Another Solo Gimbal Update: Now Shipping!

Hi everyone—here’s a big (and good!) status update on the Solo Gimbal.

The gimbal production pilot is finished and mass production has begun! This means units will be leaving the factory this week. A software update will be timed to go out soon with a variety of updates, and more software updates will follow quickly on the heels of gimbals getting into customers’ hands. In all likelihood these first customers will have gimbals in hand the week of 8/24. (Why can’t we predict this in-hand date exactly? Gimbals are released on a rolling basis, and as they leave the kitting facility in China they enter various modes of transport, including UPS, FedEx, etc., that all have variability in their delivery dates. Customers who have pre-ordered units from both 3DR and our partners should start seeing them next week, but it will take a couple of weeks to get to everyone. Retail shelves will likely see stock in a few weeks, mid-September or so.)

Here’s some sample video from the latest software build (there will be one more build before gimbals arrive with customers early next week). This is the baseline—it’s only going to get better from here!

Of course, there is much more to the story than having gimbals shipping out of the factory.

Our software team is cranking and there’s a lot of performance we have gained recently. This also means that we’ll continue to release updates that improve performance over time.

Our life test data continues to look strong. That means the gimbals should last a long, long time.

User testing continues to go well. Regular people are able to set up the gimbal and get it flying quickly and easily.

Our customer support team is trained up and ready. The how-to videos are shot and ready to go into the Flight School portion of the app. We have refreshed the app to incorporate the gimbal and improve overall usability. The app UI has been made more elegant; Solo will automatically turn itself off if it has a wonky landing or crash (which should happen rarely!)—stay tuned for a number of updates.

We’re excited for everyone who has preordered to get their hands on their gimbal in the coming weeks! We deeply appreciate your patience throughout continued development, and we can’t wait to see the amazing videos you create.

For those of you who have preordered in the initial months with directly with us, Vu, who heads customer support at 3DR, will be sending out a reauthorization email with some final instructions. It’s important you follow them; we won’t be able to ship your gimbal without it! Please be on the look out for it.

Thanks, and happy flying and filming!

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