Sunflower Labs Is Making Drones The Future Of Home Security

Move over, security cameras—drones are taking over the home security space. Sunflower Labs, a San Francisco-based company headed up by CEO CEO Alex Pachikov, is at the forefront of this new concept, with what they're calling the Sunflower system.

The Sunflower system is inspired by bees and the way they pollinate flowers—in fact, they call the drones in the system Bees. Each system has a Hive, and different Sunflowers. The Hive is the base, where the Bee is stationed. A person using this particular drone system would place Sunflowers around the outside of their home, which would in turn create what is essentially a layout of their security system. The Sunflowers—which are disguised as garden lights—also act as ground sensors and can detect motion. The Bee, which drives itself and is fully automated, is programmed to leave the Hive and fly around the house, using the Sunflowers as its map.

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Each drone is equipped with cameras and obstacle sensors, so as the Bee flies around the home, it captures security videos. Oh, and all of this is controlled via an app. So, if you want the Bee to land and go back to its Hive, just press a button on the app on your phone, and it will maneuver itself back to the base and land perfectly to ensure that it can charge up, so you never have to worry about manually charging it.

Some people may not like the idea of a drone-based security system, but Sunflower Labs reasoning behind their creation is that a system like this can pick up even more and alert you to disturbances earlier than a standard home security system. Pachikov told The Verge that the company has "a core belief that a lot of value is hidden not just in the vision spectrum, but the motion and vibration spectrum," hence the motion sensors in the Sunflowers.

Current drone regulations impact what the system can and can't do, and Pachikov told The Verge that they're working on decreasing their drone's weight to put it in the least restrictive drone category. That would allow the drones to deploy and surveil the property without the homeowner manually deploying it via the app, for example.

Drones may be the future, but since this system is still in development, you might have to wait a bit before home security drones are on the market. There's currently no word on when the systems will launch or how much they'll run, price-wise. In the meantime—or if you're just not into the whole drone concept—check out some of Amazon's bestselling home security products below. You can also learn more about Sunflower Labs and their drone system on the company's website.