Drones are an awesome gift for kids if you choose the right one. There are so many clever features, drones for kids can even be used as an educational tool as an introduction to robotics and AI. If you’re a drone beginner or not familiar with the world of UAVs, there is a lot to look out for to avoid a dud and select a drone that’s suitable for your kid’s capabilities.
I’ve broken this article down into the best drones for kids at each age bracket and also answered some common questions around drones for kids like ‘What can kids do with drones?’
The Best Drones for Kids by Age:
| Best drone for 5-6 year old kids: UFO Drone |  |
| Best drone for 7-9 year old kids: Holy Stone HS190 |  |
| Best drone for 10-12 year old kids : DEERC D20 |  |
| Best drone for 13 year old kids & teenagers: DJI Ryze Tec Tello |  |
| Best drone for teenagers: DJI RoboMaster TT |  |
What age can kids use drones?
Kids aged 5 and up can use drones, this is based on being able to manage the controller, however, younger children can still have a lot of fun with UFO drones that are operated by sensors rather than a remote control.
Legally, kids need to be 13 years or older to register a drone with the FAA. This is required for all drones over 250g or drones being used for any purpose other than flying for fun.
To fly a drone outdoors, parental supervision is advised for kids under 13 years old to make sure the drone is kept in line of site and only flown in drone approved areas.
What can kids do with drones?
- Take video of themselves doing BMX riding and stunts
- Drone racing with friends
- Set up and fly through obstacle courses
- Learn to code & about robotics
- Try hand controlled gesture operation
- Learn to take aerial photography & video
- Try out special features like orbit objects and drone flips
What is a good drone for 5 year olds?
The UFO is a light up drone that is great for 5 year olds or young children. It’s a mini beginner drone toy without a camera designed for kids.
This hands-free design is great for small children but will captivate the whole family. The UFO style drone has a flexible wrap around cage to protect the propellers and little fingers. Just turn on and throw into the air to start and the UFO drone hovers by itself, then guide the direction with your hands – no controller needed.
It seems to have a single sensor on the side so takes a little bit of patience for the drone to respond to sideways movement but it’s very responsive to the underneath sensor so shoots up into the air quickly… so this drone is more suitable for indoor use. To stop the drone just grab it and flip it over.Over all this little guy is great for a super fun, affordable drone experience and gets our top place for the best hand operated drone for kids. It doesn’t require any complicated set up or app configuration, it has a single button to turn on. Single click to change the range and double click when the drone is upside down to calibrate.
The UFO drone charges by USB cable so no replacing of batteries, the battery lasts 5-8 minutes and takes 40 minutes to recharge.
Buying these toys for the kiddies in your life is going to win you the favourite Uncle/ Aunt / parent award !
What is the best drone for a 7 year old kid?
The HS190 is my pick for the best drone for 7-9 year old kids. This is a micro drone that’s stored inside the controller.
Why I recommend this drone for 7-9 year olds :
- It’s small but sturdy. This little drone can handle a few imminent crashes
- Great for learning how to control a real drone at a really low price. Master the basics of pitch yaw and roll before using a bigger drone that can potentially cause any damage or interfere with other people.
- Really compact and simple; just two parts easily stored together with the drone inside the controller
Speed
While this is a small drone its super-fast and a lot of fun. It has 3 speed settings and can be flown outside as long as the wind is minimal. When flying indoors, attach the propeller guards to protect the blades (and walls and furniture!)
Features
The HS190 has some fun features once the basics are learnt.
- Spin
- Flips
- Headless mode
The props are color coded (red for the front and black for the back) which helps identify the front and rear of the drone when learning to control and navigate.
Cons
One of the potential downside to be cautious of when deciding if this is the right drone for your kid, is that the propellers can be a bit fiddly to replace. This will probably require the help of mum or dad or an older sibling if there is damage to the propellers because they need to be installed with the provided louver tool which makes sure the electronics and connections aren’t damaged.
This model does have a return to home feature but as its not a GPS drone and at the small budget that this model has been developed for, I wouldn’t trust this. It could fly off in the wrong direction or fly into a wall or person.
The main draw back is that this mini drone only comes with one battery which lasts about 7 minutes.
What is a good drone with a camera for 10 year olds?
The best drone for 10-12 year old kids is the DEERC D20. Ten year olds have better hand dexterity and understand the importance of keeping a drone away from other kids, animals or obstacles. While the DEERC D20 is bigger than the HS120, it’s still a mini drone but a step up from the toy like HS190.
It has a folding body and camera like full size drones:
The camera is 720p HD standard resolution which is adequate for learning some basic aerial photography. It gives the experience of being able to see first person view from the drone (FPV) .
The drone can be flown without a phone attached to the controller but doesn’t have any built in display for any flight metrics. The drone app relies on a phone to store footage or photos as it doesn’t have a micro SD slot.
Some of the cool features that the DEERC D20 can do are :
- Altitude hold
- Way-points
- Single button take off
- Flips (Forward, back and sideways)
What is the best beginner drone for a 13 year old?
The DJI Ryze Tello is great for older kids aged 13 and up to learn to fly a full feature drone. It’s still relatively small and light weight yet robust (which are all ‘must have’ features in any drone for kids!) This drone packs some great functionality for under $100.
DJI Tello has very precise hover capability thanks to the bottom sensors, which is rare at this price point. Lightly throw the drone into the air and it will hover without touching the controls at all. To land, use the app on your smartphone to select ‘hand land’ and allow the drone to drop down into your hand.
The Tello drone is fun to fly; it’s capable of doing some crazy flips! It can take short videos and considering the camera isn’t stabilized by a gimbal, it takes impressively stable clear footage because of the digital image stabilization feature.
The flight time is 13 minutes and the battery takes about 1.5 hours to recharge via cable. The Tello has 100m range from the controller and reaches heights of 30m.
Camera
Ryze Tello has a 720p, 5 mp camera with electronic image stabilization (for more on image quality for drones check out this article I wrote on drone cameras.
- Video spec : 720mp MP4 videos (1280 x 720)
- Camera specs : 5MP (2592×1936)
Like other drones at this price bracket , the Tello doesn’t have an SD slot. This means that to store photos and videos this drone needs to be flown with a phone or device which will be used to store the data via an app.
Smart Fly Features
Because this is a well established drone model, there are apps designed by third parties (such as the Tello App) that take the capabilities of this drone to the next level such as :
- 360 panorama
- land on hand
- FPV Mode
- VR capabilities (Pair with virtual reality goggles)
- Return home
- Circle or orbit an object
Most of these features are usually only included in drones that are double or triple the price.
What is a good drone for teenagers?
The DJI RoboMaster TT has been designed specifically for young minds, this model gets my vote for the best drone for teenagers because it’s been designed for education as well as fun.
The RoboMaster TT can be the first steps in introducing teenagers to the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, which are skills that are demand in the workforce and this demand will only increase in the future.
*(However, if your teenager is interested in robotics, I’d recommend checking out the Flywoo Firefly drones. These are really fun FPV racing drones!).
This model is an update on the Robomaster EDU which doesn’t have the same swarm operating capabilities. The EDU model can be coded but doesn’t have programmable LEDs or 3rd party sensors.
RoboMaster TT is compatible with open source flying hardware to be configured for multi drone control also known as drone swarms. This is a really fun way to introduce kids to coding by using Micro Python graphics programming, a great example of learning by play.
AI and coding aside, this is a robust little drone with great functionality. The body is basically the same as the DJI Tello which is my pick for the best drone for 13 year olds.
This model includes a 5mp camera with electronic image stabilisation. This compensated for the vibration and movement caused by the drones motors to give smoother video and photos.
The object on the top is an 8×8 dot matrix display that is programmable to light up and display words or images. This unit is also the distance sensing module that can be used for facial recognition, follow me mode and gesture control.
The “TT” in RoboMaster TT stands for Tello Talent. This model has the same body as the Ryze Tec Tello which doesn’t have the AI or robotics component but is great fun to fly. The Ryze Tec Tello is my pick for the best drone for 13 year olds but if your kid is interested in robotics then the RoboMaster TT is a great option because of the extra programming ability.
What to look for when buying a drone for kids:
- If you buy a controller operated drone rather than hand guided, check it can maintain a constant height by itself (aka altitude hold). This reduces the likelihood of accidents and makes the experience easier for the child.
- Select a drone that has propeller guards :
- This keep the child’s fingers safe!
- Protect the drone propellers.
- Protect the surrounding walls from scratches- cheaper toy drones fly best inside as they aren’t as robust.
- For older children look for models that sync directly to smartphones. Toy drones with cameras can capture amazing photos for the budding photographer!
Spiderman Drone for Kids
My nephew is obsessed with Spiderman. His mum struggles to get him to wear real clothes over his Spiderman costume so I had to do review on this Spiderman drone for kids!
This little helicopter style drone measures 3.5 inches (9cm) and is made for kids aged 6 and up. It recharges via a port on the back of the body which is better than having removable batteries (like button batteries) that can be safety hazard for young children.
Pros
- Cheap ; I didn’t expected this drone to last given how cheap it is and how rough by nephew can be when he gets excited but it’s still going a month later!
- Bottom sensor works well, when it’s coming close to a hand or the ground it respond well and hovers up
- My nephew’s mom likes that it gets them up and away from the TV screen without having to bribe them!
Cons
- Difficult to control the direction, this little drone seems to have a mind of its own but we thought it was fun for indoor use regardless.
- The battery didn’t last as long as expected. The specs state it should fly for about 50 minutes but in our experience it runs for about 15 mins. This was expected given how cheap.
- Can’t stand on its own, not a big deal but would be better if it could take off from standing.
Top Unbreakable Drone for Kids
Our top rated ‘unbreakable’ drone for kids is the Potensic A20RC mini drone. When comparing drones in this category we wanted to find the most affordable and resilient drone that has been built for durability.
The main features that make this drone much more resilient compared to its competitors are the well designed guards and the auto stop feature. The props are surrounded by a rubbery durable plastic to lower the impact of collisions on the body of the drone and protect the propellers.
The auto stop feature switches off the drone if it has a collision. This is important to prevent repeated collisions if you’ve lost control to prevent damage.
This drone comes in at top place because its great for learning the basics before investing in more expensive models. The customer service team are also really supportive which is important because often these cheap toy drones can have minor defects out of the box.
Wrap up on the best drones for kids 2022
When it comes to drones for kids, the range of functionality and special features it pretty awesome. Your guaranteed to find a drone that will suit your children or teenager whether its for rainy day indoor fun, to inspire a robotics enthusiast or encourage a budding drone photographer!
For more ideas, take a look at some of my favorite mini drones in my guide on the best drones under $50.
