Holy Stone Mini Drone for Kids and Beginners RC Nano Quadcopter Indoor Small Helicopter Plane with Auto Hovering, 3D Flips, Headless Mode and 3 Batteries, Great Gift Toy for Boys and Girls, HS210 Blue

Fun and easy, but maybe not for cats (and definitely not outdoors)
I wanted to see if my cats and foster kittens might be interested in a flying toy. I wanted something relatively cheap so if it got pounced on I wouldn’t upset at the cost. The first one I got was obviously used and broken, Amazon replaced it, and the second was in perfect shape.The good news is there’s little risk of it getting pounced on. The cats are interested in this, but only at a distance. When it flies close to them they scramble where I was expecting them to get a case of the wiggle butts.I can see where some people damage these on the first flight. Having experience with RC airplanes and big drones I skipped reading the owners’ manual (big mistake). I hit the takeoff button and it zipped up rather quickly, hit a cabinet and then went crazy fighting artificially induced pitch sticking itself to the cabinet door. If you’re not ready for it the way it zips up will absolutely startle and hit something if you’re not in a clear space.I also accidentally discovered the relative direction mode (in this mode which way the stick makes it go is relative to you, so that if you rotate with the left stick until the drone is facing the opposite way, pushing the right stick to the right will still make the drone go to your right right instead of left). This was a little confusing for me having prior RC experience. Again, reading the manual would have been smart on my part.Lastly is a tip about the reviews talking about it just drifting away outdoors. The controller has an IR panel on the front (facing away from the pilot). For those that don’t know, IR is light based. I’m pretty sure this is how the drone knows which way it is facing for relative direction mode, but it’s quite likely it’s used for other purposes, including actual flight control instead of RF. This means that when it’s in direct sunlight, the IR receiver on the drone itself will get “jammed” by the sunlight and will be unable to receive input from the controller.This is definitely an indoor only drone, but at a minimum if you’re going to do it outdoors, do it at night and keep it really close to you. Without walls for the IR light to reflect off of, the range will be much lower outdoors, so you risk it flying away at night too.It wouldn’t be a fair review if I didn’t also list one big con. It comes with blue & black fans, which would be great, however the fans aren’t actually color coded. The fans spin in different directions depending on their location on the drone. Normally I would expect them to be color coded along the lines of “black = clockwise blue = counterclockwise”, however this isn’t the case. If you break a blade, you will need to carefully look at the fan blades to ensure the broken ones you are replacing match the new ones. Putting a clockwise in a counterclockwise or vice versa the drone will not be flyable and possibly fly around erratically hitting people or objects in the room (causing further damage). OTOH if you’re feeling like mixing it up you could swap a blue for a black or such for visual effect.Overall it’s a good little drone. Read the instructions, know how to handle it before you’re first flight, don’t run into things and I would imagine this will last quite a whileUPDATE: Been flying it around my house for a few weeks now. People who complain about it breaking are misusing it IMO. I’ve had a couple of small crashes. It seems fairly durable, no damage from falls from five feet up onto carpet, or accidentally tapping it into a wall. To break it, you would need to go full speed into a wall, which would probably break it. Kids being rough treating it like an RC car will break it. Drones aren’t RC cars and are more fragile.

1 dead. 7/8 Stars great drone for a kid
1 of 2 working. My nephew wanted a remote control plane for his 5th birthday but I knew a drone would be a little more manageable. Holy Stone seemed to be reviewed rather well but the main selling point for me with this model, aside from the prop guards, was the 3 batteries.I bought a second for my son as I knew he would want one after he saw what I bought his cousin. Having bought similar drones in the past I knew it would be a good idea to open them, charge the batteries, and trim them out before I gave them to the kiddos. It was a good idea I did because one of the motors seemed to be doa. I attempted to get it spinning but got no response so I am uncertain if its an issue with the connection/board/motor.7 out of 8 motors isn’t terrible but unfortunately one of them has to go back as these tiny drones aren’t really worth repairing imo.The working drone flies great! Easy to handle for a 5-7 year old despite the 14+ on the box. I had to explain how to pair/calibrate the drone but once he got the concept my nephew was up and flying the thing around the house. His cousins loved it so I think my family is going to be buying a few more of these this coming holiday season. I don’t think his dad was as stoked about it ha.