Holy Stone HS175 Drone with Camera for Adults 2K UHD, GPS Auto Return, 5GHz FPV RC Quadcopter Follow Me, Waypoints, Circle Fly, Optical Flow, Headless Mode, 2 Batteries for 40 Min and Carrying Case

I purchased the Holy Stone 175 as my first drone so I cannot give you any direct comparisons to other drones. I have been working in technology for over 30 years so I can tell you something about the drone itself. The packaging is excellent. Everything is individually wrapped and in its designated location in the included carrying case. The case itself is light and flexible but sturdy enough to protect the drone which is well padded inside the case. Dual batteries, rotor guards, extra blades - everything you need to get started is included. The drone itself is very light but very solid. Nothing is loose or flimsy, it is all rock solid. Folding/unfolding the arms you don't feel like something is going to snap off. The battery clicks in securely. The SD card slot is right there for easy access. Overall the design and build is excellent. The phone software is easy to download and the instructions walk you through the calibration and setup process. This is not a turn it on and fly device so you will need to go through all steps in the process. I have no way to know if this is more or less complex than other drones but, while not intuitive, it is all spelled out and easy enough to follow. My initial shakedown cruise was great. Everything worked exactly as advertised. I did have an issue on the second flight: the drone just took off and started going in a straight line despite everything I tried to bring it back. Spent several hours searching for it but could not. I reached out to Holy Stone to see if they could cut me a deal on replacing the drone and they are sending me a replacement free of charge. Better than I could have hoped for. That is why I can whole heartedly give this drone 5 stars. Any company that stands behind their product like that deserves all the credit I can give it. When I am ready for a more advanced drone, my first choice will be Holy Stone.

I have actually bought 3 drones from holy stone the HV5 series and the HV1 series. The first HV5 was take by the wind and was eaten by the desert. It flew to well and my mistake was when practicing tie a string to it until you get use to it and do not fly in high winds. At the end of the day..my mistake, my loss. So I order another one and it came on-time and all was good until I put the battery in and started it only three propellers spin and the left rear propeller did not work, so I will be returning it to holy stone and / or DeeRc for repair or replacement. I have not tested HV1 yet and almost scared to do so, but that is another story for another day. Easy to learn? Depends on the individual For beginners? Not recommended, but grey area? practice in a large wide open space Remote control? Both of them had a hard time responding to control after getting a few feet away would not return home and if landed would not shut down or turn off propellers when sending signal from remote, but that could have been due to the different signals in the area, I have had problems with other remotes and even Bluetooth and wi-fi signals out here, so keep it close. Flies well in winds 5-10 Mph, but I live in the desert, surrounded by mountains and it can be a challenge for birds to fly around here winds can get in upwards of 40 mph, It is a great little drone but do not recommend flying in high wind areas. Customer Service was excellent after one of the propellers stopped working and got me another one out right away after I sent it back. Would I buy from them again? Yes. Yes I would.

Update: twice with customer support. I took video of the drone not working, they will send a replacement and I get to keep my original one for spare parts. the 4 rating is for customer service. the drone is not good in wind, and phone video is useless. but its a great one to start on.. put it in airplane mode when pairing !!!!! video is with camera angle stuck. 4th day flying, maybe 1.5 hours on drone, drone operator (not pilot) for 6 days. Drone weather app said NOT GOOD TO FLY, Way too much wind.. it was tough, but it works. (Original 1 star rating): ...Okay so great starter drone and price for beginners. That's the good news. Now for all the bad. instructions in book, and app, are horrible. 90% of my time was spent wondering why it only connected to my phone 1 out of 50 tries. When it did connect it flew ok for a lightweight drone. Occasionally the controls would not respond, and occasionally it would not return to home untill the 3rd or 4th try. This is my 3rd day flying, tried using the camera tilt... nothing through the app or the controller. Sending it back. And the price dropped $20 2 days after I bought it! Also the rubber feet fall out a lot ! Not glued in.

I bought this drone back in March 2021, and didn't get a chance to use it until this month (May 2021). The first time I used it, last week on May 5th, I charged the batteries up, followed the calibration instructions, and it worked like a champ. I was very impressed with the picture and video quality, and the features of the drone. Then yesterday, May 10th, I went to use it for the second time. Fully charged batteries, did the calibration steps, and we had liftoff. All was good for about the first 2 minutes. I brought it up to about 15 feet high, and then it started to fly north away from me by itself, and I couldn't get it to return back, it stopped responding to the controller. I immediately pushed the Return To Home button, nothing. Waiting a few seconds, tried pushing the auto-land button, nothing. I started chasing it down, it picked up speed and continued to fly away. I was watching it's live video stream to my phone for about another 2 minutes until it was out of range and disconnected. I searched all around for a good half-mile in all directions, never found it. My best guess is it flew for it's 15 minutes of battery and crashed somewhere, but nowhere to be found. I've gone through the reviews now, and see this has happened to others. I high suggest staying away from this drone, do not buy. All that money for this drone, and it flew away.

I got this drone just to fiddle around with and maybe take some aerial photos. I have no drone experience and am truly a beginner. This drone was well packaged and fairly easy to learn how to use. There are calibration modes for the GPS and gyro to ensure accuracy that I think really help while flying. The drone pairs with your phone and mirrors the camera feed to your phone screen. The remote control holds a cell phone, but the holder was just a hair small to hold my Note 9 in its case. It fit without the case though. The drone does not handle wind particularly well, although I would not expect a drone of this size to do so. The pairing worked very well and I flew the drone for about 35 minutes before the batteries needed recharged. Up to 110 feet the pairing worked well and I was able to take photographs (see attached) that I thought were high quality for the price of the drone. The drone was very easy to fly and responded quickly to remote commands. I particularly like the buttons that allow to switch between forward facing and downward facing camera positions. Overall I would recommend this drone to any beginner or intermediate users. Fun to operate and easy to learn.

I bought this drone as a beginner drone. I wanted something that was affordable and would allow me to learn how to fly before stepping into a "big-boy drone." As of this time I am studying to get my Commercial Drone Pilot License. I'm writing this as a beginner, wet behind the ears, n00b. First off, the drone itself, lighter than expected, but good build and looked very nice. When I unwrapped the controller I was a little disappointed. It looked and felt like a toy. But when looking at some other drone RC controllers, it seems many in the cheap to $300 range look like that. Maybe I'm just being picky, but, my Xbox controller feels more pro than this thing does. I'm sure some of the decisions on this is to save some cash, but my suggestion would be to invest in uppin' the build quality of the controller. The Drone itself. Again, being a n00b, I don't have much to reference off of here. It looks nice enough. Seems well built all in all. Little janky, but overall, looked nice. Setup. Okay. Like others here, let me state right now, their manual is a waste of trees. I ended up doing a search on YouTube and found a great video that shows you how to do everything from it all being off to turning it on in the right order to actually connecting the drone and RC Controller and that initial flight. First Flight Well, as of this writing, I'm awaiting an email from Holy Stone on whether they are going to replace the drone or now. I went out to a park on the outskirts of town, with a nice big field and surrounded by trees. The wind was very light. The sun was bright! I thought, what a day to jump into flying a drone. Went through the setup again. I saved the video to my iPad and took it along so I could watch it again and ensure I did everything correct. Got it all ready. GPS was connected, we were good to take off into the wild blue yonder... Yeah, take off into the wild blue yonder it did. Due to the grass, I had to hold the drone from the bottom and start it up. The liftoff/land button didn't work, but, whatever. I pushed up on the left stick, feeling he drone tug at my arm and I let go of the drone... This was awesome! I was so excited staring at my little gray quadcopter floating there in the air, jests of air pushing down at me as it's tiny rotors beat the warm air. -- This is where it all went wrong. I look down at my screen thinking, this is awesome and then suddenly, without notice, the drone just starting moving off! There was no wind. I was thinking, what is happening. I watched the drone shoot up and then take off N/E over the tree line. I bolted across the field after my little gray quadcopter and then it passed the tree line. I watched on the screen as it kept going and then, the camera feed stopped. The last image I saw was the drone soaring across the treetops on it's way to do I have no idea what. What followed was 2 hours of traipsing around the woods searching for my drone. The Find My Drone only pointed me in the direction I already knew it was going. 2 hours, many cuts, and a torn shirt later, I emerged from the woods defeated. My little gray quadcopter was gone. I walked back across the field feeling defeated. This was supposed to be the beginning of a fantastic new adventure in my life, but my little gray quadcopter was the one who went on an adventure. Where ever you are out there little buddy, I hope you're happy. As of this writing, I have contacted Holy Stone support. They said I should get an email from them in 12 - 24 hours letting me know if they are processing a replacement. Why they couldn't just process it direct in chat I have no idea, but we'll see what happens. If I get the replacement and get a chance to fly it again, I will update this. For now, I'm giving this 3 stars.

Had fun with this drone. When I was flying it outside it was kinda windy, I live in the valley so it's pretty breezy everyday. The weather app said 10mph winds. The drone was able to handle it okay but did get pushed around when I flew it higher when the wind picked up so I just flew it at a lower level, I did set it to the higher speed though to help. It's a good starter drone for someone that's a teenager and older. Even with the propeller guards you still have to be careful of the blades, it'll cut you so be careful if you're flying it indoors. I flew it into a house plants and it really chopped up the plant. I got about 18 minutes of flight time with the propeller guards on. Connection to the app took a few tries. There's a slight delay on what's on your phone screen to what's live, so I just didn't look at the phone screen while flying. Also after connecting to the GPS make sure you take off in a completely open area and away from any trees or cars because there's no obstacle avoidence when you press the return to home button. It'll land about 5ft from where it took off. Everything fits back into the case when you're done, only thing is to do detach the prop guard and fold the drone which is easy. I did notice the box it came in says 2.4 GHz but when connected to the app it says 5Ghz on the app. The video quality is better if you have a SD card install in the drone, than just recoding directly to the phone. Overall I'm happy with this Holy Stone, I do have another one the HS450 which is perfect for indoors and this one is perfect for beginners to fly outdoors.

Well the drone seems to be a high quality made drone but first time flying it something happened it wouldn't respond to my commands and it took off like a bat out of hell i tried to find it on my gps by the app froze up to where i had to reset my phone needless to say the drone is gone so there goes almost 200 dollars in some ones back yard it sucks because i read everything to the tee and once it got into the air things went wrong quick and fast but for the most part it flys good but theres a few things that needs to be worked out with the drone and the controller..