YouTuber builds autonomous flying umbrella that follows user

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YouTuber and builder John Xu of the "I Build Stuff" channel has created a fully autonomous flying umbrella that can track and follow a user's movements, providing hands-free rain protection. Xu first built a drone-powered umbrella in 2024, but viewers criticized it for requiring manual control. Over the past two years, Xu has worked to make the umbrella self-tracking, using a time-of-flight camera to keep it centered above the user even in the dark. While the umbrella isn't perfect and raises some safety and social acceptance concerns, it represents an experimental step toward more autonomous devices that adapt to users' needs.

Why it matters

The flying umbrella project highlights the potential for autonomous devices to make everyday tasks more convenient. While a flying umbrella may not replace traditional umbrellas anytime soon, it represents a broader shift toward products that can sense and respond to users' needs without requiring constant manual control.

The details

Xu's initial 2024 flying umbrella prototype used a self-built quadcopter to power the umbrella's flight, but required manual control via a handheld controller. Viewers criticized this design as impractical. Over the next two years, Xu worked to make the umbrella fully autonomous, experimenting with GPS tracking and other technologies before settling on a time-of-flight camera that allows the umbrella to accurately track and follow the user's movements, even in the dark. The autonomous umbrella isn't perfect, with wind and rain potentially affecting its stability and battery life limiting its runtime, but it represents a significant improvement over the original manual prototype.

• Xu first built a drone-powered umbrella in 2024.
• Over the following two years, Xu worked to make the umbrella autonomous.