The Holybro Kopis 2.5″ Cinewhoop is a compact yet high performance FPV drone designed to carry light weight HD cameras such as the naked GoPro and Insta360 GO 2. I love it’s pre-built, but is it better than DIY? Let’s find out.

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Wondering what’s a Naked GoPro? It’s basically a stripped down GoPro in a plastic case, check out my guide here: https://oscarliang.com/naked-gopro/

Where to Buy?

You can get the Kopis Cinewhoop from:

• No Vista/Nebula Pro: https://oscarliang.com/product-p87u
• With Vista/Nebula Pro: https://oscarliang.com/product-c7ol

Batteries are not included, check out my roundup on what batteries you should get, the recommended size for the Kopis is 4S 650mAh to 850mAh.

R-XSR receiver is not included, you can get it here:

• GetFPV
• Banggood
• Amazon

Get some spare props as well, they are Gemfan D65 5-blade:

• RDQ: https://oscarliang.com/product-awnf
• GetFPV: https://oscarliang.com/product-hoef
• Banggood: https://oscarliang.com/product-mqqk

It includes the following accessories:

• 1x Kopis cinewhoop2.5” FPV racing drone
• Nebula Pro Vista Kit (Optional)
• 1x Naked GoPro camera mount
• 4x D63-5B Propeller
• 2x Propeller guard
• 1x Carying case

Specs and Features

• FC: Kakute F4 V2 Mini
• ESC: Tekko32 F3 4in1 35A mini ESC
• Nebula Pro Camera with Vista Air Unit (DJI HD digital FPV system)
• Motor: T-Motor F1404 3800KV
• Propeller: Gemfan D63-5B
• Equipped with Buzzer
• XT30 LiPo Connector
• Wheelbase (Diagonal motor to motor distance): 105.5mm
• Arms thickness: 3mm carbon fiber
• Weight:
  • 157g Without battery and GoPro
  • 234g With 4S 650mAh, w/o GoPro
  • 262g with 4S 650mAh and GoPro
• Recommend battery (Not Included): 4S 550~850mAh

Flight Controller Specs:

• MCU: STM32F405RGT6 32-bit processor
• IMU: MPU6000 (SPI)
• Barometer: BMP280
• USB VCP Driver (all UARTs usable simultaneously; USB does not take up a UART)
• 5 hardware UARTS (UART1,3,4, 5, 6)
• Supports serial receivers (SBUS, iBus, Spektrum, Crossfire) only. PPM and PWM receivers are not supported.
• 128 Mbit memory for Blackbox logging

Firmware Related:

• Betaflight Firmware 4.2.6
• Board: HBRO/KAKUTEF4V2(STM32F405)
• BLHeli_32 Firmware 32.7
• ESC firmware target: Tekko32_F3_C

Closer Look

It comes in the same zipper soft case that they use for all of their RTF FPV drones. A little overkill for this tiny quad, but that would do :)

Note that there is no analog version, the Kopis 2.5inch Cinewhoop is designed for the DJI Vista and Caddx Nebula Pro camera.

The Nebula Pro is a new version released in early 2021, I’ve tested it and it’s just as good as the original DJI camera.

Out of the box, you can see there are two cables not connected to anything, they are for the R-XSR receiver and the Naked GoPro.

It comes two 3D-printed TPU mounts for different HD cameras: one for the Naked GoPro (BetaFPV version), and the other for the Insta360 GO camera.

Unfortunately Holybro just missed the release of Insta360’s latest GO 2 which is a slightly bigger camera than the GO. I hope in the future they could provide the TPU mount for the new GO 2.

It doesn’t come with radio receiver, but it’s pre-configured for the Frsky R-XSR, basically plug and play. I would normally use Crossfire, but it’s just easier to use the R-XSR in this case, so I don’t have to take the quad apart and re-solder the wires.

You do however need to find a spot to mount the RX and its antennas, which isn’t always straight forward on a whoop this small. This is how I do it.

The 3D printed parts are some of the nicest quality I have seen from an RTF drone. It would have been nicer if the GoPro mount was more rigid, I found it wobbles a bit when I push it.

Like I said, they already solder the cable for powering the Naked GoPro, also plug and play.

However I recommend removing the yellow wire which is meant for controlling the GoPro’s recording from your flight controller. I found this to be quite buggy and unreliable. To start/stop recording, I just use the buttons on the GoPro.

Connectors for the FC and DJI Vista are easily accessible, very user-friendly design.

The Kopis Cinewhoop uses a 2-board stack where the FC and 4in1 ESC are separate, not the more common Toothpick AIO (all in one) board design. This allows them to use more powerful and advanced ESC – indeed it’s a BLHeli_32 ESC which is rated for 35A. Such powerful ESC is rarely seen in 2.5″ whoops, for comparison, my Umma95X only uses 12A BLHeli_S ESC :D

There is a huge 35V 1000uF capacitor soldered to the power for noise filtering.

Removing the foam (held in place by double sided tape), reveals the 4in1 ESC. Solder joints look good.

One thing that is missing in many of these whoops are buzzer, but that’s available in the Kopis 2.5-inch Cinewhoop, just behind the FPV camera.

Here is the manual, there’s info about the BEC board for the Naked GoPro, and how to assemble the frame.

How to Setup Kopis 2.5inch Cinewhoop

Out of the box, the Kopis is running almost default Betaflight settings, so you have to set it up pretty much from ground up. Here is a list of things I did before my first flight.

1. Connect and Bind R-XSR receiver, and mount the antennas.

2. Activate Vista, and update firmware from 1.05 to 1.06, so you can use 50mbps mode.

3. Bind Vista to your DJI Goggles.

Betaflight Configurations

4. UART 6 had SmartAudio selected, not sure why they did that, but you can just disable it, and enable “MSP” instead. This is for DJI’s OSD and telemetry, e.g. displaying battery voltage on screen.

5. Set your own rates, here is mine. I also like to put a throttle limit at 95% because I don’t normally use full throttle on cinewhoops and that gives me a little more throttle resolution.

6. Other Betaflight settings:

• Enable bi-directional DShot and RPM filter
• Set arming angle to 180 (effectively disabling it)
• Enable DShot Beacon (enable RX_SET only)
• Set modes (arming, Horizon mode, beeper and turtle mode)

Here’s my CLI dump after I’ve configured the quad, sorry I forgot to save a copy of the original CLI dump, so i don’t have it.

I didn’t change any BLHeli32 settings, but in case you are curious here is a screenshot of the settings in BLHeliSuite32.

And we are ready for take off :)

My PID/Filter Tune

Enter these settings in CLI:

set iterm_relax_cutoff = 5 set rc_smoothing_auto_smoothness = 40 set ff_interpolate_sp = AVERAGED_4 set ff_smooth_factor = 50 set ff_spike_limit = 50 set ff_boost = 0 set feedforward_transition = 70 set yaw_lowpass_hz = 50 set throttle_boost = 2 set throttle_boost_cutoff = 10 set dyn_lpf_dterm_curve_expo = 8 set gyro_rpm_notch_q = 900 set iterm_windup = 75 set thrust_linear = 25 set anti_gravity_gain = 10000 set p_pitch = 54 set i_pitch = 81 set d_pitch = 57 set f_pitch = 86 set p_roll = 50 set i_roll = 77 set d_roll = 52 set f_roll = 81 set p_yaw = 53 set i_yaw = 81 set f_yaw = 81 set d_min_roll = 0 set d_min_pitch = 0 set d_min_yaw = 0 set deadband = 2 set yaw_deadband = 2 set dyn_notch_width_percent = 0 set dyn_notch_q = 200 set dyn_notch_min_hz = 100 set dyn_notch_max_hz = 400 save

Flight Performance

Time to talk about how it flies. I will be comparing the Holybro Kopis Cinewhoop to the Umma95X since they are in the same category. You can check out my build log of the Umma95X here.

Although the Kopis is not tuned by Holybro, it still flies pretty well out of the box, at least there is no jello or oscillation whatsoever. Enabling RPM filter might have helped too :)

Thanks to the bigger motors, it has a lot more power than the Umma95X, more control and it doesn’t have as much propwash when diving and doing slit-S. The Kopis is considerably heavier, but it’s feels more stable in windy condition and therefore in my opinion more suitable for outdoor flying. And I’d say noise level is about the same.

I am surprised that the Kopis actually gave me over 5 minutes of flight time when using 4S 650mAh (I was doing flips as well, not just cruising), you will get even longer flight time with a 850mAh. With the Umma95X, I was only getting around 4 minutes using a 3S 650mAh (motors KV are rated for only 3S).

Only complaint I have is the GoPro camera mount. It’s quite flexible and so you might get some tiny wobbles when doing acro moves. It doesn’t seem to be an issue though when cruising, the video gets smoothed out anyway using Reelsteady.

Conclusion

There are advantages to compact cinewhoop builds like the Umma95X, such as its low profile, but I just can’t recommend the Umma95X because how difficult it is to build and repair. There are many options that are designed to carry the naked GoPro, such as the Kopis 2.5″ Cinewhoop, you really don’t have to build it from scratch.

As usual coming from Holybro, the hardware and overall design of the Kopis Cinewhoop are just astounding. I wish Betaflight and RPM filter were configured in factory, and if the GoPro mount was a bit more rigid, it would have been a perfect whoop for me.

I probably have to redesign the TPU mount at some point to make it more sturdy.

It’s still going to replace my Umma95X. Yes, the Holybro Cinewhoop is a lot heavier, but flight performance and flight time are both better. Most importantly it’s MUCH easier to work with, at least I don’t have to take it apart just to connect the FC to Betaflight :)

And indeed my biggest complaint is the weight. Using any decent sized battery (like a 4S 650mAh) would be enough to put the quad over the 250g limit. But of course if you don’t care about weight limit then this wouldn’t be a problem for you.

And it’s easier to work on the GoPro too, like connecting the touch screen which is not possible with the Umma95X without taking the whole quad apart.

You can get the Kopis Cinewhoop from Banggood

• No Vista/Nebula Pro: https://oscarliang.com/product-p87u
• With Vista/Nebula Pro: https://oscarliang.com/product-c7ol

If the Kopis is too heavy for you, you should take a look at the BetaFPV 95X V3 which is nearly 45g lighter.