Soooo Tiny

Byscott

jetjat nano cThe MOTA JETJAT Nano-C is a palm sized unit with most of what you would expect to find on larger (and more expensive) drones. It’s a typical configuration 4-rotor device with a camera and battery built in.

Here’s what MOTA has to say about the Nano-C
“The world’s smallest and lightest camera drone is merely a pint-sized 32 x 32 x 22 mm. Travel sized and 1/10 the size of an actual camera, the Nano-C delivers aerial camera capabilities so you can get those hard-to-capture shots. Video recording is made simple with an easily accessible SD-Card but the fun doesn’t stop there! Agile and nimble, the Nano-C can perform flips and stunts only daredevils dare to attempt. For a littledrone that merely weighs .6 oz, the Nano-C epitomizes stable flight, video capturing and coins the term ‘pocket drone’. Tiny fun for the little ones, agile and powerful for hobbyists, and video capabilities for growing professionals; fly indoors and out without worry.”

So, what’s special?

This is a tiny unit that you can launch from the palm of your hand – or anywhere really. It comes with a pint-sized 4-channel controller that has the normal controls including turning on/off the camera. I’m still an uninitiated flier so pretty much all drones are tough to fly. But the Nano-C responds easily to movements on the controller.

The camera decidedly not HD, coming in at .3 megapixels. But it does take both stills and video footage. Since there is no FPV you need to be aware of where the camera is facing if you want to record anything more than random shots. Of course the colored LEDs let you know the direction the camera is pointing.

My results

I was able to easily charge the unit from a USB port and put batteries in the remote. Start up is dead simple- simply turn on the Nano-C then turn on the remote and toggle the left controller. The blades spin up quickly and the unit rises.

Despite my novice status I was able to control the Nano-C moderately well and get it to hover, turn, glide around. The unit has 3 levels of performance, of which I’ve only ventured to the ‘normal’ setting. The other 2 levels are described as delivering higher performance which I assume means faster control from the remote and requiring a much higher skill level than I possess.

One of the popular features of drones is the ‘flip’ and the Nano-C can do flips in 4 directions: forward, backward, left, and right. Executing the flip is simple enough and is done by a series of pushes on the control levers. My first attempt ended as I expected – with a crash.

Luckily the light weight of the Nano-C means it’s less likely to actually break. But the rotor blades are small and somewhat sensitive. Fortunately the unit comes with an extra set of 4 blades. I’m sure I’ll need to use them, but haven’t broken or lost any yet.

And what do I wish it had?

The unit comes out of the box with some stability control but as I started to use it the most important function I wished for is some built in location stability that would help me to – well, to keep from crashing or drifting off course and slamming into random objects. Most important would be an altitude control that would allow me to set an altitude and concentrate more on where I want the unit to go and where to direct it.

The other thing to want is headless control. Headless means that the joystick controls move the drone in the direction the joystick is facing rather than in relationship to the front of the drone. I’m just not adept enough to be able to translate a left push on the stick to a forward movement of the drone. Maybe that comes with experience (It must because plenty of drone pilots are able to operate this way) but I’m not there yet. And since the purpose of this site it to address those of us who are more interested in taking photos and videos than in becoming expert pilots, this is an important issue.

My impressions

The MOTA JETJAT Nano-C is a fun toy, especially for the price. Use it to learn the basics of drone piloting with a unit that you’re unlikely to destroy in the first 10 minutes of flight (partly because the battery life is about 7 minutes). This is a good way to get to know how these things work and (as I did) to understand what you really are looking for before you spring several hundred dollars on a more capable unit that still doesn’t have what you want.

Basics

Price: $50
Remote included: Yes
Camera: Yes / 720i, still and video
Capture: to micro SD card
FPV: No
Source: https://www.mota.com/jetjat-nano-c/

ratingsExuberation publishes ratings of quadcopters and other drone type equipment based on several factors, the most important in our consideration have to do with suitability for advanced amateur photography projects. We use a 5 point scale to rate our impression of each factor’s suitability and derive a composite rating based on an average of all the individual ratings. All evaluations and ratings are subjective and based only on our personal experiences. Your experience may be different from ours, but we do our best to provide helpful information and we welcome your comments.

 

  

Items and specs Yes/No/spec Value
     
Camera  yes  2
Image quality 721i 
Video quality very low 
Optical zoom no 
Built in yes 
Add-on (GoPro?) no 
Gimbal no   0
2 axis
3 axis
FPV no   0
External display
VR/headmount
Controller  3
Provided with unit yes 
FPV screen included  n/a
FPV screen spec n/a 
GPS no   0
On unit n/a 
On controller n/a 
Automated functions  0
Takeoff no 
Landing no 
Return to home no 
-line of sight n/a 
– GPS n/a 
Low battery return no 
Lost connection return no 
Route planning no   0
App based
Learn mode
Desktop with push
Avoidance no   0
Auto obstacle avoidance
Price of unit with camera $50   4
Overall value  3
Comments – is this suitable?  Suitable for training purposes The JetJat Nano is fun and an easy (and low cost) way to learn to fly a quadcopter. But the image quality is unacceptable for serious photographic work. In addition the unit has no controls to stabilize flight making it very difficult to achieve good image results.