Best FPV Drone Kits for Beginners
I highly recommend looking at the Joshua Bardwell FPV drone kit (which comes in a few flavors) because it’s a solid blueprint for getting started in the hobby with a beginner drone. It is essentially a drone in a box, with a video that shows every step needed to get it flying. It doesn’t get much closer than that — having the man himself holding your hand and walking you through all the steps in the videos is going to make for the best build experience.
Bardwell Drone Kit Comes With:
- Frame
- Motors
- Flight stack (flight controller & ESC)
- Props
- Video guidance for building
What You Need To Fly:
- HD Camera & VTX
In my opinion, that’s the best way to go because once you learn the basics… building, fixing, and upgrading becomes second nature…
And if you’re just getting started, even if you’ve spent 495 days in a simulator, you’re going to crash a lot, and it will break, and you will need to fix it. I guarantee it!
Other FPV Drone Kit Options
I can’t speak for the other kits on the market, but the Apex Evo Mr. Steele edition from GetFPV is essentially what I fly the most. The frame is unparalleled, incredibly durable, easy to maintain, and replacement parts are readily available. The camera and video system uses the rock solid DJI O3 system, and Steele’s motors are powerful enough & efficient enough to run with.
This is a ready-built drone, so it’s not the same experience as building it yourself. While it’s great to get a drone ready to fly, it’s still very important to understand how they work and how to repair them… so if this is your first drone ever, I would still recommend the Bardwell drone kit over this bind and fly.
The Mr Steele bind and fly is a great option if you already know how to build and fix a drone.
But What About DIY Building an FPV Drone?
As mentioned, there are some major pros and cons to building your own vs buying a ready made kit. The Bardwell kit gives you everything you need to build one for yourself. I stand by my opinion of starting with the kit vs buying a pre-built drone.
Pros and Cons of a Ready to Fly
Pros
- Easier than building
- Fixable (if you know how)
- Tons of parts available
- Customizable
Cons
- Expensive
- You’re hoping the person who built it did a good job
Building an FPV Drone From a YouTuber
It was early 2018 when I started to graduate from smaller whoops to building a 5 inch mini quad, and StingerSwarm (if you don’t know him, look him up!) was my favorite pilot who also had an affordable build on his page. It was using the Stingy frame from a company called XHover, and he had a build video that showed exactly what to do.
If you have a favorite YouTuber that also happens to have a build — by all means go for it. The value of a video showing exactly what to do is immense, even though most channels don’t offer it (mine included).
This is in my opinion the best way to get into the hobby because you will learn how to source parts, how it all works together, while getting guidance from someone you trust to build your quad.
These days I gravitate towards Mr. Steele’s build (the Alien & now the Apex) because his build is the right balance of durability, quality & price for the money — especially relating to the analog builds which can be quite tricky to get clean video with!
But analog has for the most part been abandoned for DJI, and development on the specialty OSD / PDB boards to clean up analog video has all but ceased… So I recommend starting with DJI, because all you need to worry about is a frame, motors, and a flight controller stack choice.
If you’re unsure what Beginner FPV Kit get, search below, and it’ll show you beginner kits.
Beginner FPV Drone Kit
If you’re looking for the best FPV drones for a beginner, then you’ve come to the right place. There are a LOT of options on the market these days, and some of them aren’t so great. In this video I run through the best drones for a beginner. I talk about indoor flying, outdoor flying, filming, goggles, and the best FPV kits that bundle it all together into one!
Regarding costs, you can get into FPV cheap if you know what to look for! And the better you know what you’re doing, the more money you’ll save not rebuying the same stuff over and over again — something that is very easy to do in this hobby!
If you prefer reading, I’ll talk about the different ways to get started in the hobby…
Start FPV Small or Go Big?
If you’re looking to get started in the hobby there are a few ways to go about it. Either you want something that’s pre-built so you can get right into flying, or you want to build a drone for yourself so you can understand how to fix it, customize it, and grow as an FPV pilot. If you’re more interested in long-range FPV, click here.
But should you buy a small beginner drone kit, a larger drone, a DJI drone, or build one yourself? — These are common themes on places like Reddit, and there is no right answer.
It’s really whatever you’re up for and interested in, but for those on the fence, I always recommend building a drone for yourself by modeling after a build that already exists. You’ll know the parts fit together, and usually, there’s a video on YouTube that shows all the steps to turning it into a flying quadcopter.
The best part about building something yourself is that you’ll know how to fix things, and that is ultimately going to help keep you in the hobby. Nobody wants to fix other people’s drones!
Starting FPV on a Budget Whoop Drone Kit
Click here to see my favorite beginner drone kits
If you’re unsure if FPV is the hobby for you and want or need to save a bunch of money before you go all in, then I recommend getting a smaller whoop fly kit. These are excellent beginner FPV drones because they’re small, generally inexpensive, and, at the very least, a lot of fun.
The downside is they’re tricky to fix and hard to find parts for, but on the flip side since they’re lightweight, they tend not to break as easily.
Pros and Cons of Whoop Kits
Pros:
- All-in-one package gets you in the air FAST 💨
- Comes with everything needed to get in the air
- Relatively inexpensive
- Reasonable durability
- Tons of fun
Cons:
- Hard to fix
- Difficult to find parts
- Lower quality radio
- Lower quality goggles
- Not very customizable
As mentioned in the pros and cons, these kits come with lower quality radios and goggles that may or may not be compatible with other drones — so if the intent is to get into the hobby with a kit, be sure you understand the type of video it uses (generally analog, HD Zero, DJI are fine) however some kits use different radio protocols than standard so you might need to buy a new radio when you move onto other drones…
Which is why it’s good to know what your intent is! It might make more sense to get a non-kit radio, goggle, and start with a cheaper drone — because then you’re just worrying about the drone you’re flying.
I highly recommend the EMax Tiny Hawk III Bundle it’s a well known kit, parts are available, and it’s easy to troubleshoot. It also comes with everything needed to get started.
If you’re more interested in higher-end beginner FPV drones, please read on. I’ll discuss the drone I would start with, radio, goggle, charger, batteries, tools, and more…
DJI Avata 2 Drone Kit
DJI has made massive inroads into the FPV community with their Air Unit and Ocusync digital FPV video systems, and their FPV drone, and the Avata series. They pride themselves in making drones that are not so much repairable but that have a lot of built-in safety features to prevent a crash in the first place. Not only that, but some people want or need a simple drone they can easily get into the hobby with. You might be a realtor looking for a good drone for filming real estate, or you might be a cinematographer that needs something that’s safe to fly near people with — and that is where the Avata 2 comes in. It comes as a kit with DJI Goggles 3, and the new motion controller — and if you spend a little extra money on the fly more package you get 3 batteries (which I highly recommend!).
You might want to check out my video on what I think about it with the motion controller. It was surprising to say the least.