Toy drones continue to get smarter and more stable. Their controllers, on the other hand, remain a mess of sticks, buttons and switches that take a lot of practice to master.

The Aura drone from KD Interactive, on display this weekend at the New York Toy Fair 2017, fixes this by getting rid of the traditional controller altogether. In its place is a glove that lets you use hand gestures to pilot the quadcopter. Borrowed from military applications, the patented Gesturebotics technology powered by LocoRobo (a shortening of "low-cost robotics") requires little more than tilting and rotating your hand to fly it.

Simplifying the controls doesn't mean you still won't crash, so KD includes a protective cage that'll let it roll up walls, across floors and ceilings as well as bounce off obstacles. It'll also have a headless mode, meaning no matter what direction the drone is facing it will always fly in the direction you want it to, and it will have height as well as distance limitations for added safety.

The Aura is in production now and will sell for $100 when it ships this fall. That converts to about £80 or AU$130.