guessing the wifi/camera power requirements are much less than the motors. Plus it only needs less than a minute of flying/recording time.

Out of interest, since you seem to know about this stuff, have you heard of Hexo+ and if so, what do you think of it?

The slap bands don't work because the arms are at angles to each other. Slap bands can only rotate in a straight direction (They are basically tape measure metal), so they wouldn't be able to come back to meet in the center like they illustrate. Also they have the motors all prettily lined up and facing directly off the wrist, that would require the material to be able to twist.

For the rotor size, these are fixed pitch rotors. You can change the pitch of the rotor to give you different flight characteristics and in general you have to match the pitch to the motor to be the most efficient. I may have this reversed, but a lower pitch prop gives you more torque and less overall speed, but a higher pitch prop gives more top speed, less torque. Making a prop that can be injection molded at that size that even works is difficult, making one that is super efficient would be even more so. QC would have to be incredibly exacting. As a gauge, the 2" x 2" quad has 1" props. They can lift it and buzz it around pretty well. Those things were a pain to get correct and I have a hard time imagining anyone making them more efficient than they are. In the case of the 2" quad, we didn't even paint the body because we want to limit the impact on flight time from added weight. All molded in color. That's how sensitive these things can be. There are better motors if you are willing to pay, but even then it may not be enough.
Go Pro records in HD, but doesn't actually broadcast anything (plus it is big enough to keep this thing from flying anywhere). If you want to broadcast video you have to do it in 640x480 tops. To do that you need something like an FPV system that broadcasts on a spread spectrum. If you went bluetooth you have an effect range that is pretty small. Wifi requires more power to get a longer range. A video transmitter system would require a separate device to attach to your phone to receive the signal and translate it to a PPM signal for through the headphone jack. But a VTX is pretty heavy as well.
And things may drain just a little bit of power, but it stacks up. At most you have a 250mAh Lipo battery that can fit in there. That isn't going to buy you a bunch of flight/video time.
Video on the phone is going to be subject to interference, so you would want to record on the quad. this would get you HD quality, but also adds weight, which means more battery draw, which means less flight time.
-B

I don't understand, why would they have to bend in multiple directions? it seems they need to be straight or curve in one direction. Did I miss something?
I'm estimating the size, about 6" around one's wrist makes it 6" 'wide', and near 3" 'long'...yes the blades seem about 1.25" diameter. You would know more than I about that being enough, but I do know there are different prop configurations for different applications, perhaps they have an ultra efficient prop and motor pair? There are certainly more powerful motors available, if you're willing to pay for them.
Adding blue tooth is minimal in weight and power drain, and the lag shouldn't be an issue in most applications (I wouldn't try making it run a gauntlet of obstacles though).
Camera batteries are pretty powerful today, allow fast drain, and come in small sizes. Maybe not enough yet, commercially available, but certainly possible to make...if you're willing to pay.

For your issues....
1)super thin spring steel could work, but wouldn't look like the plastic they showed. What's the issue with 'slap bands'? They seem perfect.
2) power is an issue, as is flight time. I feel like early adopters would sacrifice flight/record time for the advantage of size...but only time will tell.
3) object avoidance IS an issue. Likely the solution is to limit it to use where there's no obstruction above it and not too much in front. Slight lag isn't an issue, if it's not moving fast. Return to the object it's centered on should be no problem, it tracks an object to film it, it shouldn't be too hard to return to it. Now, catching it while hanging on a cliff....yeah...that's tough.
4)Does not Go-pro already wirelessly send it's video in real time "HD"? They cost under $400.

I'll agree with you, you would be MUCH better off buying a larger one that works NOW instead of sending money in hopes they come out with this super miniature one. That said, I still think this is possible...just expensive and difficult to make work.

This is absolutely 100% not possible at this time. Not in this format at least. I fly quads. I manufacture quads on a mass production basis. If this was a single technological step away from where we are currently, then maybe it could happen, but this is at least 5 technologies that do not currently exist or are in very early development. Just to start out with having a flexible frame that can support flight is quite a concept. Don't even get me started on the wrist watch size. The smallest quads out there measure about 2" square using 5mm brushed motors, and a 100MAh lipo battery. The best flight time you can get with it is about 5-7 minutes and takes about 15 minutes to charge(from a USB port). that doesn't leave anything for powering a camera, or GPS.
Anyways, the technology doesn't exist to make this thing close to feasible. Closest thing like this on the market right now is this:
https://www.airdog.com/

I haven't followed this too closely, but I at least partially disagree with Stewart here:

1) The original video from outside the elevator didn't really provide conclusive proof about what happened. Her being knocked unconscious as a result of physical violence was the most likely explanation for what we saw there, but I think there was room for reasonable doubt at the time. She could have been passed out drunk or otherwise intoxicated, or knocked out by somebody else.

That original video was certainly enough to have police look into the event further. I assume that happened, but I don't know the results. I can only assume that no charges were pressed. Beyond that, I didn't / don't think it was necessary for the NFL to get involved at all. Especially since the first video didn't really prove that he did anything wrong.


2) If the NFL wanted to get involved, sure they could try to get their hands on more evidence (like the 2nd video). But, it isn't really their business -- let the police worry about that. And taking any actions against a player that is a suspect of any crime would be risky too... For example, a policy of suspending a player that has an active investigation against them before it has been concluded could easily be abused.


3) Maybe the NFL saw the 2nd video a long time ago, and maybe they didn't. Their actions now definitely seem like spin / damage control, but I don't think it is particularly fair to get all ticked off at the NFL even if you assume that they are lying and that they had seen the 2nd video a long time ago.

If the police and prosecutors want to send Rice to jail for his actions, by all means do so -- it would be well deserved. But criminal justice isn't in the purview of the NFL. Let the police take care of it, and if they fail to punish him adequately it is their fault, not the NFL's.

Now that the NFL has (and is forced to acknowledge) the definitive evidence about what happened from the 2nd video, it is fine (and GOOD) that they suspended him. But, I'm not too upset at them for taking their time to decide to do that. The slaps on the wrist from the criminal justice system are a much bigger concern, at least from my point of view.

But, I haven't been following this story too closely, so maybe I missed some stuff that would sway my opinion.

Yeah but in a really stupid way I feel. As far as I've heard he got off with a slap on the wrist when it comes to the law. This business with the NFL and his team had to be basically forced to occur. Everyone was pissed and even then they were going to do anything until the whole movie came out.

However the actual Law, that which should've handled this much much better let him off with practically nothing. He was going to go back to work 3 weeks into the season, how does that make any sense.

I normally don't like a sports organization acting as judge jury and executioner especially when the Court decides nothing happened, innocent until proven guilty. In this case though I'm dead wrong, our courts are only for the rich.

"Raksha Bandhan usually focuses on men getting a rakhri (a thin string) around their wrists from their sisters to celebrate both love and protection. In return, the brother usually gives his sister a gift. In other words, getting a rakhri basically indicates there is NO way you're considered more than friend. No way."
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/08/12/the-rakhri-zone-jus-reign_n_5672264.html