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Meet the selfie drone that lives in your phone case

Selfly is a cute picture-taking robot from AEE.

Imagine you and a group of friends are at the peak of a mountain after a long hike. It's sunset and the sky is alight; you want to take a photo. You pull out your smartphone, but instead of flipping it around to take a long-armed selfie, you unclip a tiny drone from the back of your phone, make it hover at the perfect height and snap a series of photos, no extendo-arms required.

That's the idea behind Selfly, the drone in a phone case built by camera and recording company AEE. Selfly is a drone that folds into the back of a phone case, and it includes a camera that can record, livestream and take photos in 1080p and 60fps, using a suite of Sony sensors. The case itself is just under half an inch thick, similar in style to an OtterBox, and it fits recent Apple and Android devices.

The Selfly will be available in the spring for $130, with a separate charging hub available for $30. The Selfly doesn't charge in the phone case, and it lasts about four minutes once it's fully loaded. It has a hover function that lets users set it up in the air, at the perfect height, and it can take sweeping panoramic photos. Users can control the drone with virtual joysticks or use a point-and-fly method: Point to an area of the screen and the drone will fly there; pinch to zoom and it'll fly farther out. The Selfly has a range of roughly 45 feet, definitely far enough for the selfie life.

Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

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