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Comment by oh_sigh | Hacker News Reader

DJI is the only major company that I've experienced demands you install an APK on your android instead of providing something via the app store. Something is completely broken with their software development, though their hardware seems quite nice.

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That maybe due to US sanctions against DJI and they can't put apps in the play store. [1]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59703521

Nope. They have apps on the iOS App Store just fine. DJI Fly for iOS was last updated 4 days ago.

Apple may have paperwork DJI can fill out while Google may not. Being compliant can be a huge ordeal and it is quite possible Google does not offer what is required.

Alternatively it's probably a lot cheaper to offer an apk while for Apple there is no other option than the app store requiring all kinds of paperwork and lawyer fees.

DJI used to have the "Mimo" app in the play store. It was rated very low, 2.3 stars. The app required users to allow the permission to read the phone's IMEI. If you denied that permission, the app closed. Myself, and I'm sure plenty of others, have reported this to the play store as something against the play store policies. Perhaps Google gave in to the complaints eventually and told DJI, enough is enough with your crap, who knows... And that made DJI say, "enough is enough with _you_, we're big enough to distribute these outside the play store and keep our invasive tracking and permissions".

Page visible only if you have installed the app in the past: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dji.mimo

The drone apps work for me although installing the APKs is annoying and I moved on to litchi anyway. At least my very old spark still works.

The mimo app on the other hand is straight up garbage. The thing never works right if it even connects to the device at all. I regret buying that thing (it's the osmo mobile version 2 or 3). It's so bad I don't think I will ever buy a new dji device.

I love flying my spark but the battery life is trash and my Air 2 isn't fun to fly (it's more of a utility van than a fun little sports car). I'd love to get a replacement for my spark. It's probably better to just build my own at this point.

Or there is something strange in that APK from China

I own a HEXA robot, I was a kick starter and paid a price for it.

When I first purchased the robot it never required phone GPS. And that now if you disable it at any point it disconnects you from the robot. It sits gaining dust because I wish not to use an IOS app with GPS enabled for no reason.

Questioning support to why this is required they said "people are happy with GPS on" and that was that.

I look at it sadly because it runs Linux, has full root access and so much potential. But, I just don't like the fact that could be potentially tracking GPS coords back to HQ.

Frustrating stuff!

The one good experience I've had with customer support for a hardware+software company was for the Eufy cameras by Anker.

Opening the app would stop the audio stream that was playing. No reason to do that while showing me a list of cameras. The audio stream should have been interrupted only once one selects a camera to view and listen to.

I wrote customer support and after some explanation and friction, they understood and a fix was released about two months later.

Eufy, the company who'd send your footage to their cloud unencrypted even if you didn't have cloud storage enabled?

https://gizmodo.com/eufy-local-security-camera-cloud-unencry...

On that note, does there exist a company I could buy cameras to install at home, that 1) doesn't force me to go through some cloud, and 2) sells products to European market? I was excited about buying some Amcrest cameras, only to then discover it fails point 2) - I can't just get them without complex and expensive sourcing process, and should I do it anyway, jumping over the voltage difference between US and EU grids.

(I mean, I probably could make Amcrest stuff work if I tried hard enough, but I am at the age where spare time is precious, so I was looking for something that I could order and install without hassle or tinkering with mains electricity.)

Ubiquiti cameras check all three of those boxes.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Maybe I was wrong, I always thought Ubiquity was literally the definition of "network hardware, except as a cloud service".

They definitely have Meraki MRR envy but nothing they've tried so far has really stuck. However, aside from network gear, every product line is an island that does not interop with anyone else's products.

UniFi Protect only runs on their NVRs and "Dream" routers and only works with UniFi cameras. The wireless cameras only work with Protect because otherwise there's no way to get them on the network. Once a camera is paired to Protect, you cannot get a standard RTSP stream directly from it (but you can restream RTSP from Protect). They've got a Doorbell camera that doesn't send ring notifications or video to HomeKit / Alexa / Google Home.

There's hack-y stuff to make Protect work with standard RTSP cameras. And a HomeBridge plug-in to get HomeKit. But it's all subject to breakage and YMMV.

All that said, Protect is pretty great. I'm a (mostly) happy home user.

If you have full root access can't you fake the GPS toggle?

I've looked in to that. The GPS toggle is app-bound where that if the app detects it's off, it kills the connection.

I assume HEXA isn't a drone then? There's legit (well, at least regulations) reasons why they'd need GPS for that. But if it's ground based that's silly.

Hexa is advertised as a multi-functional all-terrain robot. No drone capacities.

My educated guess is that the company Vincross sold their tech to the Chinese Military back in 2017 and China is being China.

It is a very nifty robot, the company still exists but feels as an empty shell.

Is the connection to the robot using Bluetooth Low Energy? I believe certain BLE-related APIs are gated behind the permission setting because scanning for BLE beacons can give the app very precise location.

Would be nice if users could give BLE permissions but _not_ GPS or wifi-based location permission to an app.

> Would be nice if users could give BLE permissions but _not_ GPS or wifi-based location permission to an app.

Not sure about iOS, but Android supports that for several years now (to the point where a given app only gets BLE access to one device it cares about which prevents data leakage).

Unfortunately not. The connection is via WiFi, you connect to it's WiFi network.

This is supposed to be against app store policy, but I haven't found a clear way to report these sorts of violations. You can contact a regular support person, but in my experience they just say that if the app passed approval, then I must be incorrect.

The McDonald's app does some similar BS. You can't do anything in the app without granting the "precise GPS" permission, using a digital coupon in-store requires full GPS permission. If you use the "Ask me each time if I want to share" option, it will still reject you and tell you it needs to be always-on.

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