Sally French writes about the Tello drone:

Wish you could be the owner of a DJI drone, but not ready to fork over more than $100?

Ryze Technology, a Shenzhen-based tech company that launched in 2017,  announced its first-ever drone a year later. The drone is Tello, a $99 kid-friendly drone that combines DJI flight technology and an Intel processor to create a budget camera drone that also can be used to teach newbies the basics of programming.

The Tello drone weighs just 80 grams, can fly for 13 minutes and shoot 5 megapixel photos. Compare this to DJI’s Spark which weighs 300 grams, can fly for 16 minutes and shoots 12 megapixel photos. Tello uses an Intel Movidius Myriad 2 VPU, which handles object recognition in DJI drones. The drone can respond to hand gestures, like DJI’s Spark and Mavic Air units. It can land on your hand and take off by being tossed in the air.

Tello can be programmed in Scratch and also with DroneBlocks, an easy to use, open source, block based language. You can program the drone to fly certain directions or perform actions based on code.

The Tello can also be controlled via a phone or a GameVice controller. Given the small weight, it’s best used indoors as a stiff wind could blow it away outdoors. Find Tello at https://store.dji.com/product/tello.

Do you have a Tello? Post your experiences in the comments!