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Parrot Bebop 2 Drone FPV Pack Review with Skycontroller 2 and Cockpitglasses

Micki Kosman
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Serious about outdoor photos? Love impossible angles? Want to get into video? Might be time to think about getting a drone.

Since this review was posted, Parrot has switched to commercial drones and the Bebop 2 is no longer available.

You can see their new line of drones on Amazon here.

For a while now we’ve been eyeing up drones for some of our travel shots. I’ve had some serious video envy lately looking at stunning travel videos taken with drones. Like most of you, we hesitated, because the price point to get a good drone has been pretty high. As in well over $1,000 high.

Luckily, sometimes serendipity happens. Out of the blue, the good folks at Parrot Drones asked us to try out their brand spanking new Parrot Bebop 2 FPV Pack.

Now this is especially cool, because it’s a great little drone with HD camera, plus the Parrot Skycontroller 2 and the FPV (First Person View) Parrot Cockpitglasses. Best of all, the whole package, including the drone with HD camera, skycontroller and FPV glasses is retailing for a fantastic deal right now.

Here’s a little sneak peek at the Parrot Bebop 2 FPV in the box.

Parrot Bebop 2 Drone FPV Pack in Box

Take a look at our unboxing video below – it will give you a good idea of all the goodies included in this pack.

The Parrot Bebop 2 FPV Pack comes with much more than just a high-tech and reliable drone. The kit includes a pair of Cockpitglasses. I really love these; when you look through the FPV goggles you see what the drone sees as it flies, which gives a true first-person viewing experience.

Parrot Bebop 2 Drone FPV Glasses

The Skycontroller 2 is the remote control unit in the kit. I really love that this is included, since I really prefer using the sensitive and easy-to-use joysticks over only a smartphone control. The joysticks allow you to control the unit during flight and there’s a dedicated button for take-off and landing.

Parrot Bebop 2 Drone Skycontroller

I especially love that the Bebop 2 was so easy to set up and use! This was my first drone, and I was a little worried there would be a lot of fiddling and fussing, especially when setting up the rotors. I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case at all.

Parrot Bebop 2 Drone FPV Pack all Unboxed
Unboxing of the Parrot Bebop 2 FPV Kit. Note: Blades just on for show and not in proper position yet.

Want to learn a little more? Here are some specs to check out!

  • The Bebop uses a special anti-stall system that includes seven sensors and a three-axis stabilization system to make sure the images captured during the flights are perfectly stable.
  • The wide-angle camera is able to shoot 1080p full-HD videos and 14 megapixel photos
  • With 25 minutes battery life and an autonomy range of 1.24 miles, you can create footage of very wide areas
  • The Return Home feature makes sure your drone comes back to you, wherever it has been wandering and exploring
  • The Bebop 2 uses a secured wi-fi connection to link to your smart phone
  • The Bebop 2 is rich in cool features, but it is very lightweight – it weighs less than half a kg, making transport and handling very easy and allowing the unit to reach places that are otherwise difficult to access, taking the most impressive footage, wherever it goes.
  • The rotors are color coded (white for front, black for back) and marked with blue and yellow to easily tell which rotor is which when changing them out and come with an extra set

The drone flies and records, while the glasses make sure you will be able to enjoy the recordings in real time to the fullest.

3D VR Cockpitglasses:

  • The goggles are comfortable to wear, even if you wear normal seeing glasses as well.
  • The First Person View will allow you to see exactly what your drone sees, immersing you into the experience, making the world outside your glasses and out of the range of your drone disappear.
  • Unofficially – can be used to watch 3D VR related content like YouTube as well as play apps and games designed for the now defunct Google Cardboard.

The Skycontroller 2 is the control unit:

  • It features two sensitive and easy-to-use joysticks that allow you to control the unit during flight
  • It guarantees the smoothest, most stable changes of direction
  • It includes dedicated buttons for video and camera control
  • It includes a WiFi amp for flying longer distances and ensuring smoother video playback
  • It also includes a dedicated Return Home button for getting the drone to return back to base

The drone, the remote and the glasses are linked with the help of the FreeFlights Pro dedicated app, able to save all your films, pics and routes. The app also comes with advanced sharing functions.

Want to find out more?

We’re still playing with some of the advanced features, like Follow-me GPS & visual tracking. Check out this video from Parrot, which shows how you can put your smartphone in your pocket and let the drone film you in your activities all by itself.

*I think that I’ll wait to fly over water until we’re much more advanced.

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Micki Kosman
Micki is the co-founder of The Barefoot Nomad travel blog. She's traveled around the world since 2003 with her husband Charles (the other founder of this blog) and now travels with her two kids.She loves helping people travel more, and follow their dreams. Micki spends a lot of time writing articles, helping readers, and doing the ten thousand jobs that keep this site going. Micki is a member of the Travel Media Association of Canada.

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8 Responses

  1. Awesome review! I’ve been eyeing the Bebop 2 for my next drone purchase and you just gave me more reasons to go ahead and just purchase it!

    Reply

  2. I read your review and it was good but I feel like you left out several things that readers would like to know about the Bebop 2 FPV. What type of range did you experience? Wifi enabled drones often suffer from range and interference issues; how did this unit perform? What accessories would you recommend (Extra batteries, etc)? Given that this is a FPV drone, is there lag in the video?

    Lastly, maybe a little picky but you stated twice that the joysticks are used to control the drone during take-off and landing. They are used through out the flight, not just for take-off/landing. There are also important features such as an the camera tilt adjustment and exposure settings.

    Reply

    1. Hi Chris, all good points and I regret we didn’t have enough time to include more info before the post went live. We were also getting into winter here and didn’t want to push the Bebop 2 too hard since the weather wasn’t really co-operating.

      I’ve flown it twice in the past few days and hope to get out again this weekend or the next to really push the envelope and see what it can all do. Once that’s done I’ll report a few more of my findings.

      Off the top of my head I’d say it could use an extra battery since doubling your flight time is never a bad thing however I got 21 minutes of flight time with the stock battery my last flight so that’s pretty decent. Lag didn’t seem bad on the video however I’ll do some more tests as I use it more.

      I never experienced any Wifi dropouts or issues (could be due to newer firmware) however I did have an issue with connecting it back to my phone after trying it out with our iPad. Did a 10 second hold on the power button for a hard reboot of the Bebop 2 that fixed the problem though. I’ve also read that people suggest turning off cell data mode on the iPhone before connecting to the Bebop 2’s Wifi so will try that if I run into the issue again.

      As for the joysticks, they are used throughout the flight. I’ve fixed that in the review to make it more clear. I’ll also try to add more info on the camera adjustments and exposure settings after playing with them a bit more.

      Hope that helps and thanks for the comment.

      Reply

  3. Can it carry extra weight for any additional batteries to lengthen the flight time? (Or is it like every 15 minutes you have to Re-land it, ex-change the batteries,then re-initiate a new flight route,re take off again…..
    .15 minutes …re-land it

    Reply

    1. Hey Smithguy. There are larger, non oem batteries available with extra mAh out there that supposedly give you longer flight times but we haven’t tried any of them. Just make sure they’re from a reputable company otherwise you could be putting your Bebop 2 in jeopardy. I flew ours the other day and managed to get 21 minutes out of it with the stock battery so I guess it depends on flying conditions and what you have it doing.

      As to adding extra batteries to get longer flight times I haven’t researched that. The problem with adding extra weight is that sometimes there’s not a good weight to power ratio and you can actually end up shortening your flight time no matter how many extra batteries you use. Typically, when they create drones they look for the right power to battery ratio as well as the cost benefit ratio. The fact that they haven’t marketed their own higher mAh battery leads me to suspect that they’re happy enough with the stock flight times and the Bebop 2 already has longer flight times than most others in it’s class. Up to you of course.

      Reply

  5. I am having an issue connecting the drone to the sky controller to the fpv glasses. I am using an iPhone. Is there a trick??? I can use the phone as the controlller and pilot, I can use the sky controller and pilot, but when I use the USB cable to my iPhone and sky controller, it doesn’t connect. What am I doing wrong? Any help please!!

    Reply

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