Japanese girls would cry, "Kawaiiiii!!!" when they see the Lily Camera Drone. With such a a cute look, this is probably the first camera drone that comes with a very pleasant face to look at, giving it some sort of a personality. Just like man's best friend, Lily is a camera drone that will follow its owner wherever he/she goes, as long as she's got batteries left.

In this age of selfies, mega selfies, perhaps drones that have "follow me" features such as Lily will lead to the another term, "extreme selfies". What we like about "follow me" drones is that there's no need to have another camera man to take videos of you, especially in fast-paced action, much more aerial videos where before it takes a rather very expensive helicopter and camera crew just to pull it off.

For airsoft players who love to have themselves seen in action in videos Lily could be that camera drone that they would love to bring with them in the field. A unique feature of Lily is that you once you turn it on, you can just throw it up in the air and it will start to fly to follow you with its built-in HD video camera. Neat.

When it's thrown, Lily's sensors detect this action and they immediately kick that quad rotos to life, hovering in the background and waiting for any movement of its owner to follow. Just like the new generation of "follow me" drones, the secret is a device that is carried by the owner that the drone is wireless connected to. In the case of Lily, this is rather a puck-size device that can be pocketed or worn in the wrist with a waterproof casing. Lily will then follow the device where it goes via Wifi and GPS.

Lily also has a trick up its leave, errr… rotor, when filming the owner. When it detects that the owner (with the puck device) jumps or does some extreme maneuvers, it immediately kicks in the slow motion video mode. Now that's cool. Even cooler is that it's a waterproof drone, you might throw it and it lands on water, but it will still take off and do its job.

The HD camera shoots at 1080p/60fps, 720p/120fps (which can be used for slow-mo footages), and 12mp still photos.

There are caveats though. First, it's mainly a "follow me" camera drone and thus it has no controller. If you want to control the drone and determine how it will take video of the action happening in front of you, then you'll be disappointed. Second, which is perhaps the problem with most civilian drones, is the battery life, which is 20 minutes. Third, it has no anti-collision/avoidance sensors and definitely will fly smack into trees and other obstacles that it is advised that Lily be used in open spaces. For airsoft players planning to order Lily, this might be big let down and they can just use it in open fields.

Lily is now on pre-order at US$499, without shipping costs yet.  It will cost US$999.00 when it finally gets released next year.