Toy drones
A toy drone is a small multirotor costing under about fifty pounds, with brushed motors, no satellite positioning and a camera bolted to the shell, and it does two things honestly: it flies indoors, and it costs nothing to lose. What it does not do is hold a position, resist wind or record footage you would keep, and nearly every complaint about toy drones comes from somebody who was sold one as a camera drone. Judged as what it is, this is a useful class with a real audience.
Where this class sits
Typical take-off weights for this class, on the same scale used on every class page, so the twelve can be read against one another. The only figure here with legal force is the 250 gram line.
What a toy drone actually is
A toy drone is a lightweight four rotor aircraft built to a price rather than to a specification, using the cheapest components that will fly: brushed motors, a plastic frame moulded in one piece, a small single cell battery and a control link with a range measured in tens of metres. It is sold in toy shops and general retailers rather than in camera shops, and that placement is accurate.
The number that describes the class is its flight time, which is usually somewhere between five and eight minutes on a pack, against the 15 to 25 minutes a proper camera machine quotes. That single figure explains most of the ownership experience. It comes from brushed motors, which are inefficient and wear out, and from a battery small enough to keep the whole aircraft under a few tens of grams. Toy drones weigh so little that the 250 g boundary in the Civil Aviation Authority scheme is not a consideration for them at all: they are typically a fraction of it. What a drone actually is sets out the wider family, of which this is the entry level.
What separates toy drones from the rest
What separates a toy drone from every other class is that it is defined by a price rather than by an engineering decision, and it is worth saying that plainly. Nobody set out to build an aircraft with these characteristics. The characteristics are what remains after everything that costs money has been removed.
What has been removed, in the order a new owner notices it:
- Satellite positioning, so the aircraft never holds a spot and drifts with any air movement.
- A barometer or a downward sensor good enough for real altitude hold, so height needs constant attention.
- A stabilised camera mount, so the picture tilts with the aircraft and vibrates with the motors.
- Brushless motors, so the motors are noisier, less efficient and have a service life measured in hours.
- A dedicated video link, so the picture reaches a phone over short range Wi-Fi with visible lag.
- Spare parts, so a broken arm usually ends the machine.
The camera is where the marketing does the most work. A listing for the very cheapest drone with a camera will often claim a high resolution figure produced by upscaling in software from a much smaller sensor, and the recording is frequently written to the phone over the wireless link rather than to a card on the aircraft, which loses frames whenever the signal does. Treat any resolution claim at this price as a description of the file size rather than of the picture.
Caution
Toy drones are bought for children and their propellers are unguarded on many models. Small fast propellers will cut skin and they can injure an eye, and hair is drawn into them very easily. Fit the propeller guards if any came in the box, keep the aircraft below head height indoors, and take the battery out before anybody picks it up. The small lithium cells in this class are also easily damaged in a crash: retire any pack that is swollen, hot or dented, and never charge one unattended or overnight.
What toy drones cost
Toy drones cost between about fifteen and fifty pounds, and the range is narrower in capability than the prices suggest. The difference between the bottom and the top of the band is mostly whether there is a camera and whether the controller is a real handset or a phone screen.
| Band | What you get | What it will not do |
|---|---|---|
| Fifteen to twenty five pounds | A guarded indoor machine, no camera, a simple handset | Fly outdoors in anything but still air |
| Twenty five to fifty pounds | A camera, a phone view, sometimes folding arms | Hold position, record usable video, survive a hedge |
| Above fifty pounds | This is no longer a toy drone | Not applicable. Judge it as a beginner or camera machine |
Paying more inside this class stops changing the flying almost immediately. The extra ten or twenty pounds buys a camera, and the camera is the part of the machine least worth having. The one accessory that genuinely changes ownership is a set of two or three extra batteries, which turns six minutes of flying into twenty for a few pounds, and those are usually sold with the aircraft in a bundle. Below the fifty pound line the cheapest drone with a camera and the cheapest drone without one fly about the same, and the one without is usually better made for the money.
What to check before buying a toy drone
Check these in a shop or on a listing before buying, in this order.
- Count the batteries in the box, since a pack is a few minutes of flying and then an hour on charge.
- Check that propeller guards are fitted or supplied, particularly if this is for a child or for indoor use.
- Look for a real handset with two sticks rather than a phone application, because a touchscreen has no feel and teaches nothing.
- Check whether the recording goes to a card on the aircraft or to the phone, if it has a camera at all.
- Find the propeller size and check that spares are in the box, as propellers are the part that breaks first and most often.
- Read the charging method: a pack that charges from a USB lead can be charged from a power bank in a park, which matters more than it sounds.
- Check the aircraft weight, which at this end is usually a small fraction of 250 grams and keeps the machine in the lightest class.
What flying a toy drone is like
Flying a toy drone for the first ten minutes is busy. Nothing holds itself: the aircraft climbs when you add throttle and sinks when you do not, it slides across the room on whatever draught is coming under the door, and it needs continuous small corrections just to stay in one place. That is not a fault, it is the absence of the electronics that do it for you on a more expensive machine, and it is why this class teaches more about flying than a satellite stabilised drone does.
The skill it demands is throttle management, which is the first thing any pilot learns and the one thing a modern camera drone never asks for. The way to learn it is to hover a foot above a carpet until you can hold that height without thinking, which takes several batteries and is genuinely satisfying when it arrives.
A toy drone punishes outdoor optimism above all. A breeze that you would not notice on your face will carry a thirty gram aircraft over a fence and out of control range in seconds, and there is no return to home function to retrieve it. It punishes long grass, which stops the propellers and strips the motor gears. And it punishes hard landings on hard floors, because the frame is a single moulding and a cracked arm cannot be replaced.
The UK rules that apply to toy drones
Toy drones sit far below the 250 g boundary of the Civil Aviation Authority scheme, in the lightest class, which is the least demanding one, though a camera on board can still bring a registration requirement with it however light the aircraft is. The height ceiling of 400 feet, about 120 metres, applies to a twenty pound machine exactly as it applies to a thousand pound one, as does keeping it in your own sight. The Civil Aviation Authority publishes the requirements and changes them, so check there rather than relying on the box. Flying over private property covers the question this class raises more than any other, which is what happens when a small drone goes over the fence into a neighbour's garden.
Toy drones against the alternatives
Three siblings beat a toy drone outright in situations that come up constantly, and it is worth knowing which before buying.
FPV and racing drones are the better answer for anybody who wants to learn to fly properly. A toy drone will teach throttle and then stop teaching, because it has no acro mode, no power to spare and no repairability. A small first person view machine flown indoors, backed by a simulator that costs less than the toy itself, teaches real stick control and leads somewhere. If the person you are buying for is genuinely interested in flying rather than in a novelty, this is where the money should go.
Camera drones are the better answer whenever a picture is expected. Toy drone footage disappoints nearly everybody who bought the machine for it, and a buyer who wants video of a holiday or a house should treat the two hundred pound band as the real starting price and wait until they can spend it.
The sub 250 gram folding machines are the better answer for an adult buying their own first aircraft, since they cost several times as much and are far more likely to still be flying next year.
Is a toy drone the right buy for you?
Yes, if you are buying for a child, buying a present, buying something to fly indoors in winter, or testing whether anybody in the house is actually interested before spending real money. It also suits a first flight over water, a beach in a breeze or anywhere else you would rather risk twenty pounds than four hundred.
No, if you want footage, or if you are an adult buying your own first serious machine. A toy drone bought with those expectations is disappointing within a fortnight, and the money is not saved because it gets spent again properly a month later.