An easy-to-fly 8K 360-degree camera

The Antigravity A1 isn’t just another drone, but a flying invisibility cloak for an 8K 360-degree camera. While established brands focus on better flying, Antigravity focuses on better seeing, though that vision comes with a steep price and some limitations.

8/10

Camera

1/1.28-inch, F2.2

App

Antigravity

Weight

249g (with Flight Battery)

Range

15 – 24 minutes (with Flight Battery)

The Antigravity A1 Drone is the ultimate 360-degree flying camera. Just don’t expect the ultimate drone experience for the price.

Pros & Cons

• Unique, high-quality 360-degree capture
• Immersive goggles and head tracking
• Motion controller and obstacle avoidance are beginner-friendly
• Solid communication range

• Setup is relatively involved
• No dual-stick controls limit precision for experienced pilots
• Standard battery offers short flight time
• Extra effort to edit standard video from raw footage
• Goggles are uncomfortable

SEE OUR PROCESS

How We Test and Review Products at How-To Geek

We go hands-on with every product to ensure it’s worth your time and money.

Price and availability

The Antigravity A1 Drone starts at $1600 and is available from Amazon and the Antigravity website in up to four different packages. The Standard Bundle is $1600 and includes the A1 drone, Vision Goggles with battery, corrective lens frame, Grip Motion Controller, flight battery, A1 drone carry case, four spare propellers, screwdriver, USB-C to USB-C charging cable, USB-C to DC power cable, and paperwork. The Standard Bundle plus High-Capacity Flight Battery Bundle is $1745 and adds a high-capacity flight battery.

The Explorer Bundle is $1900 and includes the A1 drone, Vision Goggles with battery, corrective lens frame, Grip Motion Controller, three flight batteries, charging hub for up to three batteries, A1 drone carry case, sling bag, eight spare propellers, screwdriver, USB-C to USB-C charging cable, USB-C to DC power cable, and paperwork. The Infinity Bundle is $2000 and replaces the three flight batteries with three high-capacity flight batteries, as well as adds a MicroSD/TF card quick reader with USB-C and Lightning adapters for plug-and-play connectivity to iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows devices for instant export and editing of footage.

If you want to record more footage than the internal storage allows, a MicroSD/TF card supporting SDXC UHS-I V30 or above, formatted as exFAT, is recommended, but not included. The maximum card size is 1TB, which is inserted into the slot on the drone.

Optional accessories include a Replacement Lens Kit ($30), 65W GaN Fast Charger ($55), Propeller Guards ($30), Landing Pad ($35), Vision -3.0D Corrective Lenses ($30), and 256GB Lexar Professional SILVER PLUS microSDXC UHS-I card ($43). Most items included in the various bundles are also available for separate purchase. Extended warranty coverage, which covers various types of damage, as well as flyaway lost drone replacement, starts at $200 for a one-year plan.

A camera-centric design

Credit: Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek

The key feature of the Antigravity A1 Drone is its dual 180-degree fisheye camera lenses, with one mounted upward and one downward. With this camera system, the A1 is able to capture 360-degree 8K (7,680 x 3,840) video at 30fps, 5.2k (5,248 x 2,624) at 60FPS, or 4K (3,840 x 1,920) at 100FPS, as well as up to 55MP (10,496 × 5,248) stills. A stitching algorithm effectively removes the drone from the footage, creating what’s known as a “flying camera” effect.

For controls, the A1 relies on a one-handed wand called the Grip Motion Controller that uses gyroscopes to steer, with tilt to turn and trigger to accelerate. The Vision Goggles use Micro-OLED screens with a resolution of 2,560 x 2,560 per eye and a 72Hz refresh rate. With this system, you can physically turn your head to look sideways, up, or down, independent of the drone’s flight path, while the video remains stabilized.

The drone features forward and downward visual sensors for obstacle avoidance, which can be disabled in Sport mode. Regardless of mode, there are no side or rear sensors, so flying backward or sideways in complex environments can be risky. However, automatic landing gear provides additional safety by retracting on takeoff and deploying when it senses the ground.

The FAA has few requirements for recreational drone usage, but does require registration for any drone weighing over 250g (0.55 lbs). With the standard battery, the A1 weighs around 249g, but it only gets about 15 minutes of flight time. With the high-capacity battery, flight time is nearly doubled, but it also increases the total weight to 290g, pushing it over the 250g FAA limit. In addition, the drone won’t take off if it detects excessive payload, helping ensure it’s compliant with recreational use.

On the rear of the drone is the power button, MicroSD card slot, flight battery latch, level indicator, and USB-C port. It’s impressively small when folded at just 5.56 x 3.79 x 3.2 inches and fits nicely in the included hard case.

The Vision Goggles feature diopter adjustment knobs and a touchpad for menu navigation, as well as a home and linking button, and volume buttons. A unique front-facing OLED screen shows the live drone feed to those around you. A data port, USB-C to DC power cable port, memory card slot, and speakers round out its notable physical features. A separate battery with lanyard is plugged into the USB-C to DC power cable port. While this is designed to keep the Vision Goggles’ weight to a minimum, it’s a bit of a clunky setup.

Credit: Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek

The grip controller looks like a combination VR and RC racing controller, complete with front trigger. The rear, thumb-based controls include an emergency brake and return to home button, flight slider, record button, 360 dial button, and a shutter button. On the right side of the controller are a power button and a menu button. On the left side of the controller are a customized C2 button, a customized C1 button, and a flight mode toggle switch.

A big checklist before the first flight

Credit: Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek

The flight battery in the drone is in a dormant state upon delivery, so it must be activated before first use. This is done by inserting the flight battery into the battery compartment and connecting the USB-C charging cable to the drone’s charging port. The battery indicator light blinks green when the battery is activated.

The next step is to unfold the drone’s propellers and landing gear. You then press and hold the power button on the drone for more than two seconds to power it on.

The Vision Goggles battery also needs to be charged and activated. Once done, the battery is connected to the goggles with the USB-C to DC charging cable. The lanyard allows the battery to be worn around your neck like a necklace when using the goggles. Finally, after putting on the goggles, adjust the interpupillary distance and diopter to best accommodate your vision.

Credit: Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek

Next up is the Grip Controller, which also needs to be charged. As long as three or more battery indicator LEDs are lit before first use, you’re good to go.

You need to download the Antigravity app for Android 10.0 or greater devices, or iOS 17.0 or greater devices, to activate the drone and other accessories, and comply with regulations. While you can technically use the drone without following this step, flight altitude is restricted to 30 m (98.4 ft) and a range of 50 m (164 ft) if not linked to the app.

It’s important to note that all three devices, the drone, the Vision Goggles, and the Grip Controller need to be fully charged and on for app pairing to be successful. Once paired, the app will ask you to connect to WiFi, update the firmware of your devices, and download offline maps for your area. This can take a while, so you’ll want all of this taken care of well in advance of your first flight.

Once everything is updated and you’re wearing the Vision Goggles, you’re prompted to go through the tutorial, which I highly recommend. During the tutorial, you’re presented with a large, tall rectangular view, using the Grip Controller to point at and select options. The whole experience is very much like using a VR headset or XR glasses, though I will say that the comfort of the Vision Goggles leaves a lot to be desired versus even the worst VR headsets. Considering how nice the goggles’ video is and its unique features, I would have expected far more attention paid to comfort to round out the design. As it is, the mesh fabric-covered composite sponge foam face cushion and elastic fabric hook and loop fastener head strap are barely passable, although I will note my wife found them more comfortable.

Taking flight from a first-person viewpoint

Credit: Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek

After powering on the drone, Vision Goggles, and Grip Controller, in that order, you’re ready to fly. You have to wear the Vision Goggles and the battery. After the drone’s self-check, you can unlock the motors by pushing the flight slider on the Grip Controller in short bursts, putting them in idle mode. The drone is now ready to take off by slowly pushing up the flight slider, where it will take off and slowly climb to 1.2 m (3.9 ft) and hover.

You can choose between two basic modes to fly. The first is Freemotion Mode, where you turn your body to steer and pull the trigger to go forward. The next is FPV Mode, where you use wrist movements for left and right, and the goggles for direction. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s rather neat being able to independently control the drone and look anywhere else at the same time. That’s the true advantage of the 360-degree camera.

The A1 can return and land on its recorded Home point either automatically or manually. Pressing the RTH button on the Grip Controller for more than two seconds instructs the drone to RTH and land. The landing gear automatically lowers. While you don’t need the optional Antigravity Landing Pad accessory, I found the foldable 16.5-inch PU laminate surface was a smart way to keep the bottom of the drone safe from dust and debris and ensure more consistent on-target touchdowns.

Under ideal conditions, the drone can communicate from up to 6.2 miles away. In more urban or industrial areas with strong interference, you’re looking at no more than 2.5 miles. Latency is relatively low at roughly 150 ms, although this varies based on environmental conditions.

The A1 can handle operating temperatures from 14°F – 104°F, and can resist winds up to Level 5, which is roughly 24mph (10.7 m/s). That’s impressive for a drone of this size. With that said, while its stabilization systems help maintain relatively steady footage even when conditions aren’t perfect, the A1 is not designed for severe wind gusts or aggressive stunt flying. Nevertheless, being here in New Jersey in the dead of winter in a snowy environment and windy conditions, I was impressed with the A1’s handling and its ability to warn me when conditions weren’t ideal.

Dazzling 360-degree daytime vistas

Credit: Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek

It’s really freeing being able to just fly and let the A1 automatically capture everything around it. Even though I didn’t care for the overall comfort of the headset, I appreciated its cinematic quality. It’s like I’m looking at an IMAX screen with a portrait orientation.

I was quite happy with the quality of the video and stills. Once the footage is captured, you can look anywhere in the 360-degree view at any point in the video timeline. While you can export the raw 360-degree video, the general expectation is that you output in the more standard 16:9 or 9:16 format, picking the best parts of what’s captured.

Whether editing yourself using Antigravity Studio, for Windows or macOS, or the plug-in for Adobe Premiere, if you’re willing to put in some effort, you can capture and manipulate footage with the A1 that you can’t easily get with any other consumer drone. Even using the Auto Edit feature in the Antigravity app produces some fun results. Whatever your approach, just know going into this that there’s a learning curve to video editing because you need to act like a director to choose the best shots.

What follows is an example of A1 drone footage shot on a windy day after snowfall in New Jersey. The AI feature of the Antigravity app was used to automatically edit the footage, which was output at 4K 30FPS in a 16:9 aspect ratio with Dolby Vision on.

However, while the A1 is a daylight superstar, it struggles when the sun goes down. As good as the camera system is, there are operational limitations. While the 1/1.28-inch sensors are a good size for a drone of its class, the 8K resolution is stretched across a large 360-degree sphere. When you crop in a standard 16:9 or 9:16 frame, you’re using a smaller patch of the sensor. This means that in low light in particular, you’re going to see a lot of grain and noise in the images.

In addition, the A1 doesn’t have a mechanical gimbal for camera stabilization. Instead, it relies on Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS). EIS requires a faster shutter speed to work effectively. In darker conditions, the camera has to drop the shutter speed to let in more light, which can introduce motion blur, jitter, and ghosting artifacts that you won’t be able to edit out.

Finally, the A1 relies heavily on its visual cameras for hovering stability and obstacle avoidance. In the dark, this obstacle avoidance will effectively be disabled. While the drone does have a customizable LED light on the front, it’s generally not considered bright enough to meet FAA requirements for a 3-statute-mile visible strobe for night operations. In short, if you want a nighttime drone, you’ll want to look elsewhere.

Should you buy the Antigravity A1 Drone?

If you want the best-performing drone, or the most versatile, keep looking. But if you want a cinematic drone, one that captures everything it can see, and don’t mind doing some editing work later on to get usable footage, the Antigravity A1 Drone is in a class of its own.

Although experienced pilots might feel restricted by the unique control system, for everyone else, it’s an easy way to experience the thrill of flight from a first-person perspective. If you don’t need pinpoint control, acrobatics, or night vision, and just want the most versatile daytime imaging system, the A1 is a great choice for those who don’t mind spending a little extra time editing.

8/10

Camera

1/1.28-inch, F2.2

App

Antigravity

Weight

249g (with Flight Battery)

Range

15 – 24 minutes (with Flight Battery)

The Antigravity A1 Drone is the ultimate 360-degree flying camera. Just don’t expect the ultimate drone experience for the price.