This $5,000 SkyQuad Drone Scam Costs $12 - Krazy Ken’s Tech Talk

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- This scam companyclaims this piece of crapis an extremely high-tech $5,000 drone.All right, let's see how true that is.Sponsored by Linode.(upbeat techno music)Hey, everyone, how are you all doing?If you're new here, welcome.My name is Krazy Ken,and I didn't just buy oneof these scam products,I bought two.Yeah, I don't have the otherone here with me right now,but there's a good reason for that.I'll explain later.So I received many, many requeststo look into this weird drone productthat's been popping up allover the internet lately.Keep the submissions comin'you guys are great.So, let's investigate this $5,000 drone,and like usual,we'll start with the video ads.The ad starts off with a computertext-to-speech voiceover,which lasts throughout the whole ad.It starts off by sayingthis powerful $99 droneis now available in the US.And the narrator claimsit's an extremely high-tech $5,000 dronewhile pointing to it multiple times.And he claims it wasdeveloped by Navy Sealsso they could do stealth missions,and it uses some of the mostadvanced military technologyin the world.And with this tech, youcan take crystal clearand steady video footage.But, oh no, the drone wasunavailable to the publicbecause only one company owned the patent.But on December 15th,2021, the patent expired.Yes, now, new companiescould enter the marketand start selling thedrones to the public.'Tis the American dream.But most companies arestill charging $5,000?But thankfully, two former Navy Sealsstarted their own company,and they're producing these dronesat an affordable price.And they call it SkyQuad.And it has all of theseepic features such as GPS,a Follow Me feature,which automatically tracksyour movement while filming,and collision detection.And they claim it's the toughestquadcopter ever produced.So what are you waiting for?It's only 198 bucks,and if you click the button below,you'll get a one-time only 50% discount,so you can get it for $99.If you know me,you know I'm probably just waitingto unleash hell on this adbecause there's so manythings wrong with it.But don't touch that dial,there's a second one.This ad claims that this drone engineer,wait a minute, (laughs)wait, wait a minute.Did they just screenrecord another ad directlyoff of YouTube and reupload that?Yeah, that's exactly what they did.You can see the screen recording controlsbaked into the video, why?Anyway, the ad uses anothertext-to-speech voiceover,and it claims this drone engineerbuilt a revolutionarydrone at a low price.And he destroyed the billiondollar drone industry.The engineer, Thomas Rowell,used to work for awell-known drone company,but after the company got merged,there were big budget cutsand they wanted to outsourceeverything to China.So Thomas left the companyand took matters into his own hands.He raised $3 million from investorsso he could bring his droneproduct to the masses,and he called it QuadAir.But, oh no, more problems.The QuadAir sold out in 15 minutes.I guess I can't get one, episode over.Oh wait, the factory made more,whoo, crisis averted.And thankfully, the advertisers managedto get their hands on one.Wait, what do you mean youmanaged to get your hands on one?Was it that difficult to do that?I mean, you're sellingthis product, right?Don't you have an inventory?So did you catch everythingwrong with these two ads?It's kind of like a game, right?Like \"CinemaSins\" or something.It's fun.So let's break these things downand see what's wrong,because there's a lot of things wrong.I'll start with the elephant in the room,and I'm sure many droneenthusiasts notice this.This thing looks nearlyidentical to a DJI Mavic.They even copied the yellow stripes.If a generic product isgoing through extra lengthsto pretty much identicallycopy a name-brand product,that's a big no-no.Usually, that means the productis just gonna be really cheapand it's probably just a scam.They're just making itlook this way to trick ya.Another problem is,any time a product has a backstoryinvolving unnamed charactersor characters with fake names,that's also a red flag.In this case, I'm referringto the two former Navy Seals.Also, this ad juststraight up steals footagefrom other videos.This crash scene, for example,which my viewers pointed out,is stolen from one of WetalkUAV's videos.And the drone in that videowasn't even a SkyQuad drone,it was a DJI Mavic Mini.So in the scene,the advertisers are not evenshowing the real product.And that's just the beginning.There's inconsistent drone footagethroughout this whole ad,showing a whole bunchof different products.For example, in the factory scene,you can see a DJI logoon the worker's uniform,and you can see the Mavic2 logo on the drone.Also, the 3D rendering of the SkyQuaddoesn't even show the brand name.It just says Quadcopter Drone.And in the second half of the ad,we see multiple shots of a productthat looks identical to the SkyQuad drone,but the brand is Emotion Drone, what?More inconsistenciesequals more red flags.So that's the SkyQuad ad.Now, time for QuadAir.This ad tells a similarbackstory to the Navy Seal story,except it talks about anengineer named Thomas Rowell.And if you search that name,you won't find any linkbetween Thomas Rowelland an R&D position at any drone company.But you will find a websitefor the Shadow X Drone.An identical looking productwith yet another brand name.Oh my goodness, why are thereso many identical productsthat have different brand names?Oh, you can just get 'em on AliExpress.That's what everyone's doing.Okay, I got it.How much are these worth?And that explains everything now.Yeah, congratulations.Your $5,000 drone whichyou paid 99 bucks for,is just $12!Stonks!Also, in this ad,we see more DJI branding,which doesn't align withthe alleged QuadAir brand.This ad also makes claimsabout an HD camera.So, yeah, we'll test thatlater and see how true that is.In addition, the adtalks about how the dronestabilizes your flight automatically,and it uses clever programmingto anticipate your flight behavior.Yeah, for $12, I highly doubt that.So before we test the product itself,let's take a look at their web presence,because this is where I found somethingthat's really truly asinine.The website doesn't look too bad.It actually looks pleasing andprofessionally put together,which makes the scam easier to hide.And the website claims theirdrone is six times cheaperthan the average drone,which yeah, is probably true.But when you cheap out,you're gonna get what you pay for.The features claim a 1080p camera,altitude holding, video recording,and longer battery life.And there's a 50% discountbutton with a warning,only 43 drones left in stock.I ordered these things two months agoand the discount is still active,and there's still 43 drones left in stock.Do the math on that one.And like the ads,the website touts theautomatic stabilizationfor the drone camera.We've seen the stabilizationfeature come up several times,so here's what they'retalking about specifically.Camera lenses and sensorscan move very quickly,but subtly, to hide unwanted shakesand vibrations in footage.And this is useful for flying,because you will encounter vibrationsfrom the propellers and wind.Oh look, customer reviews.I'm sure these are legit too.Dale B. says, the 1080 P is really cool.That's great, Dale, I'm soglad you like the 1080p.So here's where things get really fishy.Remember, there's twoidentical brands here,SkyQuad and QuadAir.Take a look at the QuadAir website.Looks familiar, doesn't it?Yeah, the QuadAir site isliterally just a copy-pasteof everything from the SkyQuad website,and it's probably hosted and maintainedby the same people trying to make sales.Every image and piece oftext is an exact copy,except the web designersdid a find and replacefor the word SkyQuad andswapped it with QuadAir,even in the customer reviews,which just further proves they're fake.Wait, SkyQuad is number one.No wait, Quad Air is number one too?These guys are just next level.Not only do they directlycopy the competition,but they directly copy themselves.That's like S tier man.Like, how do you even get those skills?So with all of these fakeclaims on the websiteand in the video ads,you'd think I'd be smart enoughnot to buy one of these things, right?And you're correct.I didn't buy one, I bought two.And the other one is not here.It's actually with my friend, Dave,who is an FPV drone pilot.And he's gonna help metest this piece of crap.So what was the buying experience like?Let's have a look.Be cautious of the checkout pagebecause it it automaticallyselects two dronesinstead of one.Those sly dogs trying to make more money.Well, that actually works out okay for me'cause I needed two anyway.However, the checkout processwas interrupted by mycard's fraud detection.Gee, I wonder why.I overrode that and tried again.Oh look, a post transaction upsell.Oh, and another, and another, and another,and another, holy crap!Finally, the purchase processwas complete (phone ding).Oop, sorry, I thought Iturned on the silent switch.Why do I keep doing that?Wait a minute.How was your shopping experience?Answer our survey andreceive a Yeti Tundra.I'm gonna tap on this and see what it is.Oh, cool, I've been selectedto get an exclusive reward.Yeah, guys, this is all BS.Oh no, guys, while I was talking to you,the countdown timer wasrunning this whole time.The offer is gonna expire in 3, 2, 1.(duck quacks)Oh, nevermind.Also, my favorite part of this surveyis how they make it looklike a Walmart page.They're using visuals of familiar brandsto make the page look warm and safe,but it's all a trick.If you look closely,you'll see that it's not even the officialWalmart Spark logo.The sparklets, that's the official nameof those shapes, by the way,are misaligned and the corners are hard.The sparklets in the officialWalmart logo are rounded.I know this stuff can be hard to spot,but if you can train youreye to identify a fake logo,that's a great way to determinethat a website you're onor an email you're in is fraudulent.All right, let's take alook at the product itself,starting with the box.There's that Quadcopter Drone branding.No mention of SkyQuad anywhere.Good start.Drone 001, this is the firstSkyQuad drone ever made?Wow, I feel pretty special.Record HD video with 120 degree vision.Yeah, again, this is a$12 product on AliExpress,so the components inside thisthing are probably dirt cheap.Which means the camera sensoris very cheap and very small.The possibility of HD isvery likely out the window,but a smaller camera sensor sizemeans there's gonna bea higher crop factor,which means we're notgonna get that very nicewide 120 degree vision.Not the three sad onions,that one's for you, Ashens.Made in China, there's a surprise.Inside the box are the drone itself,the remote, someaccessories, and the manual.First impressions of the drone were,yeah this thing feels really cheap.It has that nice China plastic smell.It just feels really thin,and squishy, and flimsy, and hollow,and it basically weighs nothing.But the light weightisn't always a bad thing.For starters, if you're gonnaaccidentally crash this thing,less mass here meansthere could be less damageto the drone and to other objects.So that's good.But there's another reasonwhy it's light weight is good.You have to be undera certain weight limitso you don't have to registerthe drone with the FAA.In the US, according to FAA regulations,drones must be 0.55 pounds-250 grams-or less.Once you cross that threshold,you must register your drone with the FAA,and a whole bunch of otherregulations come into play.SkyQuad weighs 86 grams,so it's well within the limit.In fact, the remote weighsmore than the drone itself.And upon looking at this thing,I just can't help but think,what was possibly goingthrough the designer's heads.Because they sat downand intentionally took timeto copy the Mavic design.And the only reason they would do thatis to manipulate and trick peopleinto buying their knockoff crap.And that is just kinda,well, let's just say it's a wordthat I'm probably not allowed to say here.The manual is also a little bit confusing.Thankfully it has pictures,but I'm guessing the upbutton makes it take offand the down button makes it go down.So I think they're,oh no, you don't.No, aw, turn off!You can't fly underground,that's probably an airspace violation.We're 10 stories underground,so that's Class Z airspace.Yeah, you can't fly there.Okay, so flying this thing indoorsis probably not the greatest idea.There is a lot of drift.So let me call up my drone pilot friendand we'll go fly this thingoutside where it's a little bit safer.(phone rings)Hey, Dave, you got your drones ready?- Absolutely, we're gonnacompare the SkyQuad droneagainst my 2015 DJIPhantom 3 Professional,as well as some of my FPV drones.And yes, the SkyQuad isnewer than the Phantom 3,and it claims to be based on$5,000 military technology.But does that make itautomatically better?Probably not, but we shall see.- All right, beam me up, Scotty.(warp sound)- Man, I wish I had a teleporter.Vrooooooom(upbeat rock music)- Wow, so now thatwe know what a real droneis capable of,let's dive into this wannabe.For starters, the drift isreally bad on this drone.It's very hard to control.And there was also somelag with the remotewhich made the drone evenmore difficult to maneuver.But thankfully, it's lightweightand makes it durable against crashes,so, hey, we can continuehaving fun with it.With the WiFi on,we got about eight minutes of battery lifeon the 600 milliampere battery,but the drone does notwarn you when the batteryis getting low.Usually, a drone would beepor issue some sort of alertthat the battery's running low,but this drone did not appear to do that.Oh no, it did?Oh, (beep).- Yup.- Dave's Phantom 3 Pro, on the other hand,was much more easy to control,despite being older than the SkyQuadand not being built with alleged$5,000 military technology.Now we saw lots of claimsabout the amazing camerainside of the SkyQuad,so how well did that work out?Pretty crappy.This is the quality you can expect.Enjoy this.There's no onboard recording,there's no SSD, there'sno SD card slot, nothing.It actually streams thevideo feed to your phonewith an app called WiFi Cam,which could cause issuesand quality problemsbecause you're not recording locally,you're streaming all ofthe data to another device.And to no surprise, thequality is atrocious.The website and boxadvertised HD and 1080p,but it's way worse than that.Probably barely 480p.But the scammers tried to be sneaky.Their camera systemencodes the video at 1440p,so it looks like you're gettinga higher resolution clip.But in reality,the quality is barely standard definition.And there's lots of compression artifacts.Unlike what the ad say,there is no built-in stabilization.The footage is shakyand the rolling shutter is extremely high.So you see a lot of jiggly jello-nesswith any type of fast movement.The Phantom 3 Pro,on the other hand,could shoot much better video quality,and it actually has stabilization, and 4K.And like you saw earlier,the angle of view is very narrow.It is nowhere near theclaim of 120 degrees.And yeah, that results invery awkward looking video'cause everything's really zoomed in.But also, if you're piloting the droneand you're using your phone as a screento see what you're lookingat from a distance,well, that's potentially dangerousand kind of challengingbecause you really can't seewhere you're flying very easily'cause everything's zoomed in.It's kinda like havingno peripheral vision.And best of all,you cannot tilt the camera remotelylike you can on a normal drone.You have to physically move the camerawith your finger and set it in placebefore you take off.5,000 bucks, ladies and gentlemen.This is what this gets. (laughs)And that Follow Me feature,nope, doesn't exist.There's no GPS either.This is probably the worst scam productI've ever investigated.You know, things kind offall on a spectrum, right?Like the Muama Ryoko.That product actually worked kind of okay,but the advertising was full of BS.But then you have someslightly better productslike the Xtra-PC.The product's, overall, wasn't that great,but at least the advertisement was true.It wasn't lying about anything.And then you get crap like this,where not only are the adsfull of false advertising,but the product itself also sucks.There are no redeeming qualitiesabout SkyQuad or QuadAir.Don't waste your time with them.But something that isactually worth your timeare the Linux cloud computingsolutions from Linode.And believe me, they are waymore stable than this drone.If you have an application or websitethat you need to scale and deploy,Linode has the infrastructure,and the 24/7 support you need.Linode offers out of box appsfor game servers like TF2,CS:GO, and even Minecraft.You can run your own virtualprivate network with OpenVPN,build an online applicationwith Joomla's content management system,or build a video streaming sitewith a multitude of app choices.There's so much you can dowith Linode's affordableLinux virtual machines.And to boot,they offer award-winning24/7 technical support.To put it simply,if it runs on Linux, it runs on Linode.Visit linode.com/computerclan,and click one of the signup buttons,and we'll give you a 60-day $100 creditjust for watching this episode.And when you do that,you're also supporting the Computer Clan,so thank you very much.Thanks for recommending this drone to me.It was really fun to waste my money on it.(cries)But for real, I love doing this stuff.And, you know, most of theideas I get for episodescome from viewer submissions.I just can't thank youenough for all of that.Keep it coming,I greatly appreciate it.And we'll see what happens next time.Catch the crazy and pass it on.(upbeat techno music)Fly away, Stanley, be free!(plastic crashing)\n"