Holy Stone HS510 – Compact 4K Drone with Carrying Case
The Holy Stone HS510 is a low-cost GPS drone with 4K camera and live FPV transmission. It masters autonomous flight modes like Follow Me and Waypoint Navigation and offers flight times of up to 16 minutes.
The compact drone is great for beginners, but advanced drone pilots will also enjoy the Holy Stone HS510.
Design and weight
Thanks to the foldable design of the Holy Stone HS510, the camera drone is extremely compact and can therefore be conveniently transported. The material and workmanship quality is very high and the particularly sturdy ABS plastic ensures a long service life.
The drone’s four arms, which snap tightly into place when folding and unfolding, also testify to the good build quality.
Visually, the quadcopter is completely light gray, with only the foldable propellers in black. The dimensions of the compact drone are approx. 14 x 7.5 x 5.5 cm when folded and approx. 24 x 24 x 5.5 cm with unfolded arms.
The weight is 245 grams. At the front of the drone is a bright LED light, with the help of which you can always easily spot the drone in the sky.
For transport, a high-quality transport bag is included, which offers space for the drone, remote control, batteries and other accessories.
Equipment and flight characteristics
Unlike many cheap multicopters, the Holy Stone HS510 has high-quality brushless motors (1306 2750 KV), which are more powerful and also quieter than simple brushed motors and allow high flight speeds.
Thanks to the built-in dual GPS module, the drone can connect to both GPS and GLONASS satellites to precisely determine its position in the sky. In this price segment, this feature is a real rarity, as dual-GPS modules are usually only found in more expensive drones.
Takeoff and landing work quite simply at the push of a button. Once in the air, you have two different speeds to choose from. In the faster mode, the Holy Stone HS510 is pretty fast on its way, while the slower mode is mainly suitable for taking photos and videos.
During flight, the Holy Stone HS510 impresses with excellent stability and fast response time. Thanks to the well-functioning GPS and the powerful motors, the multicopter is able to hold its position even in moderate wind and hardly drifts from the spot.
Another advantage of the dual GPS module is the very precise Return-to-Home (RTH) mode of the Holy Stone HS510, which lets the drone fly back to the takeoff position at the push of a button and land precisely on the ground or drone landing site. By the way, the RTH mode turns on completely automatically if the drone loses the signal to the remote control or if the battery level drops below a critical value (fail-safe mode).
Even though the Holy Stone HS510 was primarily designed for outdoor flights, you can also fly the drone indoors without any problems. However, since there is no GPS signal available there, the drone relies on other landmarks.
This is where the Optical Flow Positioning System comes into play. The system consists of an optical sensor on the underside of the drone and a barometer that can continuously determine the air pressure and thus the current altitude of the drone.
Especially drone novices will be happy about the so-called headless mode. If you activate this mode, you have a simplified control of the drone at your disposal.
In headless mode, you do not have to pay attention to the orientation of the drone in the air in order to fly in the desired direction when using control commands to the left, right, front or rear. Unlike normal drone control, in Headless mode it doesn’t matter if the front or rear of the drone is facing you when you execute a control command. The drone will always fly in the direction you want.
However, we do not recommend you to fly in headless mode for too long, but to learn the normal control of the drone as well, because by far not all drones have headless mode.
An overview of all functions of the Holy Stone HS510 can be found in the detailed and easy-to-understand user manual.
Flight time and range
The flight time of the Holy Stone HS510 is about 16 minutes. This is a good way to go for drones in this price range. However, from our own experience, we always recommend purchasing a second battery to double the flight time of the drone before the batteries need to be powered again.
The 7.6 V, 1500 mAh LiPo batteries are charged with the included charger, in which up to two batteries can be charged simultaneously. One charging process takes about 150 minutes.
The control range is approximately to 0.37 to 0.5 miles (600 to 800 meters). Please note, however, that drones in many countries may only be flown within visual range.
Nevertheless, a high maximum range is an important criterion when buying a drone, as it has a positive effect on the general signal quality. Since obstacles such as buildings or trees can reduce the maximum possible range, we recommend flying best in an open field or meadow.
The FPV transmission of the live drone image works over 5G (the 5.8 GHz frequency) and reaches distances of about 220 to 330 yards (200 to 300 m). However, 5G here has nothing to do with the new cellular standard, but refers to a WiFi standard that your smartphone must support in order to display the FPV signal. Most current smartphones can handle this standard (IEEE 802.11ac), but you should still check beforehand whether your phone also covers this frequency range.
By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.
Learn more
Remote control and app
The remote control is very compact and fits comfortably in the hand. It has fold-out antennas and an extendable holder for attaching a smartphone.
In addition to the two obligatory control joysticks, there are various other buttons on the controller to trigger the various functions of the Holy Stone HS510.
For the operation of the remote control, 2 AA batteries or rechargeable batteries are still needed.
If you want to enjoy the FPV live image transmission, you first need to download and install the free “Ophelia GO” app, which is available in the respective app store for both Android and iOS devices. The FPV live stream is displayed on your smartphone screen in 720p.
The app runs stably, is clearly designed and largely self-explanatory. The app offers you many setting options and displays the most important flight parameters during the flight, such as current altitude, distance and speed.
The camera of the Holy Stone HS510
The 4K camera of the Holy Stone HS510 records videos in UHD resolution with 3840 x 2160 pixels and photos with 8 MP. While the frame rate (fps) is unfortunately only 16 frames per second for 4K recordings, you have 25 fps available for 2.7K recordings.
The Field of View (FOV), i.e. the camera’s viewing angle, is 120° and thus wide-angled. The angle of the camera can be adjusted vertically between 0° and 90° before the flight, but unfortunately this is not possible during the flight.
Photos and videos can optionally be triggered via controller or app. The quality of the photos can be described as very good. Especially for a drone in this price range, the pictures are more than respectable.
The quality of the videos is also high, even though the 4K recordings would have benefited from a higher frame rate. For really smooth recordings, we therefore recommend using the 2.7K mode if possible, as 25 fps is achieved here.
Since the drone unfortunately does not have a gimbal for image stabilization, the video recordings are always a bit shaky. However, we have to remember here again that we are talking about a model for under 200 and not one beyond 500 dollars.
The captured photos and videos are stored on a microSD card of up to 32 GB (Class 10 or higher), which is not included. You can also take photos and videos without an inserted memory card, which are then stored directly on the smartphone, but the quality of the recordings then drops to 1920 x 1080 pixels.
Autonomous flight modes
Due to the built-in GPS module, the Holy Stone HS510 masters several autonomous flight modes, which should help you create video recordings.
In Follow Me mode, the drone autonomously follows the signal of the remote control and thus you as the pilot and records a video of you in the meantime.
Point of Interest mode allows you to autonomously circle objects or people while the drone simultaneously records a video.
With the TapFly function, you can set several waypoints in the app before the flight, which are then flown by the drone autonomously.
Scope of delivery
- 1 x Holy Stone HS510
- 1 x 2.4GHz remote control (2 x 1.5 V AA battery not included)
- 1 x 7.6V, 150mAh Li-Po battery
- 1 x USB-C charging cable
- 1 x charger
- 4 x spare propellers (extra)
- 1 x carrying bag
- 1 x instruction manual
Conclusion
The Holy Stone HS510 is a 4K camera drone with an excellent price-performance ratio. The compact quadcopter has a dual GPS module and masters autonomous flight modes such as Return-to-Home, Follow Me or Point of Interest.
The Holy Stone HS510 has a high-quality build, is easy to use, and offers about 16 minutes of flight time. The 4K camera takes very good photos and videos for this price range and the FPV live image transmission in 720p also works excellently.
Only a mechanical gimbal and 4K @ 25 fps are missing to be considered a full-fledged DJI Mavic alternative. Considering the price, however, these shortcomings are more than acceptable, as you get an otherwise very sophisticated drone.
We think the Holy Stone HS510 is an excellent drone at a very fair price that we highly recommend as a gift or for yourself!