The AntiGravity A1 Drone Delivers on Its Promise: A Complete Beginner Flew It in Two Minutes

Something genuinely rare happened in the drone industry last month. A brand-new company shipped a first-generation product that actually works as advertised. After spending weeks reading press releases and spec sheets about the AntiGravity A1, watching real-world footage from content creators who’ve actually put the drone through its paces reveals what matters most: this thing turns non-pilots into capable operators almost instantly.

The A1, backed by Insta360, launched in December as the world’s first purpose-built 360-degree drone. While DJI has been racing to respond with the Avata 360, AntiGravity took a different approach: build an FPV-style experience that anyone can actually use, not just the pilots who’ve spent months learning stick coordination.

The Two-Minute Pilot Test

Here’s what makes the A1 worth paying attention to. In recent footage shared by a content creator testing the system, they handed the controls to someone with zero drone experience. Not “limited experience.” Not “flew a DJI Mini once.” Zero. The person took the tutorial, strapped on the Vision goggles, grabbed the Grip motion controller, and was flying competently within two minutes.

The landing took longer to master than the actual flying. That’s not a criticism. That’s the point. AntiGravity has inverted the traditional FPV learning curve. With conventional FPV drones, pilots spend weeks just learning not to crash before they can focus on getting usable footage. The A1 lets you skip straight to the creative work.

“If I could do this, I’m a complete idiot. So you should be able to do it, too,” the creator joked before handing off the controls. The person who took over described the experience as intuitive after just minutes of flight time, comparing it to creative mode in video games where you’re free to explore without worrying about the mechanics.

What Makes the Motion Control System Different

Traditional FPV drones demand constant throttle management. Let go of the sticks and you’re falling. The A1 hovers automatically, removing what’s arguably the steepest part of the FPV learning curve. Pilots can take their time, look around using head tracking, and focus on composition rather than staying airborne.

The Grip controller translates physical movement directly into drone movement. Point where you want to go, and the drone follows. The goggles track head movement independently, letting pilots look around the 360-degree view while maintaining forward flight. It’s the kind of system that sounds gimmicky on paper but actually solves a real problem.

The obstacle avoidance adds another safety layer. In testing, the drone stopped itself when approaching a vehicle too closely. Traditional FPV pilots would scoff at such hand-holding, but for creators who need usable footage without the months of practice, it’s exactly right.

The 360 Advantage and the 8-Bit Trade-Off

The real innovation here isn’t the motion controller or the goggles. It’s the 360-degree capture that lets pilots get FPV-style shots without FPV-style skills. Fly roughly in the right direction, and the 8K 360 sensor captures everything. In post-production, reframe to create the exact shot you wanted. Missed the perfect angle during the dive? Just extract a different frame from the same footage.

“I know in post I’ll be able to do all these cool different tracking modes,” noted one reviewer while flying alongside a moving vehicle. The 360 approach essentially gives creators multiple shots from a single flight.

However, professionals doing intensive color grading will hit a wall. The A1 shoots 8-bit footage, which means limited flexibility when pushing colors in post. For social media content, the quality holds up fine. For high-end commercial work requiring aggressive color correction, the image can start breaking down, with blues pixelating under heavy grading.

This limitation matters most for professional cinematographers who’ve built workflows around 10-bit or higher footage. For the enthusiast market AntiGravity appears to be targeting, 8-bit on social platforms looks perfectly acceptable.

The Frankenstein Problem

Not everyone loves the required accessory ecosystem. The A1 flies like a conventional drone but demands FPV-style gear to operate. Some reviewers have noted they’d prefer a standard controller option, since the whole appeal of 360 capture is getting FPV-type shots without FPV complexity.

“They kind of took all the good bits from different types of flying drones and combined them,” observed one creator, “but they’re not really made to work like that.”

The goggles can be overwhelming for pilots with sensory sensitivities. The immersive view that makes the A1 so compelling for some users creates discomfort for others. This isn’t a design flaw so much as an inherent trade-off in VR-style interfaces that not everyone will tolerate equally well.

First Drone, Exceeded Expectations

Perhaps most surprising is that this is AntiGravity’s first drone. New entrants to the consumer drone market rarely deliver polished products on their first attempt. GoPro’s Karma drone was a commercial failure. Sony’s Airpeak struggled to find market fit. Skydio took years and multiple generations to build a competitive product.

AntiGravity, with Insta360’s backing and expertise in 360 cameras, appears to have skipped the typical first-generation stumbles. When DroneXL first reported on the company’s emergence, the key question was whether they could actually execute on an ambitious vision. Early user feedback suggests they did.

DroneXL’s Take

The AntiGravity A1 represents exactly the kind of category creation the drone industry needs. Rather than building another DJI competitor, AntiGravity asked a different question: what if FPV-style footage didn’t require FPV-style skills?

The 8-bit limitation will frustrate professional colorists, and the mandatory goggles-and-motion-controller setup adds friction that some pilots won’t appreciate. These are legitimate criticisms. But they miss the larger point.

For years, content creators have watched FPV footage and thought “I want that look, but I don’t have six months to learn manual FPV flying.” The A1 is the first serious answer to that problem. A complete beginner flew it competently in two minutes. That’s not a marketing claim. That’s documented footage.

DJI clearly recognizes the threat. The Avata 360’s rushed development and race for FCC approval suggest Shenzhen is paying close attention to what AntiGravity built. Competition in the 360 drone space is about to intensify, and consumers will benefit.

The bigger question is whether AntiGravity can iterate fast enough to address the 8-bit limitation in a second generation while DJI brings its manufacturing scale and ecosystem advantages to bear. First-mover advantage matters, but so does execution over time.

For now, if you’ve ever watched FPV footage and wished you could shoot like that without the learning curve, the A1 is the closest anyone has come to making that possible. It’s not perfect. But it’s genuinely new. That counts for something.

What do you think about the AntiGravity A1’s approach to democratizing FPV-style footage? Is the 8-bit limitation a dealbreaker for your workflow, or is “good enough for social” actually good enough? Let us know in the comments below.

Editorial Note: This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI to ensure technical accuracy and archive retrieval. All insights, industry analysis, and perspectives were provided exclusively by Haye Kesteloo and our other DroneXL authors, editors, and Youtube partners to ensure the “Human-First” perspective our readers expect.