Drone Market Grows at CES 2015
Drones aren't hit products yet but sales are predicted to surpass $100 million in 2015.
The Consumer Electronics Association expects consumers to spend $103 million on drones this year.
Consumers are still waiting for regulation to let drones go mainstream, but the unmanned aerial vehicles now have their own section at the Consumer Electronics Show and sales of the flying robots are expected to spike in 2015.
People have been drawn to the machines, which can be used to take photos and video from midair angles, and businesses ranging from farms to oil companies see them as tools for tasks like low-cost security and disaster monitoring.
The devices are still evolving, but consumers are expected to spend an estimated $103 million on drones in 2015, up from $69 million in 2014 according to the Consumer Electronics Association, which runs the tech convention. At that pace the revenue for the global drone industry could exceed $1 billion within five years, the trade group predicted.
Only four drone companies were showcased at the convention in 2014, compared with 15 companies this year, including ZANO, Parrot, Qualcomm and Nixie, a drone camera that attaches to your wrist, can be tossed into the air to take a selfie before flying back to you.
Drone companies need to overcome high prices and impractical design problems to make the machines more appealing to mainstream consumers, says Brain Blau, a research director at Gartner, an information technology research firm. Blau owns an unmanned aerial vehicle but says the least expensive drones still cost about $400, and that many of the devices on display at the CES are not yet on sale because the companies are still perfecting their designs.
“There are core problems designers have to solve first before they get to consumer functionality,” Blau says.
Intel CEO Bryan Krzanich on Tuesday showed off one such engineering solution: software that helps drones "see" and avoid collisions.
The possibility of drones colliding with low-flying planes or nearby humans is one reason the Federal Aviation Administration has warned they are going to miss a 2015 deadline set by Congress to legalize the use of unmanned aircraft systems in U.S. skies.
The FAA wants to take more time to craft rules to ensure safe drone use and protect privacy in areas the camera drones fly near, said Jim Williams, the manager of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Office during a discussion on Thursday at the convention. The agency has encouraged the new tech sector during its rulemaking by granting exceptions for interested companies that pledge to meet safety guidelines.
“We are now up to 15 permissions granted,” Williams said. “We are also in the process of streamlining in and accelerating that effort, because we now have over 200 applications for those permissions."
Exemptions granted to companies including film producers state that the drones can’t fly higher than 400 feet in a controlled area, the operators must be licensed pilots, the devices have to be inspected and fly within line of sight of the operator and flights in different areas need to be approved by the FAA.
The FAA set up a booth at the convention this year to discuss its new effort to educate businesses and drone users about the safe – and legal – way to operate the machines. It’s difficult for the government to enforce all drone use, and the task will get more difficult as drones reach the market, said Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics during the same panel discussion.
“As the technology gets more sophisticated, the users get less sophisticated,” Anderson said.
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