How DroneMask Is Disrupting the Drone Industry

We hear about new companies all the time in the drone industry. They might make fixed wing drones, or quadcopters, or hexacopters. Or they might make Remote ID modules, or be devoted only to making great FPV goggles.

But it’s rare that we hear about a new company that’s truly disrupting the drone industry. And yet DroneMask seems to be doing just that.

Credit: DroneMask

DroneMask makes one product—a mask that works like FPV goggles to let you fly FPV with any drone.

To fly with a DroneMask, you connect it to your iPhone and fly. That’s it—no need for using a third-party app to enable FPV flying. And it works with all the leading camera drones, including those made by DJI, Skydio, and Autel.

How Much Does the DroneMask Cost?

The DroneMask 2 currently sells for $179.

The DroneMask 2 | Credit: DroneMask

That’s a great price when you compare it to top FPV goggles on the market like the DJI FPV Goggles V2, which currently sells for $509, or Fat Shark’s Dominator FPV goggles, which currently sells for $437.

Of course, there are less expensive FPV goggles on the market.

But DroneMask has some unique value to offer over those, including how easy it is to use, the fact that it can be used with any drone, and its patented immersive lens technology—keep reading to learn more.

From Tech for Immersive Movie-Watching to Flying FPV Drones

DroneMasks is a subsidiary of a Norwegian company called Immerse Optics, which did not have drones on its radar at all when it launched. The company makes futuristic glasses—which it calls masks to emphasize the immersive nature of the technology—to create a unique viewing experience with your iPhone.

Immerse Optics’ original product was the MovieMask, which was created to simulate the immersive experience of going to the movies by letting you play a movie on your smartphone, and feel like you’re actually in a movie theater.

Here’s what the lenses used in the masks look like:

Credit: Immerse Optics

After the MovieMask came out, YouTubers began experimenting with using it to fly drones. And the results were pretty remarkable, leading many drone pilots to start adopting the technology to fly FPV.

These pilots also shared their experiences on YouTube, and more and more people started buying the MovieMask to fly FPV. Soon, this took over as the primary source of sales for Immerse Optics, surpassing sales for watching movies.

And suddenly in one month, we had $70,000 in our web store and we were like, where is this coming from? And it was actually from the YouTube reviews. So it was actually the customers who discovered us and helped us enter the drone industry.

– Vilde Wettergreen, CEO of Immerse Optics

Since then, Immerse Optics has pivoted to focusing primarily on selling its masks for flying drones FPV.

This is the case for all its masks, not just the DroneMask. Although the company makes three types of masks—the MovieMask for watching movies, the MagiMask for immersive AR, and the DroneMask—the messaging for all three of the products emphasizes how they can be used for flying drones.

Further emphasizing this focus, the company’s LinkedIn profile reads: “Currently, our primary focus is the drone market. Within this space, DroneMask has emerged as the market leader for FPV flying with camera drones, garnering the trust of 30,000 pilots worldwide.”

How the DroneMask Works

As the company puts it, “with regular lenses the screen has to be split in two and duplicated to show a single image.” Here’s a depiction of this conventional split system:

But with the unibody lens, the entire screen can be viewed at once:

The result is a more immersive experience, which has the added benefit of avoiding the potential eye strain that can arise from using split screen technology.

It’s also a much clearer view—the resolution in a DroneMask is four times clearer than that found in a traditional split-screen VR headset.