My first question is: What happens if you don't pay the subscription and someone finds your drone and scans the sticker?
Nothing? A note about how the owner can't get his drone back because he didn't pay? Do they contact the owner and offer to make the connection for a larger/burdensome finder's fee as a penalty for not paying?
The old "service" I remember back in the day for stickers on your devices in case they got lost was a one-time fee: When you purchased the stickers. And then presumably as long as the company was operating, they'd help you get your stuff back.
This is probably a better model, and the business could be sustainable on the fact that people's new devices will generally need new stickers. (In addition to stickers being generally non-transferrable things, you could prevent the item description from being changed and the like.)
I was editing as you replied. Bit more thoughts on it there. But there's a potentially big concern to knowing who owns a multithousand dollar device and just pretending you don't know who owns it when you do.
Possibly - but you don't necessarily know who owns it. The owner can choose how much information gets displayed to the finder via their settings.
The system will still act as a proxy though, sending a SMS and email to the owner if the finder submits that they've found it.
It's relying on honesty at the end of the day - I like to think most people are honest enough that given the opportunity to help someone get their property back they'll do so.
I am just thinking in your case, if someone looks up a device, you really shouldn't suggest you don't know who owns it: If they've ever subscribed, you do know.
But perhaps you should have a system where there's a recovery fee for a lapsed account. If your service costs 24 a year or so, perhaps it's 150 or 200 for you to connect up a recovery on a lapsed account. So the risk of not paying is having to pay a lot more if you lose your drone and aren't subbed.
Thanks for your feedback - I think you're right about showing the aircraft is registered even if a subscription has lapsed - it's the right thing to do.
I'll think of a way to queue the notifications to the owner so that they get sent once a subscription has been set back up, and a warning to them that someone has their drone in the meantime.
There's basically three ways to pay for this kind of service, and I'm not sure you picked the best one.
Upfront: Pay to cover a given device once, and it's covered for the life of the device. (Upside: No subscriptions to worry about and you get more cash right at the start. Downside: You need a steady source of new registrations (or you need to save a good chunk of that upfront fee towards ongoing operations).
On recovery: Pay a much higher amount only when someone tries to return your drone to you through the service. (Upside: People can join for free since there's no reason not to! Downside: If people don't lose their drones, you may go out of business.)
Subscription: What you've got. (Upside: Revenue is extremely consistent. Downside: You end up in situations where you could help someone recover a five grand drone but aren't because they didn't pay you two euros this month.)
I'm only really comfortable with the model I've chosen and since people are already paying for it (the service is paying for itself right now which is great) I think it's been validated.
There is scope for offering a higher specification service to commercial operators but I'm not sure I want to get involved with the liability aspects - I did build this for my own purposes in the first place and I figured I could provide a cheap, reliable service to other hobbyists.
Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate the time you spent.
Glad to be of any service, if I gave you ideas or something to ponder, I did my job. ;)
Oh, one more question: It's a .co.uk address. Are you able to do this for UK customers only, or is it a global service? If you're just putting people in contact with others, I'd think that there'd be no reason people in other countries couldn't use it, but I don't know.
Originally the stickers were "per aircraft" - I've changed that so a single sheet of stickers can be purchased for multiple aircraft, and they all point to the account instead of individual airframes.
That seemed fairer to me - no point in buying a sheet of 21 stickers for one aircraft when you only need a single sticker.
So stickers can be printed out (and stuck on via clear tape) or purchased pre-printed for unlimited aircraft now, provided a £2 monthly subscription is in place.
I've been a drone geek since 2011, flying model aircraft and quadcopters (or drones as the media likes to call them).
I fly them using a live video link to a set of VR goggles so I have a first person view from the aircraft. With that comes the ability to fly long distance.
Because "drones" are fairly pricey items, I wanted a way to help retrieve one should it crash and not be able to be found by the operator - by default noone would know who the drone belonged to even if they found it, and not everyone is confortable putting their contact details in public.
So I created DroneFinder which allows you to register and print off stickers for your aircraft with a scannable QR code. The QR code allows a finder to contact the owner of a lost aircraft and notify them of its whereabouts (via email and SMS) using the GPS capabilities of their phone - thus allowing the owner to retrieve their aircraft.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 35.1 ms ] threadNothing? A note about how the owner can't get his drone back because he didn't pay? Do they contact the owner and offer to make the connection for a larger/burdensome finder's fee as a penalty for not paying?
The old "service" I remember back in the day for stickers on your devices in case they got lost was a one-time fee: When you purchased the stickers. And then presumably as long as the company was operating, they'd help you get your stuff back.
This is probably a better model, and the business could be sustainable on the fact that people's new devices will generally need new stickers. (In addition to stickers being generally non-transferrable things, you could prevent the item description from being changed and the like.)
I'm open to ideas on it though - but how else would I ensure people keep paying.
The system will still act as a proxy though, sending a SMS and email to the owner if the finder submits that they've found it.
It's relying on honesty at the end of the day - I like to think most people are honest enough that given the opportunity to help someone get their property back they'll do so.
But perhaps you should have a system where there's a recovery fee for a lapsed account. If your service costs 24 a year or so, perhaps it's 150 or 200 for you to connect up a recovery on a lapsed account. So the risk of not paying is having to pay a lot more if you lose your drone and aren't subbed.
I'll think of a way to queue the notifications to the owner so that they get sent once a subscription has been set back up, and a warning to them that someone has their drone in the meantime.
Upfront: Pay to cover a given device once, and it's covered for the life of the device. (Upside: No subscriptions to worry about and you get more cash right at the start. Downside: You need a steady source of new registrations (or you need to save a good chunk of that upfront fee towards ongoing operations).
On recovery: Pay a much higher amount only when someone tries to return your drone to you through the service. (Upside: People can join for free since there's no reason not to! Downside: If people don't lose their drones, you may go out of business.)
Subscription: What you've got. (Upside: Revenue is extremely consistent. Downside: You end up in situations where you could help someone recover a five grand drone but aren't because they didn't pay you two euros this month.)
There is scope for offering a higher specification service to commercial operators but I'm not sure I want to get involved with the liability aspects - I did build this for my own purposes in the first place and I figured I could provide a cheap, reliable service to other hobbyists.
Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate the time you spent.
Oh, one more question: It's a .co.uk address. Are you able to do this for UK customers only, or is it a global service? If you're just putting people in contact with others, I'd think that there'd be no reason people in other countries couldn't use it, but I don't know.
That seemed fairer to me - no point in buying a sheet of 21 stickers for one aircraft when you only need a single sticker.
So stickers can be printed out (and stuck on via clear tape) or purchased pre-printed for unlimited aircraft now, provided a £2 monthly subscription is in place.
I fly them using a live video link to a set of VR goggles so I have a first person view from the aircraft. With that comes the ability to fly long distance.
Because "drones" are fairly pricey items, I wanted a way to help retrieve one should it crash and not be able to be found by the operator - by default noone would know who the drone belonged to even if they found it, and not everyone is confortable putting their contact details in public.
So I created DroneFinder which allows you to register and print off stickers for your aircraft with a scannable QR code. The QR code allows a finder to contact the owner of a lost aircraft and notify them of its whereabouts (via email and SMS) using the GPS capabilities of their phone - thus allowing the owner to retrieve their aircraft.
I'd welcome any feedback.