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Expert guide to choosing the right ROV to explore the deep, improve your fishing, or inspect your hull grab crane cable
Top picks Best for most people Most powerful Best value Best for explorers Best for pros / creators Best for coral Best for range Best for surface Alternatives How to choose an underwater drone FAQs
Examining and experimenting with the best underwater drones has given us insight into the new world of aquatic exploration. Also known as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), underwater drones are essentially mini, remote-controlled submarines; allowing you to shoot video even deeper than the 40m/130ft that scuba divers traditionally descend to. As well as shooting video, you can also use them to perform checks on your own boat, or take your fishing trips to another level.
The idea of an underwater drone may sound weird to some, who think of only the best camera drones for aerial use, what goes up can also go down. If you're reading this, you likely know underwater drones are nowadays both very capable and surprisingly affordable.
Fisherman-turned-cameraman Richard ‘Taff’ Davis used a drone, like one of those on this list, to capture unique footage of salmon jumping up waterfalls in Scotland for the BBC. "For some reason, the fish didn’t seem to mind a bright yellow submarine where they would flee when almost anything else entered the water!" Wild Isles producer Chris Howard said.
Below, we list the very best underwater drones and ROVs on the market today, explain what each has to offer, and share the facts and figures you need to choose between them. If you need some expert tips, scroll down to the How to Choose and FAQ at the end.
Best for most people
Great smart features, a 4K camera you can turn separately, a decent depth and a 5th thruster for responsive operation make this a great choice.
With a low cost of entry getting 4K, a wi-fi bouy and five-thruster manoeuvrability are all the more of a bargain – a popular first choice.
Shown here as the V6S which boasts a robot arm accessory, this is a powerful underwater drone which can be used for salvage operations.
With 4K camera and dual headlights, this makes a great drone to explore the sea – and the option of a 'Wizard' edition with Radar helps add flexibility too.
Best for pro work
The M2 (also in Pro and Pro Max variants) has the power for survey missions like hull and pipeline inspection and is ideal for capturing content reliably with powerful lights.
The BW Space Pro is built with quality imagery, rather than speed, in mind and boasts a wide aperture 4K camera with object tracking features.
With over 20 years of expertise as a tech journalist, Adam brings a wealth of knowledge across a vast number of product categories, including timelapse cameras, home security cameras, NVR cameras, photography books, webcams, 3D printers and 3D scanners, borescopes, radar detectors… and, above all, drones.
Adam is our resident expert on all aspects of camera drones and drone photography, from buying guides on the best choices for aerial photographers of all ability levels to the latest rules and regulations on piloting drones.
He is the author of a number of books including The Complete Guide to Drones, The Smart Smart Home Handbook, 101 Tips for DSLR Video and The Drone Pilot's Handbook.
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The Chasing Innovation Gladius Mini is supplied in a nice backpack (not unlike one photographer who might use to carry a body and lenses), with a laptop in a separate bay. Setting up is reasonably easy – an included towel means you can set the drone down on sharp coastal rocks safely.
On the downside, the protective caps for the 50m or 100m tether cable are easily lost, but otherwise, the drone is solidly built and can be thrown into the sea after setup and can easily take a few knocks underwater.
The bright color is easily spotted too. Smart features include depth-lock (like altitude hold on a flying drone), and there is 64GB storage to record. The five thrusters make the drone quick to respond – useful as you need to tilt the body up or down to look around. You can lock the pitch, but the camera (and accompanying 1,200-lumen lights) cannot be separately turned, making this a real pilot’s craft, and fun with it.
The thoughtful app is easily operated, and VR compatible, and the 4K camera produces great results, with the only complaint really being that in rougher seas the image stabilization could be better. Overall, though, it's a great product.
The Fifish is available as a standard V6 and the V6S includes the robot arm accessory. On its own, this is a good quality ROV with a 100m maximum depth and tether to match. The controller is reminiscent of a drone controller, with a space for a phone as a monitor. It's easy to use, and the posture lock (‘hover’) maintains position accurately, but we did wonder why the pad was plain white – a touch too generic. It does have a lock-depth button (like hover), however, which is useful to have easy access to.
In fact, many of the features – 4K camera and dual 2000-lumen lights – are more costly elsewhere and this may be the most wallet-friendly way to add a robot claw with over 5kg (11lbs) gripping force to your underwater expeditions.
This will be ideal for positioning other equipment remotely or attempting to grip and lift sea-floor discoveries. There is also now a sleek black ‘Expert’ edition of this drone with 6000-lumen lighting and the option of on-shore power for longer missions, and other accessories on offer including sonar sensors. We must admit we liked the option of VR head tracking (the drone ‘looks’ with you) and appreciated that a cable reel was in the bundle.
This is in many respects a smaller version of Chasing’s Gladius Mini. It’s certainly the same striking yellow and pleasingly incorporates the maneuverable five-thruster design, which makes it possible to tilt the body (and, by extension, the camera) up and down. If you think that might make it hard to control, worry not – the depth lock feature is retained from its bigger brother too. So how has Chasing sliced the price so low?
Firstly the camera is a more modest 1080p, supported by only 250 lumens of light (at shallower depths this shouldn’t be an issue). Secondly the umbilical is significantly shorter, though the surface end is actually a floating Wi-Fi buoy, so you can throw it in the water and, so long as you’re within Wi-Fi range of it (admittedly not far given the water), you have control, maximizing the use of the 15m (50ft) tether.
Finally, that control is all on-screen using the app, so there is no physical controller unit. That means you’ll need to be cautious of getting water on the touch screen but on the plus side the battery is contained in the drone and is the only element you’ll need to charge and the 720p live feed is ideal for piloting with. For most, this will be all the underwater drone needed, and the app is well-featured, even supporting live streaming to social media. This could make a boat trip more fun, or even add educational value to exploring lakeside pools.
Read: The best underwater housings for cameras and phones
Traveling underwater is not a friendly environment for high-frequency radio used for the live video feedback on aerial drones, so the PowerRay is provided with a 70m (230ft) umbilical cable that gently rests behind it as it is propelled by its two horizontal props. The body also features a central vertical thruster to make changing depth a straightforward process that won’t cause tangling of the communication cable.
The depths can be a murky place, even the first few meters, so the Ray adds two dimmable 450-lumen headlight lights to illuminate your subject, which can be captured in 4K (30fps max) or 4,000 x 3,000-pixel stills. With a maximum ISO of 1600, the camera is more than capable in the depths the PowerRay can manage, though the 1/2.3-inch sensor could be bigger in a perfect world. 32 or 64Gb SD storage is provided depending on the version you choose (but you can put your own card in).
There is a PowerRay Explorer which is the basic video shooting drone, and a more expensive PowerRay Wizard edition which adds the PowerSeeker sonar device (which can detect the underwater landscape and use temperature data to identify fishing hotspots), bait dropper, and a carry-on friendly travel case and Zeiss VR One Goggles, which provide an alternative means of exploring the depths from the deck.
The latter isn’t just good fun, it makes enjoying the 1080p live feedback easier than on your phone screen on a bright day, although the price differential between the Explorer and Wizard versions is considerable in some stores.
Chasing is a big brand in the ROV world, and the M2 makes it obvious why. The eight corner-mounted thrusters are operated from a joypad-style control, so piloting through the water at a nifty 3 knots is an accessible experience to all.
The built-in camera is an ƒ/1.8 12 megapixel affair with a 1 / 2.3 CMOS and electronic stabilization so the motors shouldn’t disturb your footage. The 152˚ field of view is pretty wide. Video can be caught at 4K 30fps (up to 120fps is available at 1080p) but if you’re keen to capture with a GoPro there is a mount.
There are some exciting accessories for the M2, not least a robotic arm and a powered tether reel, or E-Reel, which will keep the tether out of the way automatically. There's also a swappable battery. If we could change anything, the lights would be further from the lens and brighter (they're 2 x 2000 lumens), but on the plus side, there are accessory rails.
The BW Space Pro might not be the fastest of the drones here, but it is a quality product built with photographers in mind, which is why it's offered with a range of different cameras, including a 6x zoom lens (the benefits of which, in water, are open to debate). The aperture is, relatively speaking, at the wider end (f/1.5) for underwater drones, which is a noticeable plus. The Pro version also brings AI object-tracking.
Some of the manufacturer's stability claims are perhaps slightly overstated; the four thrusters make tilting 45 degrees each way possible, but the Gladius Mini does the same with an extra thruster for stability. It’s also worth mentioning that predecessors with similar branding cannot even do the tilt, so be warned if you're searching around for cheaper versions online.
Still, the robot has a sturdy frame that can be thrown into the water from the bank without worry, and subsequent control is via the Dive App (iOS/Android) with depth hold and auto-adjusting lighting (maxing at 1,380 lumens each from both headlights). Included in the box is a joypad-like remote with a (slightly flimsy) phone clip. Optionally, a larger mini-tablet grip controller is available too.
This is a real traditionalist's underwater explorer robot, which is not only very capable but looks the part too (though is not actually quite as big as it might seem at first glance; viewed from above it’s about the size of a letter).
Control is via a generous 300m cable, supplied on a reel, and an iOS or Android app (unless you opt for the Ground Station). There is none of the design elegance of the PowerVision products; this is a device designed not in reference to aerodynamic drones and consumer products, but professional ones.
In order to give it the strength to do a job, the body houses four thrusters, meaning you can get enough force and direction behind the robot arm to lift up to 10kg of objects from beneath the waves. You might choose, for example, to assist environmental projects by lifting debris or litter, or you might fancy beating coastal (metal) detectorists by grabbing valuables before they wash up on the shore.
You can see what you’re doing from the camera, though oddly the focal length is such that the hands themselves are too near to be in perfect focus – not to the extent it’ll slow you down, though.
You can also record in 4K UHD onto the camera which provides 1080p live feedback as you explore the depths, illuminated by two 1000-lumen LEDs. ThorRobotics can also provide specially tailored versions with a 'Ground Station,’ or even longer cables.
Like its natural namesake, the PowerDolphin skims along the surface, able to see above and below. Piloting is very familiar to aerial drone operators, featuring as it does a phone-ready remote controller with an app that uses your phone as a monitor (this will be very familiar to PowerEgg X users since it’s the same controller and the same Vision+ 2 app! Available for Android or iOS).
While the craft remains on the surface, propelled forward by two propellers, the 4K camera can be expended on an arm to look an impressive 150 degrees down into the water, or 70 degrees above the surface in much the same way as an aerial drone’s camera gimbal can be tilted. Thanks to being above water, GPS return to home is available.
If you really just want to skim around the surface, you can make do with the PowerDolphin Standard pack, though the PowerDolphin Explorer adds a better remote and 800m range (though it helps to stand a few feet above the surface, say on a boat).
The PowerDolphin Wizard edition is definitely the best value though, including as it does the ‘PowerSeeker’ sonar device, which can be used to map the water bed or look for fish inefficient grid patterns, and a bait-dropping box to further push the odds in your favor.
If you feel you’d like to get down there with the glories of the deep rather than just pilot a camera then the Trident underwater scooter is the device for you. Built with a sizeable lithium battery to pull you along through the water, and simple controls the S2 builds on the success of their IndieGoGo-launched first generation.
Photographers are not forgotten though; there is a GoPro camera mount on the front so you can record your trip just by screwing on your underwater camera in its housing; not only is it nice to be saving on a camera you might well already have, but it’s also nice to know you need only upgrade as you choose.
The Trident is driven simply by squeezing the triggers on each arm – it’s almost too easy, which is why there is both a kids mode and an app that allows you to enable a ‘parent mode’ and remotely monitor your kids while preventing submersion. In normal use, it can dive, but if you let go it floats, even with a GoPro attached, which alleviates a few concerns.
Moocor’s fishing cameras offer an alternative to an underwater drone, sacrificing the control offered by thrusters and joysticks for the significantly lower investment required to dangle a camera below the surface – this should be enough for many, offering a perspective on fishing which you might have only imagined before. Set it up correctly and you’ll see the hook just before the lens.
If your primary purpose is a peek below the surface for fishing or just interest, then a big advantage to this is a relatively small and light battery – here 4,500mAh – can offer around six hours of power. On the downside, 1280 x 720 resolution, while offering a good view, certainly isn’t up there with 4K or 1080p, so you won’t be able to use the video for professional purposes. We would have also preferred to see a more modern codec for the video file.
See also: Best underwater fishing cameras
Choosing a drone to explore beneath the surface isn’t the same as picking your ideal aerial drone. While, on the plus side, you’re unlikely to be forced into a weight category by aviation authority regulations, flying drones do have the advantage of traveling through the air, where radio waves travel relatively freely. Water isn’t a friendly environment for remote control, and certainly not video signals, so you’ll need to work around a tether cable. Ensuring this doesn’t encroach on your video is a skill you’ll need to practice, though of course boat inspections and the like don’t require quite the same caution.
Typical commercial underwater drones, or ROVs, can reach depths between around 10 to 150 meters (30 to 492 feet). The deeper the water, the more pressure acts on the drone, so the stronger it needs to be. Specialist ROVs have probed much deeper; the wreck of the Titanic, at 4000m (13,000 feet), has been thoroughly explored, and there is even an autonomous underwater vehicle capable of exploring the Marinara Trench, three times that depth.
Most underwater drones have long tethering cables to the controls because water blocks the transmission of video and control signals. There is a drone, the Exray, by Hydromea, which bucks this trend. It uses 'optical communication tech' (flashing a light quickly) so still needs a base with a cord nearby.
No. There might be certain circumstances where specific locations are protected by local laws but, unlike aerial drones, ROVs have yet to attract the attention of legislators. It doesn't seem likely soon either, since there is no risk posed to air traffic or falling onto someone.
An alternative that might work for work close to the surface is a waterproof action camera like the DJI Osmo Action 4. That device’s ‘Adventure Combo’ comes with a 1.5m (5ft) extension pole which can be used to capture video from underwater, and a nice large image sensor that copes well with low light – ideal for following fish or inspecting small boats. You might not get the advantage of live view, but action cameras can be a lot of fun for the whole family (as my son is demonstrating in the photo). We keep a full list of the best waterproof cameras too.
flexible shielded data cables for robot Another option is a 360-degree action camera like the