Nixie the Wearable Selfie Drone Delights Crowd at CES 2015

Drones Drones & Vehicles Maker News Other Boards
Nixie the Wearable Selfie Drone Delights Crowd at CES 2015

Screen Shot 2015-01-07 at 10.42.31 AM

Drones are everywhere at CES 2015, including various mentions and demos through the opening day keynote by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. And of these, that one that has captured everyone’s attention came at the end of the Intel presentation, when Krzanich brought out Christoph Kohstall and Jelena Jovanovic, the winners of the recent Intel “Make it Wearable” challenge, to have them demonstrate their Edison-powered Nixie wearable drone.

Its first public demonstration did not disappoint. Kohstall, sporting Nixie on his wrist like a bionic wristwatch, snapped the device off his arm and explained that it has no controller, but rather flies away with a toss, pauses to snap a photo, and then returns to the sender to be caught.

nixie drone wrist worn

 

Kohstall, Jovanovic, and Krzanich then huddled together, flicked the small yellow drone across the stage, and watched it come back to them for a quick catch.

A moment later, the image shot by the drone popped onto the stage’s large screen. Krzanich asked the crowd and keynote viewers to tweet it, resulting in the #flynixie hashtag to shortly climb high into the Twitter trending list.

 

It’s a surprising and exciting demonstration of a concept that had caught eyes over the past few months, winning the $500,000 Intel challenge and capturing the imagination of many while still in conceptual stage.

The creators mentioned that they’ll continue refining the platform and will be releasing it to market in the future.

Watch the full CES 2015 Intel keynote here — skip to the 58-minute mark to watch the Nixie demo.

 

7 thoughts on “Nixie the Wearable Selfie Drone Delights Crowd at CES 2015

  1. rea5245 says:

    “Nixie”? Sounds like a clock.

    1. Florin C says:

      Misleading name indeed. Those folks are too young to have seen real nixie tubes in real life.

      1. Bob Coggeshall says:

        I also think of glowing gas.. Then there is the USPS term nixie which has something to do with badly addressed mail.. Also does not conjure up even vague notions of drones..

  2. Alfredo Faragalli says:

    I have a tagline for them: “Nixie! For when a selfie stick is just not obnoxious enough”!

  3. Ran Ma says:

    Great Article Mike! Met the team in Nixie team in Vegas and they were great! Pity I missed you! -R

  4. john says:

    how is this better than a selfie stick?

  5. Veronique Kriel says:

    My name is Veronique, however, I have been called Nixie since birth. How great is that ? Maybe I should claim my “Right of Publicity”. Jelena and Christoph, I would love to hear how you got to choose the name “Nixie” for your product ?

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged
Mike Senese

Mike Senese is a content producer with a focus on technology, science, and engineering. He served as Executive Editor of Make: magazine for nearly a decade, and previously was a senior editor at Wired. Mike has also starred in engineering and science shows for Discovery Channel, including Punkin Chunkin, How Stuff Works, and Catch It Keep It.

An avid maker, Mike spends his spare time tinkering with electronics, fixing cars, and attempting to cook the perfect pizza. You might spot him at his local skatepark in the SF Bay Area.

View more articles by Mike Senese

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK