Ali and Frazier. Rome and Carthage. England and everyone. History's greatest rivalries. But if you're at all informed about the cameras market, you'll know there's another epic rivalry; one that's been bubbling away for a while now, and just got hotter than ever. I'm talking of course about DJI versus Insta360.
With GoPro becoming ever more irrelevant, its two Chinese competitors, DJI and Insta360, have been duking it out to make some of the best action cameras on the market. But while the battle is ongoing and the trenches dug in that arena, each brand has had its own side hustle going on, dominating other areas.
DJI, as you probably know, is the market leader in aerial videography, producing some of the best drones around, from consumer to professional tier. Insta360 has long been the market leader in innovative 360-degree camera tech, making the best 360 cameras you can buy. And never the twain have met. Until now.
A totally new drone brand, Antigravity, just launched. It's powered by Insta360 and will utilize the brand's 360-degree camera tech. Insta360 just opened up a new front in the war, and right now, it looks like DJI could be on the back foot.
What is Antigravity?
The new drone brand is called Antigravity — so named because of, y'know, the whole flight thing. But also because gravity is a metaphor for limitations and being held down, according to BC Nie, Head of Marketing at the new company. And Antigravity is, well, anti that.
Antigravity describes itself as being "incubated by Insta360 in collaboration with third parties" in its opening press statement. But make no mistake, the brand is intertwined with Insta360. I've covered two Antigravity pre-launch press events now and almost all the staff are on secondment from Insta360. Importantly, as I'll cover below, it seems as though all the imaging tech is, too.
Insta360 has started to feel slightly limited by its own name, which has become synonymous with 360-cams and quirky action cameras. It wants a clean slate when entering a new market. Still, branching out from such a well-established brand as Insta360 is risky, especially in a new market.
I'd wager that spinning off a new brand is a way for Insta360 to hedge its bets, business-wise — the drones market will be a supremely tough one in which to make headway, primarily due the supremacy of DJI. If it all goes to heck, Insta360 can keep its core business at a distance. It would rather accept slower headway under a new name than risk reputational damage to the mothership.
BC Nie (who I've met twice now — nice chap!) lays out Antigravity's mission statement: "Today, most drones are tools. With Antigravity, we're aiming higher. While others compete on specs, we've flipped the script, reimagining what a drone should be able to do. The result is something that empowers real emotion and enables experiences like freedom, creativity, and discovery for everyone."
Flipped the script? Reimagining what a drone should do? What does all that actually mean?
360-degree drones
360-degree drones — that's what it means. What this all essentially boils down to is putting Insta360's 360-degree camera tech, as seen in the fabulous Insta360 X5, into a flying thingy.
"At the heart of Antigravity's design philosophy is the concept of 360 immersive flight," says the brand's press release. It will be "creating an entirely new category — combining the world’s first 360 drone with true immersive capture. All packed into a sub-249g form factor, with 8K resolution to match."
What that tells us is that Antigravity will be making an entry-level drone (that at 249g is flyable without a license in the U.S. and U.K.), which features the brand's 8K 360-degree imaging tech — probably the same sensors and stitching software as the X5. And that's very cool.
Put simply, 360-degree cameras film everything around them, instead of just a fixed field of view. This makes filming professional-looking content easier because you can shoot first, frame later.
This means you don't have to place or point a camera exactly where you want to shoot — you don't even have to decide what you want to shoot. You film everything around the camera and decide later when you reframe in post. It also gives you access to fun 360 effects, like the 'Tiny Planet' footage below.
And indeed, according to the new brand: "Ease of use is the starting point for all Antigravity products. Users don't need experience. They don't need a checklist — the drones are operated intuitively. While the rest of the industry is designing products for experts, Antigravity is building drones for everyone; beginners, experts, and everyone in between."
In an action camera context, 360 recording removes the need for several cameras to capture different angles. In drones — which all currently use single-lens cameras either fixed in position or on a gimbal — a 360 camera will allow even beginners to track virtually anything from the air with much greater ease than on a single-lens drone.
If you want to follow a fast-moving subject, simply fly near it and sort out your angles later on, rather than having to simultaneously fly the drone and operate a gimbal to keep the camera focused on the subject.
The use of "immersive capture" in Antigravity's press statement is also poignant: "capture" suggests immersion at the time of shooting, implying the brand is going to compete with FPV-capable drones like the DJI Neo and the DJI Avata 2, which pair with the DJI Goggles N3.
Should DJI be worried?
When we first met, BC Nie span me a line about how Antigravity isn't aiming to compete with DJI, but I don't buy it. DJI is the biggest name in drones — to enter that market is to compete with DJI by default.
Regardless, this is big news for DJI, which doesn't have a 360-degree drone right now. In fact, DJI doesn't even have a 360-degree camera yet, although rumours are abound regarding an impending 360 cam from the manufacturer to compete with the Insta360 X4 and X5. But even if DJI did have a 360-degree camera, Insta360's tech is years ahead, both in terms of technological development and market recognition.
This ostensibly all puts DJI on the back foot, at least for the time being. That's not to say DJI should be overly worried, as its drones are fantastic, well-established and constantly being developed. I'd put money on the idea it has its own 360 drone in the works, but whether that's true and how far away it is from launch are both anyone's guess.
And anyway, until we see an actual drone from Antigravity and how it's priced, everything is still up in the air (pun very much intended).
All that said, in wartime language, DJI definitely just lost the initiative. 360-degree cameras represent a major shift in how drones can work, how easy they will be to operate, and how immersive the experience is when using them. This could all give Insta360 a serious advantage in a market that, up to now, DJI has dominated.
No products have yet been confirmed by Antigravity. But rest assured, here at Tom's Guide we're in close contact with the new brand and will be the first to let you know about (and test) any new drone. Exciting times for the drone lovers out there!
Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
More from Tom's Guide
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
