Remember the Lily Drone that automatically follows you while filming? After generating almost $50 million in funding and pre-sales, Lily is shutting down in wake of litigation that concluded their too-good-to-be-true demo video was not shot on the Lily.
Here's the original video with 12 million views:
Forbes, one of the few outlets to express journalistic skepticism from the onset, has more:
The District Attorney also alleged that other parts of the advertisement that consumers were led to be believe were shot by Lily, were instead taken by a $2,000 professional drone, the DJI Inspire. The Inspire, made by the world's largest consumer drone manufacturer, requires another person to operate via remote control. Lily never disclosed to the public that it used outside devices to make its product video.
In fact, when questioned about their video in Jan. 2016 by FORBES, Lily spokesperson Kelly Coyne only said that that it had taken many shoots to create the clips for the advertisement, and that the drone had been improved with different parts that would not be in the market device when it shipped. She failed to mention the use of GoPros or the Inspire.
As people who shelled out $500 to $900 for the Lily will probably attest, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Caveat emptor!
• How An Allegedly Fake Video Killed A Much-Hyped Drone Startup (Forbes via PetaPixel)
