Imagine a world where robots are a part of our daily life. Not just in building cars and doing daily chores but protecting our home and keeping us connected with our loved ones. At Aevena, this is exactly what is going on since its inception.
Aevena is a company which started with an aim to re-design daily lives by re-imagining it through smart and personal robotics. They have developed mobile processors with advanced sensor technology. Aevena was founded on 1st February 2015 by Jeffry Tseng. It has its Headquarters in San Carlos, California. Its two major investors are Matrix Partners and Social Starts.
Aevena has developed Aire, a state of the art, first of its kind flying robot or you may call it a flying drone for the home. This device has overcome many limitations of the security systems of today. It has a camera inside it which is flexible enough to be mobile unlike all other cameras in present day security systems available in the market. This gives it a flying edge over others. With the help of its mobility, you can remain updated and can easily see what is going on at your home thereby ensuring the safety of loved ones and your home at all times.
Aire has the capability to alert you on your smartphone may you be anywhere. Whenever something unusual is heard or detected by its sensors, it sends a special alert to your smartphone. The best thing about this device is that it is covered with sensors all around it thereby giving signals from every direction. You can easily launch it in the air using your smartphone. The device has been designed so as to be compatible with both iOS as well as Android.
Aire is a device which protects your entire home. It remains vigilant 24/7 and acts as a watchdog but slightly smarter as it can detect motions and noise around it even when it is docked and notify you on your smartphone immediately. It can be used to visit your family virtually. It can be used to check on elderly parents at your home or check your kids when you are away for work or to check on your pets. Aire can be used for telepresence, taking photos or enhancing your home with IFTTT and developer APIs. It also houses microphones all around its body. These microphones are used to hear sounds in its surroundings and send an alert whenever required.
During its initial design phase, the company conducted a survey by asking people a few questions about the use of drones inside the home. People came up with many concerns but major ones were noise, downwash, and security against hacking. Aire is very safe around kids as all the moving parts including its flight blades are safely enclosed inside a soft but durable shell. It is not only safe for use with kids around the house but also safe for use around precious furniture.
Furthermore, it has an inbuilt 360 degrees obstacle avoidance system that avoids physical contact in the first place. It is safe to handle and use without fear of getting hacked. Aire uses encrypted cloud storage for communication with your smartphone. You are, therefore, in complete control of this device including its data. It is the quietest drone built so far. With a duct fan design, it is much different and quieter than conventional drones with external fins and propeller blades.
Aire is made of a lightweight material which is durable enough to enclose all its machinery and moving parts. From outside, it is covered with a fine fabric which additionally gives a smoother and neat look to it. Being lightweight, you do not need to worry about the downwash blowing things all around as the same was catered for before designing it.
Hands-Free Control
Because of its integration with Amazon Alexa, a lot of controls have been shifted to wireless and over voice command. For example, you can put the Aire in the air by simply asking Alexa to put it on camera mode. Aire after hearing this will take off from its dock and will be then ready for taking your commands.
Another exciting feature is the Aire’s ‘automatic face detection’ feature. You can even ask it to take your picture. It will rotate in its place, if already in the air, look for a face in its surroundings and then will approach to take a picture. Aire, while being in the air, will automatically go to its charging dock for charging itself.
IFTTT Automation Capability
By creating IFTTT Applets, Aire has the ability to interact with IoT devices throughout your home with triggers.
- Dark Room Flight— If Aire senses that the room is dark, it turns on Philips Hue lights.
- Anomaly Detected — If Aire detects any strange motion, it starts recording it on video.
- 360° Panorama Taken— If Aire captures a 360° panoramic photo, it saves it to Google Drive automatically.
Features
Apart from the features mentioned above, it is also equipped with a few more exciting and modern-day features. They are:
- Autonomous Navigation
- Return-To-Home Feature
- Security Patrols
- Virtual Home Mapping
- White Noise Frequency Shaping
- 3-D Panoramic Photos
- 360 Degrees Obstacle Avoidance
- Advanced Flight Sensor
- Remote Flight Control
- Noise Reduction Technology
- Multi-Can Visual Odometry
- HD Photo and 4K Video
- Auto Take Off and Landing
- Concealed Propellers
- Ducted Fan Propulsion
- Multiple Dock Landing
- Over the Air Learning
- Cloud Storage
- IFTTT Integration
- Amazon Alexa Enabled
- Home Automation Control
- Lifetime Skill Upgrades
- Developer API
Tech Specs
Hardware
- Main Processor — Nvidia Tegra X1 (1 TFLOP/s) with powerful Nvidia Maxwell™ architecture, 256 GPU cores, multi-core 64-bit CPUs, 4K video capabilities, and more power-efficient performance.
- Flight Controller — ARM Cortex-M4 with DSP
- GPU — NVIDIA Maxwell 256-core GPU DX-12, OpenGL 4.5, NVIDIA CUDA®, OpenGL ES 3.1, AEP and Vulkan
- Battery — 6s, 14.8V
- Connectivity — 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth
Mechanical
- Aire Chassis — 12″ x 12″ x 13″ and 12″ x 12″ x 16″ including top/bottom padding.
- Aire Weight — 3.5 pounds
- Dock Dimensions – 18″ x 18″ x 24″
- Dock Weight — 7 pounds
Sensors
- Main Camera — 4K
- Inertial — (2) accelerometers, (2) gyroscopes, (2) magnetometer
- Localization — (3) cameras and (1) sonar (height)
- Obstacle Avoidance — (1) 3D Time of Flight depth camera and (5) sonar sensors (4 sides and upward for detecting ceilings)
Performance
Aire’s flight time is 8 minutes at the moment. The company is working on improving this. The default flight speed is 1 m/s. The Aire takes at least 30 minutes to be fully charged.
Aire is yet another step forward towards the goal of achieving complete smart homes, use of robotics in our everyday life and ease of use of technology. Being able to be controlled with your smartphone from anywhere, Aire is the embodiment of convenience and modern technology put together.