DJI Mini 4 Pro | Hacker News Reader

DJI Mini 4 Pro

dji.com

406 pointsFoivos439 comments

I've had the original Mini since it came out.

Other than damaging a prop from it hitting a blade of grass on landing it is in perfect shape. Yes, they are so fragile I landed very smoothly in the grass and soft grass is enough to damage the props!

I don't fly it as much as I used to. These new ones are certainly an engineering marvel with how much they have added and still kept it under 249g.

The big one to me though is the wind resistance. 10.7m/s is 23mph. The original specs 17mph. It is hard to say at which point it starts having trouble, but 23mph is a non-trivial improvement, it probably means 2x as many days you can actually fly.

Now the things that suck about DJI, and I wonder if they are actually at all improved with a new drone:

- Geofencing sometimes locks you out of legal flights, no way around that unless you can jailbreak

- Some legal flights require you going through an unlock process, and if the DJI web infrastructure is having a bad day you also get locked out of flying in a legal place

I would probably buy from another competitor, especially a US one, just over the unlock experience with DJI.

I'd like to find a good competitor too, and not just because of the geofencing. DJI has been identified as a national security threat by the US DOD, essentially because there's no way to be sure that every second of GPS-tagged video shot by a DJI drone isn't going into a giant server farm owned by the Chinese intelligence service.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/270608...

> there's no way to be sure that every second of GPS-tagged video shot by a DJI drone isn't going into a giant server farm owned by the Chinese intelligence service.

I checked your source and it didn’t back up this claim.

I’m not a networking specialist but isn’t it possible to detect if something is transmitting a massive amount of data (such as video) to an undetermined destination?

seems like this type of blatant data export would be easy to detect and subsequently ban the device doing it.

I’m just a simple software developer, so the network stuff can go over my head sometimes (heh), but the claim that such a large amount of data is being transmitted in a way that couldn’t be confirmed enough to ban the product seems dubious.

You do not need to transmit the video first. But coordinate or interested person. Even a sport watch can be a security threat as demo by some exercise army personnel. They just know who and when and where these places are.

For the transfer part it is much harder as said and easier to detect in peace time.

But then what happen in war or proxy-war time. You have to know how many senior Russians are killed by using a phone …

> Even a sport watch can be a security threat as demo by some exercise army personnel.

In the early days of the Afghan (or was it Iraq?) war, people used Strava to figure out the locations of American bases. They'd see a bunch of smart watches suddenly wake up in the morning and start exercising at the same time, a dead giveaway.

Given the volume of data, they can just box up the hard drives and ship via container ships or planes.

I assume he means at the device level.

Also a national security threat because they're game changing weapons and they make the most and best of them.

Best because of the price not the performance. Though the outrageousness of the black hornet drone costing 200K is too much. https://flymotionus.com/2021/11/05/flirs-black-hornet-is-the...

> identified as a national security threat by the US DOD, essentially because there's no way to be sure that every second of GPS-tagged video shot by a DJI drone isn't going into a giant server farm owned by the Chinese intelligence service.

There are far more obvious reasons for that. These drones are of enormous military value. By buying them, US consumers are funding an obvious foreign military hardware production. US money may well be funding production of drones which may once be used to correct artillery strikes on Los Angeles.

DJI are particular seem to work in concert with "military civilian fusion," and have hardware, and software to defeat both very serious jamming, and attempts to fry its radio with pulsed microwaves. Military jammers for 2.4g band seemingly have near 0 effect.

>US money may well be funding production ...

This statement would be correct for any product of Chinese origin - no?

Jammers don't have much effect because of the frequency hopping technology of 2.4ghz band used by hobbyist has been improved upon for years. We used to have flags and announce use frequency during the FM days, now we just go out and race without worrying about interference with other users.

That release is about using DJI drones in government and military installations. There is not a suggestion that DJI is being used to do wide spread civilian spying.

Meanwhile in the US...

I had the original mini too. Really fun, but mine is RIP in the water under a waterfall ravine. It's hard to say whether it was a GPS bug, a gust of wind, or just my own fault, but as I was shooting a video next to some rock walls, it went towards the rocks and I couldn't get it back. After the first hit it tumbled and hit some vegetation, and then it went all the way down, no way to recover.

It's a good thing the new ones have collision avoidance, it could likely have saved mine back then. I'll someday get one of the newer ones, it was pretty fun and an impressive piece of engineering. Sometimes I think to myself "this would be a really great shot with the drone", or wish I had it to scout some terrain ahead when hiking or exploring. It's a pretty cool gadget!

My friend was flying his, lost it and asked it to fly back to him and it went absolutely full speed into a waterfall about 10 meters in front of us.

It was hard not to chuckle.

RIP.

I think it's a good thing the props are fragile as the motor would be damaged if the props hit an object without absorbing the force of impact.

haha, check out freestyle fpv. you won't believe what the motors can survive.

Do you have a recommendation of a drone with similar features that doesn't require jailbreaking?

Autel drones tend to fall around a generation behind DJI's in terms of capability, and they don't have geofencing. Unfortunately, they are much more expensive like-for-like and if you are also concerned about China, they share the same China-problems.

There are no US or European drones that really come close, unfortunately. Parrot are 2-3+ generations behind DJI in terms of capability: wireless link, camera, and even basic flight stability are all quite a distance behind. Skydio had unique autonomy capabilities which were really cool but were a long way behind in controller capability, camera, and wireless tech and exited the consumer market.

Honestly, DJI no-fly zones in the US are not too onerous in my opinion - most of the places that are banned probably should be banned. I would recommend a DJI drone with a standalone remote (to avoid needing to install DJI apps on your phone). However, generally speaking in Europe their no fly zones are more restrictive and can be quite frustrating.

I think it's also worth pointing out that DJI's first-party app isn't required to operate many of their drones. Most of their drones, apart from all but the most recent (i.e. the one this announcement is about probably won't have support for a while, but the previous gen will) has support through apps like Litchi and Dronelink via the developer API, which have additional features and don't have the exact same permissions/data requirements as DJI's first-party apps.

[1] https://flylitchi.com/

[2] https://www.dronelink.com/

I've heard good things about Skydio.

They have discontinued their consumer products sadly: https://www.skydio.com/blog/skydio-to-sunset-consumer-drone-...

> The big one to me though is the wind resistance. 10.7m/s is 23mph. The original specs 17mph. It is hard to say at which point it starts having trouble, but 23mph is a non-trivial improvement, it probably means 2x as many days you can actually fly.

That’s a huge one for me as well (also own a mini). I live near the sea and the number of days you can actually fly is surprisingly low. 23mph is still pretty low, but I understand the weight vs windspeed tradeoff.

I have a race drone. It was fun to fly it through tall grass like a weed whacker.

The first few props were super brittle and shattered at the slightest botched landing. I also think they were poorly designed with no fillets, so the stresses would concentrate at the base of the blades and the plastic would crack.

A bought another couple of bags of props, and they were MUCH higher quality. Often I can just bend a blade back after a rough crash landing.

Are there any good US competitors recommend?

As a consumer, honestly, go for DJI.

A few years ago, assuming you had been willing to pay more for something worse but for ideological reasons (like you would buy a Fairphone, I totally get that), I would have adviced for an Anafi. But now the Anafi AI and Anafi USA are a lot more expensive, that's not for consumers anymore IMHO.

As a company, if you cannot go for DJI, then the alternatives to Mavic are Parrot Anafi and Skydio, I guess. For the bigger drones (like the Matrice series), honestly it's hard. Just be prepared to pay a lot more for a much worse product.

Parrot (Anafi) is French

Yeah, I assumed that the question was about "non-chinese drones".

No because DJI, XPENG, BYD, and a ton of other Chinese companies have this 'move fast and break things' mentality X100 that most American firms don't have. They ran circles around GoPro and their attempts. Closest analog is Tesla/SpaceX but who knows if even those guys last long term when the guy running it is so easily distracted by nonsense (eg. Buying Twitter, starting yet another company, playing hours of Polytopia etc. )

> No because DJI, XPENG, BYD, and a ton of other Chinese companies have this 'move fast and break things' mentality X100 that most American firms don't have.

Respectfully, that's ridiculous. The Silicon Valley has a long tradition of "move fast and break things".

No no no, this time, it's just that the Chinese companies are simply a lot better than the Western drone companies. Yes, there are many excuses to make ("it's cheaper for them"), but even without considering the price, the Western drones mostly feel like DJI 10 years ago.

The Parrot Anafi has been fairly nice for a few years now, but for some reason Parrot struggles to sell them (I suspect that US companies dismiss them because they are not from the US?). Skydio just announced a new drone that seems reasonable. Both quite a lot more expensive than DJI, so here is your excuse.

>Respectfully, that's ridiculous. The Silicon Valley has a long tradition of "move fast and break things".

Some companies do...like Tesla, SpaceX, and Netflix. Their iteration rate is amazing.

>No no no, this time, it's just that the Chinese companies are simply a lot better than the Western drone companies. Yes, there are many excuses to make ("it's cheaper for them"), but even without considering the price, the Western drones mostly feel like DJI 10 years ago.

You haven't explained why? Move fast and break things mean to iterate fast, that includes finding way to cut the cost, improve specs, and just make the overall product better.

>The Parrot Anafi has been fairly nice for a few years now, but for some reason Parrot struggles to sell them (I suspect that US companies dismiss them because they are not from the US?). Skydio just announced a new drone that seems reasonable. Both quite a lot more expensive than DJI, so here is your excuse.

Is it or is it not competitive what what DJI is selling on the market? These drones are a innovation smorgasbord in so many different fields: cameras, weight, embedded electronics, avionics, and not to mention their software is good enough to not make people dismiss all the other things and go elsewhere. The fact they can offer all of that at a lower price point is (in my opinion) a sign of things to come in other industries: electric cars, space travel, renewable energy.

>Respectfully, that's ridiculous. The Silicon Valley has a long tradition of "move fast and break things".

The SV doesn't do hardware for the most part, and any companies (SV or not) that do hardware, don't iterate that way and that fast. Watching GoPro evolve is like watching molasses.

Something like Tesla would be one of a few of counter-examples...

I'm not going to argue against the fact that the Chinese firms can't and don't do better than American firms (because they can and do do better in many cases), except that it's impossible to know how much or to what extent Chinese firms have financial (or other) backing from the government there. It's an open secret that many "strategic" industries get varying levels of support, often under the table.

BUT: However they got there, DJI is so far ahead on the consumer/commercial side I can't in good faith recommend any alternatives unless you're doing work for the federal and some sensitive state-level government entities.

Come on. American software startups literally invented that motto. Just because you may be working at a slower paced company doesn't mean America does not have it.

They invented the motto for BS social apps and pivoting until they're bought or IPOed.

Not the same as hardware at all.

American startups are only focused on getting an ipo or exit as soon as possible. Such thing doesnt exist in the mentality of the Chinese.

I did label a few American companies that are operating at that speed. Nevertheless in many different fields China is determined to win and they will move as fast as possible to make that happen. Its a foregone conclusion in Renewable energy, nuclear, a lot of consumer electrics, and soon EVs.

American companies invented it as a marketing label to sell to VCs. Chinese companies actually do it

I think I paid 300€ for a Mini Fly More Combo slightly used (under 10 hours or flight time according to the drone).

It's a fun toy, but can't stand the wind at all, so it's a bit nerve wracking to fly it over open water if it's not completely calm :D

I really do want the Mini 4 Pro, but can't justify the 1000€+ price tag with the proper controller.

I've got the original Mini too, and I had never encountered this before until very recently when I tried to fly it in the US.

What happens if you turn off your cellular data (or are simply out of reception) ? Does it let you fly it anywhere then?

In Australia and the Canadian Arctic I basically never had reception, and it never cared once.

I fly on a cell phone without a SIM card. Basically, if you haven't logged-in in the last 30 days, your flights are limited quite a lot. You can only fly so far (100ft?), and so high. I just make sure to log in and get all firmware/map updates over WiFi before I leave on trips and have been fine.

Another gripe about DJI for video use is that they rip you off for a "license" to use CinemaDNG... which is an open, license-free codec.

Isn’t this because they have to pay Red for their ridiculous patent of compressed raw video?

CinemaDNG is not always compressed. I have a BlackMagic camera that records uncompressed CinemaDNG. Also, DJI has gotten around some of this by putting the recorder in the body of the drone, making it technically not part of the camera.

However, the oft-repeated claim that Red's patent applies only to internal raw recording does not hold up when you consider that Apple and Atomos have to pay extortion for ProRes Raw, which is used in EXTERNAL recorders.

It's also only available bundled with ProRes, although it's almost certain there's also some backroom RED RAW-racket deal going on too.

I have a friend that builds his own drones (and RC vehicles, like a really big, fast tank). He sneers at DJI, but keeps one to entertain the mensch (that's me).

He also sneers at licensing, jailbreaking, geofencing, etc.

I notice that there aren't any pictures that actually show people in close proximity to the drone. The "drone in hand" picture looks photoshopped, so I assume the drone is actually not-so-mini. I have a teeny-tiny drone, about half the size of a sparrow. It doesn't have cameras, though.

The size of the drone is not some secret... you can search for the Mini 4 Pro on YouTube and find a bunch of hands-on reviews.

The DJI Mini drones are very compact. The DJI Air 3 is arguably the next level up in the lineup, and it weighs 3x as much and is noticeably larger. The "teeny-tiny drone" you're describing just doesn't sound comparable or particularly useful.

It isn’t useful at all.

Quite boring, frankly.

I just realized the DJI that my friend has, is a mini.

It’s small, but some of his hand-built ones are smaller.

> The "drone in hand" picture looks photoshopped, so I assume the drone is actually not-so-mini.

Folded (without propellers): 148×94×64 mm (L×W×H)

Unfolded (with propellers): 298×373×101 mm (L×W×H)

would love to get an alternative but it doesn't seem like anyone else is getting anywhere near the flight times that dji has. all the non dji drones I've seen list 8 min while dji is saying 15-20 min.

There are lots of them like the Explorer LR that are under the 250g limit, and get 30-40 minute runtime.

That said in the hobbyist community power is more interesting than range. I have a DJI mini 2 and the technology is impressive but honestly, it puts me to sleep compared to my 100MPH mini quad. Every time I use it (once every few months) I have to update the app, use a trash remote, and install all this spyware on my phone.

Hmm… it’s interesting, the reaction I got to this personal anecdote.

It is what it is. This chap exists, and I talk to him, almost every day. He has a great deal of enthusiasm, and does interesting work. I am sure his approach is quite common, in the HN crowd.

My friend is not your typical DJI customer, and his approach is no threat to them. People like him have always been around. It’s like people that mod cars. They don’t threaten the mainstream.

But the reaction seems to have been quite defensive.

Beware that DJI's software to control these craft is super sketchy to install and use. It doesn't exist in the Google Play Store, to avoid inspection.

DJI is fully compliant with China's policy of civil-military fusion. Anyone flying anywhere sensitive should not use them. They're beaming back home whatever they want, and China is using both tech and data to give an asymmetric advantage to allies like Russia in the Ukraine war.

Both fronts use DJI drones[0][1], although DJI suspended its activities in both Russia and Ukraine as of April 26, 2022[2] and contractually forbids[3] any sales by dealers to either country and for combat use.

However, other actors are entering the war business, like Parrot[4].

[0]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NtgseODXGSAomx6G5Efw...

[1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/16/ukraine-russia-war-dron...

[2]: https://www.dji.com/uk/newsroom/news/dji-statement-on-sales-...

[3]: https://www.dji.com/newsroom/news/dji-statement-on-dji-relat...

[4]: https://www.lesechos.fr/weekend/high-tech-auto/henry-seydoux...

Not so long ago there was a post / comment here that said Ukraine's going through around 10K DJI drones per month

They still use mostly DJI drones by burning an older firmware and using an anonymizer to hide takeoff and pilot's position from a potential aeroscope. DJI's are pretty cheap and really good at what they are doing.

>They're beaming back home whatever they want

This claim is always thrown out like a life preserver without ever anything to back it up. Do you have anything to support this claim?

They're cloud based, aren't they? So regardless of what they're doing with the data, it's true that they're (figuratively) beaming it back, although parent is admittedly implying more.

I accept that chinese authorities generally have access to anything they want to in the country, so I would buy that they have access to drone data.

Given the history of China and its tech companies, the burden of proof shifted to their shoulders.

So, I turn to them: is there anything that proves its a surveillance-free device? No, they cannot assure that.

Someone may not like it, but China now has a very, very bad reputation among people in the West. Especially after the last pandemic and how they handled it.

Does the app function without an encrypted connection to DJI controlled servers?

If so, then there is nothing else needed. People forget how sketchy closed source software is.

While I myself still wouldn't ever use DJI because of this reason, no can ever provide any concrete claim. Quite hilarious.

How do Ukrainian operators avoid exposing their own positions? Do they install custom firmware on their drone?

You can operate the drones without a connected device. Operator location is done by locating the radio source. It would be better to have repeaters and cable transmitter to them to avoid direct strike.

Tech people are usually paranoid by the most unlikely scenarios. A soldier with an antenna can pinpoint the operator location much easier than trying to get this kind of info from china without leaks.

Yes they root the device and set operator coordinates to 0,0 so they are not picked up by aeroscope, etc

jailbreaks.

Good luck using my backyard data to fight in Ukraine…

But yet it exists on the Apple App store where I am sure Apple has inspected it.

I guess the Android version could be a lot different, but why?

Why wouldn't apple let software just work as a proxy between the drone and dji?

You don't need camera access, location services, etc when the drone does all of it onboard.

I got a mavic early on and sent it back because you needed the app and an account to activate it and fly it, even manually.

iOS does not allow sideloading. Android does. That would be enough difference. You can still enforce app permissions on apps outside the store on Android, like location and cameras etc only when using the app and so on.

I'm not sure if you're joking. Apple's business depends on them bending the rules for China.

I’m not sure how that is any more true for Apple vs Google? Every tech company relies heavily on China for business.

Is there actual evidence that Apple is bending the rules for them? If true, that would be quite a scoop!

Is this a new thing?

I had the original Mavic Mini and installed the DJI Fly App (v1.2.1 on my phone now) from the Play Store.

edit: here's the listing: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dji.go.v5

Though it doesn't show up in search from the web.

edit 2: The Android download on their site is definitely an APK and not a Play Store link: https://www.dji.com/downloads/djiapp/dji-fly

Why in the world would they need to do this?

Even their play store app downloads a bundle of files to run after you launch it for the first time, which is against Google ToS.

Is it? Pretty much any serious game on Android does this.

>>It doesn't exist in the Google Play Store, to avoid inspection.

I think the real issue is more complicated than that, but, whatever.

I use their software only for administrative tasks - updates, etc. For routine use I would recommend something like Litchi.

Fwiw, Litchi is based on their SDK, so you're not really avoiding their software by using it.

True, but you ARE getting a google play store app for those that find that comforting.

https://flylitchi.com/help is only available for older models, not for the Mini 3/4 models.

One easy (albeit a little costly) solution here is to use the DJI Android-tablet remote (DJI RC / RC 2).

If you use their controller, you no longer need the app on a phone (e.g. to fly in restricted locations)? That would be nice.

Honestly if I was as large as DJI I would avoid publishing in the play (and Apple app if it were possible) store as well and save the wasted time of the constant pointless review rejections.

>It doesn't exist in the Google Play Store, to avoid inspection.

I thought that was because the company was sanctioned by the US, and therefore google can't work with them?

investment exclusion list. DJI is not a publicly-traded company.

I downloaded the apk file and installed it, but for some reason I can't fly app to work on the S20. It just says can't connect to controller.

Huh, they used to exist.. It's almost as if some OS SDK changed that restricted what hardware could do.. weird.

I don’t have any of these, but is the software some apk you download, and at that point can’t that be inspected?

Who inspects APKs?

The Play Store has all kind of automated and manual processes to detect malware and vulnerabilities. It's why I don't enable side-loading on my phone.

Please tell me you're joking or missing the sarcasm tag.

The Play Store is notorious for allowing absolute garbage apps in, regardless of the "risks" of sideloading.

The APK is a thin shell that downloads even more code to execute, from the internet. So, what you download and inspect isn't what's executed, and what you execute now might be different in 5 minutes.

Ok understood. That was the context I was missing. Thanks

Not surprising from a Chinese company

also, the software will run fine w/o internet...

Streaming 1080p/60fps up to 20km wirelessly is mind boggling to me. What kind of tech is used to make that happen? seems like it'd require a lot of power.

The video quality degrades at longer distances. You can't get the full bandwidth at the maximum distance, but you might see enough to navigate.

Communicating with a drone up in the sky is easier than something like your WiFi or your cell phone because you have a nice, clear line of sight to the drone. Fly behind a hill, building, or some trees at distance and the drone will lose connection and go into safety mode.

The free space path loss at 20kM is 126dB at 2.4GHz in perfect conditions, or 134dB at 5.8GHz. If you start with the 1 Watt nominally allowed by regulations, that's +30dBm. Subtract 126dB and you're left with -96dBm. That's a weak signal, but it's actually close to the receive sensitivity of the WiFi card in your laptop, believe it or not. I would guess the DJI gear uses narrower channels than WiFi to achieve a better noise floor than the 20MHz (or wider) channels you get with WiFi.

The 20km figure is really an extreme upper limit. Realistically you'd probably need a high-gain antenna pointed in the direction of the drone to achieve it.

That's super interesting! Would you have resources to recommend to learn about that?

For instance: where do you get that "the free space path loss at 20kM is 126dB at 2.4GHz in perfect conditions, or 134dB at 5.8GHz"? And why does 1 Watt translate to +30dBm?

https://www.antenna-theory.com/ is a good starter for apprentice-level RF voodoo.

30 dBm = 30 decibels wrt to 1 milliwatt. 10 decibels = 1 bel = 10-fold increase of the base quantity, so 30 decibels = 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000x increase, so 30 dBm = 1000x 1 mW = 1 W.

I don't know enough to offer any real sources, but I'll share that I've found ChatGPT very useful for learning stuff like this - really solidly documented and established science/engineering.

I asked* "When making a wireless transmission what is the signal loss at 20km for 2.4Ghz?" and it gave an excellent explanation of free space path loss, stepped through the calculations, and gave the correct answer.

I've had it explain various kinds of first-order filters, especially for electric guitar circuits too. And asking follow up questions works well with how my brain works.

*Link in case you are curious: https://chat.openai.com/share/d0fcf90e-9d2e-4078-9bb4-60717f...

Cool stuff.

I suspect military communications uses wattage MUCH stronger than what's allowed by regulation in the battle space, correct?

Lower Frequencies, More power, more directionality, more digital signal Processing are the four ways to increase range.

Each has their own disadvantages and advantages, so it's always a tradeoff.

The channels can't be too narrow bandwidth and still fit any sort of 1080p video feed in them. If I'm remembering my signals courses right, raw 1080p at 60fps would need something like 6GHz, so even at 100:1 compression they'd still need 60MHz channels.

DJI OcuSync is based on LTE: https://www.suasnews.com/2022/05/the-dji-p1-and-s1-fpv-chips... is an example of more information.

This is a major advantage DJI and other Chinese drone makers have over US based ones. Technically acquiring an SDR/DSP implemented LTE baseband is not a major difficulty. Getting Qualcomm to let you is quite a challenge.

Looking at FCC listings and product pages you can tell that DJI are also throwing power at the problem. The EIRP on DJI devices is very high. They go up to 33dBm (2W EIRP) on the most modern devices like the Mini 4 Pro.

> DJI OcuSync is based on LTE: https://www.suasnews.com/2022/05/the-dji-p1-and-s1-fpv-chips... is an example of more information.

Is it using LTE bands? Or just LTE technology on non-licensed bands?

Keep in mind that this only applies to the FCC regulations. In Europe (CE regulations) the claimed range is 10 km.

The mini 3 pro has a CE regulations claimed range of 8 km, but after 2.5 km I pretty much loose connection. If I turn the drone to face my direction, I might be able to fly it a bit further, but at this point it is so hard to control it, that there is no point.

Btw, according to regulations, you can not fly it without line of sight. So, in practice the "legal" range is a few hundrend meters. I have yet to see an observer with binoculars. :)

You're not allowed to use binoculars.

If I claim to see the drone even if it's very far away, can anyone dispute that?

Hand me the controls and tell me if I'm steering it left, right, up, or down. If you can, congrats! You can see it. If not...

I had the original mini with at most 800m range in CE regulations in the middle of nowhere. Pretty dissappointing. I lost it to the sea anyways.

Hmm, 2.5km?

I've flown the original DJI Mavic Pro to about 4-5km multiple times and never had any real issue with the video feed.

I'd be surprised if this much newer gen is worse.

Which country was that? The drone detects the country through GPS upon startup and limits its transmission power according to the local laws.

In the US, the drone can use way higher transmission power (~ 4-20 times more, depending on the drone) .

Transmitting long distances lives on a kind of spectrum. On the one end you have MOAR PWER and on the other end you have signals analysis and robust codecs (? I'm not sure "codec" is right. Maybe encoding? Can someone answer this?) that allow for lost information. The signals analysis will clean the incoming signal and the codec/encoding will allow for robust recreation of the captured data.

Most wireless transmission technology lives somewhere in-between the extremes of the above spectrum. Signals analysis is quite advanced and codecs/encodings are also quite advanced at this point.

My RF knowledge is hobbyist only but I think the word you're looking for is "modulation", e.g. LoRa is able to work over significant distances at low power because of its clever chirp spread spectrum modulation method.

The longest range drone control channel, ELRS, is basically LoRa.

> I'm not sure "codec" is right. Maybe encoding?

Numerology

First off, those numbers are a huge asterisk for perfect atmospheric conditions.

In reality you will see about a 2km max in relatively clear conditions, and as few as half a km in even normal suburban/urban conditions.

This is my experience with the mini 3. It’s incredible for sure, but once some trees and/or structures are in the way, it falls apart in a hurry.

Is there any system that works for at least 10-20km without line of sight, supporting a video feed usable for guidance, without cell phone network coverage?

Maybe something where there are two drones, and one flies high with line of sight to both the user and the low-flying drone so that it can act as a relay like a satellite would?

Or something that uses radio frequencies that bounce over the atmosphere, and if bandwidth is not enough uses an automated pilot plus the ability to send photos every few seconds so the user can tell it in which general direction it should fly?

Or something that uses Starlink/Iridium/etc. to relay data?

Light drones are great, but how far away are we from quiet consumer drones? I'd love to not have every hike ruined by some wannabe videographer.

The mini is pretty damn quiet. At 50ft of altitude people don't hear it. AT 100ft of altitude people don't even see it.

I've flown one hundreds of times and other than other drone owners no one has ever said a thing or noticed. The drone owners notice and come over to talk drones.

I've been annoyed by drones lots of times and never talked to the operators. It's not because I didn't notice.

Perhaps but I fly my Mini 2 regularly, and people have a hard time finding it in the sky even when I point it out to them at 100ft. At 200ft it might as well not exist. They are so small and light, they just don't put out the dBs like bigger drones.

It's a question of what you got annoyed by, the point was a 100mph home built FPV drone is dramatically louder, and the way they get flown makes a lot more noise.

I've been annoyed and not talked to people too, but it was never the noise, it was blatant violation of the law flying over crowds, etc..

Lots of people avoid confrontation

Definitely this. This summer a guy was flying a drone over a popular park area where lots of people were swimming in the river; it was extremely annoying. I'm pretty sure the drone was above the legal weight limit too, and as I have a UAV license, I'm well aware that it's illegal to operate a drone directly above other people. I spotted the guy with the drone controls but decided not to talk to him about it, because I couldn't be certain that someone as inconsiderate as that wouldn't necessarily react violently.

There's the "if you're breaking this social convention, I'm not willing to figure out how many others you'll break" problem.

Of course! Only drone owners have working ears. Could it be that everyone notices but they just don't want to speak with some rude drone dude.

I have noticed that it really depends on the wind direction. If the wind blows from the drone towards the people, you could hear it at 50 meters. Plus, when there is a lot of wind it makes much more noise in its struggle to fight it. Otherwise, unless it is directly next to you, you can hardly hear anything.

My biggest crowd are children and pets. They always seem to be amused by the drone.

The others do not say a thing because they are polite probably :)

I got a proper bollocking when checking out some newly built houses with my drone, one of which I was thinking about buying. The lady thought I was trying to film her garden, probably warranted since I took off not far from her residential house. I've learned to stay further away from people while flying since, which the rules dictate anyway.

I had the same thought seeing the hero videos on this page displaying beautiful mountain scapes and vistas - I wouldn't want to be the person disturbing this space with an intrusive drone.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

I read over their product page and, like always, I'm absolutely amazed that these things exist now and can capture such amazing video and photography at their price point. I'd love to get one to use.

But I won't buy one, because every time I go out now to the beach or on a hike, I see people with things like these and I just cannot stand them. I hate the ridiculous noise, I hate the fact that these people are filming things in the middle of streets and sidewalks and trails and generally putting themselves in the center of everything and inconveniencing everyone else just to 'get their shot'. I hate the idea that I am potentially being filmed by some random kids with a high speed camera on the drone hovering out over the park bench I'm resting on.

And because I hate these things, I will not buy one, because I do not want to turn into the annoyances that I feel, no matter how cool the tech looks.

That... or... I'm secretly afraid that I'd buy it and not actually have anything cool to film and it'd sit in a closet and be another $800 paperweight device.

But let's go with not wanting to be an another annoying 'Main Character Syndrome' person and just be quiet and peaceful when out and about.

Walked down the edge of canyon in Jasper National Park today and you had to wade through people taking pictures (admittedly, myself among them). What is the difference between someone taking a selfie with a phone and photos at 50 spots along the edge of the canyon, and someone flying a drone at that point?

Others might say that drones are a sensible and respectful way to honor a beautiful landscape.

Mini 2's are quiet enough and much of the hostility against their use is rooted in prejudice and a little bit of hysteria.

From a human's perspective maybe, from bird's though, not.

Are the hikers considered intrusive, or just the drones?

You'll hear plenty of hikers complain about hikers if they are also creating unwanted noise (usually from portable bluetooth speaker).

Some places you have to apply for a permit (few of which are issued) to make sure there aren't too many hikers at once. So I think it's both.

screw the drone, anybody know what the motorized surfboard things are?

Called an efoil, they also have non electric versions that are much cheaper

A very few very selected nature parks with no-fly zones aside, most suffer more from GA with engine, cell, wing and prop designs literally dating back to 1955 (Cessna 172), than they'd ever from drones operated by responsible people.

Should't be too far away, the commercial drones of Zipline are supposed to be super quiet. Here is video demonstrating the tech: https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU?si=_x9vSAygUSHq4ZQw&t=832

Even if they are 10x more quiet, then if there are 10 of these drones flying around we're back at square one.

Both fortunately and unfortunately that's not how sound works. If the drones are far enough away from each other that you don't get interference between them soundwise it doesn't matter if there are more of them. But if they do then two quiet ones may re-inforce to the point that they sound much worse than a single larger one.

https://www.ll.mit.edu/sites/default/files/other/doc/2022-09...

At least then you know that you are being watched and recorded by some creep with a drone. It is disturbing how society tolerates these pretty-secret surveillance devices just because they can take videos that look like those documentaries on TV, yay...

I'd love to have my photoshoot not ruined by some wannabe hiker.

it plays both ways

Actually, we're authentic hikers. We're wannabe drone hunters.

If you’re looking for somewhere outdoors without people may I suggest you not choose a hiking trail…

I always look at these and think I want one but also can't think of what i'd actually use it for. I just picture it sitting in a closet next to my GoPro and Oculus after about 3 days of messing around.

Anyone own one? What do you use it for?

I bought a Mini 2 about two years ago while arguing with my insurance about storm damage and roof repairs. Close up, high quality, multi-angle stills and video made it a lot harder for them to argue that their inspectors had done a good job. Their inspectors had, in fact, done a shit job, but it was my word against theirs until I had video proof of my claims. Paid for itself many times over.

The trick is you have to find a way to take it places that satisfy:

- It's OK to fly there and you're not going to annoy anyone

- You can get some interesting photos.

Having previously flow R/C airplanes and aircraft drones like DJI makes are not actually that entertaining to fly, they are too easy and not that engaging.

So it's all about the photos. You'll see new people flying at a park or something, but after a while you're basically thinking the park is not a very interesting thing to take pictures of.

Fellow R/C pilot and DJI operator here, and I very much agree. On the surface it may appear to be similar, but R/C flying and drone operation are two completely separate hobbies. One may prepare you a bit for the other, but they are fun for different reasons, and mostly separate skills to develop.

> Having previously flow R/C airplanes and aircraft drones like DJI makes are not actually that entertaining to fly, they are too easy and not that engaging.

This is very much an opinion. I have way more fun with my Air 2 than with any RC plane I've had.

I feel the same about the SteamDeck. It's really cool, and I kind of wish I had a use for one. But I don't really play games, so...

If you never really cared about RC planes and don't do photography/videography fairly seriously, I guess you won't suddenly find a new passion in drones.

I've had a Mini V1 since 2020 and here are my uses:

* Fun Flights * Aerial photography of yard projects * Towing fishing lures way beyond furthest castable distance * Fireworks videos * Hiking Scouting * Surveillance drone ( Caught some motorbikers trespassing on property and tracked them back to house ) * Firewatch * Pester folks safely from patio

I am pretty sure you broke some laws in the process.

How fun would life be if you didn't break some laws sometimes?

Only two rules:

A) don't be mean to or hurt others (humans or animals)

B) only commit one crime at a time

Following these rules, even lawbreaking can be made into a fun past time without losing out morally :)

I don't think I broke a single law in these examples.

All flights were in legal airspace.

No flights resulted in injury or property damage.

How do you drop the lure?

I put a small metal 'basket' that I put the float into. It's a fine-tuning thing to allow the line to tow, but 'pop out' with a bit of extra tension.

So we fly it out 200m and then lock the line and it pops out of basket.

Risky, but very fun

I use a mini 3 with my son. He likes to edit together footage and make little movies, I like to explore new areas. It’s tough if you can’t go to relatively private areas; it’s not cool to annoy people with these things. We typically get it high enough not to hear it as quickly as possible in case anyone is around, which can be a bit limiting.

Even so, it’s incredible to get so much perspective. I’ve learned so much about the places we visit from the aerial footage. The videos my son makes are pretty cool, too. Overall I wouldn’t expect one to be life changingly awesome, but I’m glad we got it.

I'm building a house, I'm planning to buy one to video the process periodically to create a really long time lapse of the build.

I am not yet sure if this one has the appropriate way-point features, I think I am going to go with the Air 3 despite the higher price tag because it's more robust and I need a license to operate a drone for this purpose anyway in my jurisdiction (Thailand).

Most owners buy one then realize: - they can't legally use them wherever they want them and there are finally very little areas you can really use them - they can't use them in FPV mode or without seeing the drone.

Then decide if they want to break or follow the law. Most people not wanting to break the law will let the drone collect dust after a handful of use, those that break the law will eventually lost it at some point or get bored.

I think the only people who really keep using them are travel vloggers and they have sometimes issues at border control and usually need to ask permissions and pay taxes to be able to fly and record stuff near a particular place. Usually they only get permission because they are well known and would boost tourism.

I really wish the tiny whoop scene would take off more to lower the barrier to entry.

It's for extremely small drones (65-85mm from diagonal motor posts) which are great for flying indoors or in small areas.

The main issues being:

1. It's still very much a "hobby" hobby. You can get some ready to fly kits, but even then it can wind up more technical than you expect.

2. They're spec'd for the niche market, meaning quite powerful and very short fly times, which is a shame. One of my favorite drones is the Potensic A 20. A durdly little thing that can fly easily for 10 minutes on brushed motors, but it's not really built to last (or god forbid crash). I'd KILL for a "A20+" which is just low power brushed motors and nicer controls. It's on my todo list to see if i can cobble something together whenever I have real life time again.

To be clear, it's still pretty easy to get into. I have the beta cestus as a decent rtf kit, although beta has some battery connectors that sorta lock you in (they are supposedly better than others though and you can convert things...but there's the hobby part again), and there's been other half decent ready to fly kits over the years.

I recently got a BetaFPV Cetus X Pro. I was considering a DJI Mini, but FPV seemed like a lot more fun than the well-engineered computer controlled flight. And the vehicle costs much less to crash and destroy.

Agriculture, perhaps? I always imagine that these things are for people with lots of their own real estate to take care of.

I have a Mini 3 Pro, and I’m quite happy with some of the videos I’ve made with it.

Here’s my latest video:

https://vimeo.com/860800214

And a couple more that I’m happy with:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsMqtYXICju/?igshid=MWZjMTM2O...

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Crss_afoG0a/?igshid=MWZjMTM2O...

Those are very nice shots, but... did you considered the local laws before flying them in city centers? From where I am (Spain) it's a big no no to fly one over any even sparsely populated area. It's forbidden (AKA requiring lots of permits) even if you are not flying over people (like in the Thames) or the drone is less than 250g.

Yes, I think it's important to consider and understand the laws wherever you happen to be flying. More importantly, one should fly responsibly regardless of the details of the law. Which is a bit like driving a car, or doing anything really.

In London, you need to have a drone license and be registered as a drone operator. I have both of those. You're meant to ask permission from the port authority to fly over the Thames, but I think more importantly, you're not allowed to fly drones west of Tower Bridge, which is why that video is shot from the east.

I don't think the rules of sensible drone operation are yet (if they ever can be) neatly codified as law, and I have also observed a significant mismatch between what's written and how those rules are enforced. Fortunately, laws written by governments aren't quite as black and white as laws in programming.

I got a 20eur knock off to check whether the gutters are full of leaves without getting the ladder. It kinda works.

The roof is at the 3rd floor and the ground is a bit uneven there so it's not just that I'm lazy ok?

I've used it to inspect fence holes in my property, to show some technical maneuvering while 4x4ing, showing my family camping spots I stayed in, etc. It's a cool way to gather scenery.

Got a used mini 2 a few months ago and know what you mean. Thing is for the $200 I paid it's ok. I likely would feel bad with a $1000 machine.

It's picture quality is amazing and it's fun to check caves in the mountains and possible paths before going them. Also more advanced travel selfies are fun.

I don't use it when many people are around, so that would highly limit it in some places for me.

>I always look at these and think I want one but also can't think of what i'd actually use it for.

Because they're tools for filming. I don't think people need to buy these as a toy.

Yeah videos on the page look stunning but visiting those locations would be enough for me.

On the other hand I can imagine using drone with Lidar mapping (on private property).

Same and everytime I see someone using one, its generally hiking or in a nature area, and its really annoying

Having spent the last two years reading news about Russian-Ukrainian war it's pretty refreshing to see how many people still associate DJI drones with peaceful life and entertainment. And seeing a drone flying in the mountains my first thought was about Karabakh.

Genuine question: what kind of smartphone do you think the soldiers use? Do you associate Android/iOS to war? Pretty sure terrorists use Android/iOS, too.

Soldiers typically use tablets, to have larger screens. With Google Meet or Discord for real time streaming to battalion/brigade command.

$759 for those wondering.

And if anyone is curious about getting into the hobby, I just picked up my first drone for quite cheap.

The DJI Mini 2 SE is $339 at most stores.

The DJI Mini 3 is also pretty reasonable at $419

Got a used one for $200. Many people just have it collect dust at home :)

As someone who is not familiar with drones, it's this a good bang for they buck deal?

For the tech you are getting yes. Phantom 4 was $1700 3 years ago. You get more tech in a very tiny package and especially at toy class which is under 250 grams. This it 249 so you can fly nearly everywhere as long as you don't bug people with it.

I was, thanks.

Whoever developed this website was probably told "We want it to look like Apple.com" and didn't veer one inch from that request. Not to say it looks bad, but it does feel unoriginal to me.

DJI is absolutely the Apple of the drone world

It might look like Apple but their product demo in pages are extremely well thought. Especially video intros blending with mid-page areas. I am always excited to see their new product pages because they are one-upping every time they release a new one.

I came here and hit command-f "Apple" to see if others had the same opinion.

Funny, I hit /apple for the same reason.

This looks just like my Mavic Mini (similar weight/size) which is no longer in production. I do like how the new DJI drones have their own integrated controller/screen. One of the biggest pain points with my Mavic is using my phone.

Yeah, my phone is too big to fit in the little holster so it's always haphazardly put together.

it would be neat to mount some sort of weather proof container on a tree with a solar panel that it could go into, so then it's like a bird. could imagine some shared spec and network of these so they can charge, lying in wait.

Then it can disturb the birds around. Doesn't sound that great to me, we are already pretty good at removing their trees.

> lying in wait

What are they waiting for?

Sounds like the setup for a Scifi novel.

"The drones lie in wait silently. The sun dips over the horizon. A lone IR led comes to life on the robots face. It is done waiting. It's prey is beckoning."

Take a look at the Ukraine conflict to see the future of adversarial drone tech. Most of the public stuff is FPV but I think it's extremely likely that there's also semi- or fully-autonomous units flying too.

For the stationary cameras to sense persistent movement that wants another camera angle on it. Skydio's focusing on the security/surveillance market and sells docking stations like GP is thinking.

Perhaps they could substitute for stationary security cameras. When incidents occur, you could track the target. Entertaining sci-fi.

to be activated by a user

They have industrial models for that. It is so futuristic.

https://enterprise.dji.com/dock

I've been looking forward to the release of the Mini 4 Pro so I can hopefully get a Mini 3 Pro on the cheap.

I want something that can autonomously follow me on my mountain bike or follow my RC car as it goes over jumps for under $500.

If you want the drone to autonomously track you, then the mini 4 pro is the only realistic choice since it has obstacle detection at all directions. The mini 3 pro does not have obstacle detection at the sides.

In a mountain bike scenario, the drone is mostly capturing you on the side and it is moving sideways itself. So, unless you want to fly it next to the sea, you want to have sideways obstacle detection. Or, just have a friend control it. :)

My mountain biking is done at a mountain biking park with no trees on the tracks I ride. As long as it maintains at least 10 feet of altitude over me, there's no risk for it hitting something.

That said, I'm starting to lean towards spending the extra money to pick up the Mini 4 Pro, especially if Costco runs a good bundle deal. Like right now, they sell a Mini 3 Pro bundle for $839 that includes the drone and RC-N1 controller, 2 extra batteries, charging hub, and a 128 GB SD card. All that would be $1,063 if bought from DJI directly.

Wouldn't it be better to get a (helium) ballon and attach i.e a go-pro that with a rope tied to you. I mean, you need a bit of volume that will have a bit of drag, but it will always follow you, be quiet and mostly cheaper.

Looking for the same. I remember skydio being a good option a couple years ago before their pivot to enterprise and military. Is there a DIY option with open source autopilot?

DJI doesn't sell their latest drones directly in India so out of options here.

I read the article and watched the video, I'm not sure that the Mini Pro 4 or 3 have true "follow me" ability.

I saw the Mini Pro 4 has "Active Track 360", but I think that is just going to fly a 360 around whatever you choose and follow it as it goes.

I have the OG mini, and it certainly can't just "follow me" as I ride my mountain bike wherever. It's purely a software limitation to offer segmentation for their more expensive drones

The Mini 3 does not have "follow me", but the Mini 3 Pro does.

I'm glad I caught that earlier, at one point the Mini 3 went on a good sale and I almost picked it up. Glad I didn't waste the money.

My mini 3 pro follows me… I’m not sure what you what you mean

ah, nice, I didn't know they had added a true "follow me" function to the mini line. Thanks.

Omg, finally, waypoints in an entry level drone! Shooting smooth footage by hand is hard, especially if you're planning to speed it up in editing. The camera improvements look nice too.

I have an Osmo action camera. Good camera and solid UX, but it forces you to make an account, install an app, and pair with your phone, only to lead you to an app that doesn't seem to do much of anything useful. A mountain of dark patterns, and a huge turn-off that will prevent me from buying another DJI product.

The account activation requirement sucks. It's of no benefit to users. Other companies have copied, such as the Insta360 products like their new gimbal. Fortunately I found a better gimbal without that requirement, the Hohem iSteady MT2, which does not come "pre-bricked" demanding account sign-up.

>Take off whenever inspiration strikes. Weighing less than 249 g, Mini 4 Pro was designed for convenience on the go, [1] and the drone's weight means there's no need for training or examinations in most countries and regions.

Wasn't this loophole basically closed by the US FAA a couple years back?

https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/register_drone still says "except those that weigh 0.55 pounds or less (less than 250 grams)".

It's not a loophole, it's a deliberate exemption!

Makes enough sense to me but curious why specifically? Are they quieter or less dangerous below that size / weight?

> Are they quieter or less dangerous below that size / weight?

F = m*v^2

The FAA Part 107 examination claims this is because lightweight drones pose less harm to life (when accompanied by rotor guards.)

There isn’t much of an actual reason, the FAA has been all over the place without much logic when it comes to drone regulations.

UK and other countries have relaxed rules for drones under 250g, see here[0] as well as the FAA link.

[0] https://www.caa.co.uk/drones/rules-and-categories-of-drone-f...

Yesterdays compromise is today's loophole.

Was just telling my friend I was a bit surprised at how rapidly consumer drones advanced in the late 2010's and have slowed down ever since. Seems like a lot of these features haven't really improved all that much in the past 5 years.

Most aspects have seen good improvements, in particular range, flight time and the camera. The Mini 4 Pro also has the 360° sensors that previously only were on the larger drones.

The Mini (2019) was a big step up compared to the Spark (2017) with merely a 2-axis gimbal and the Mini 2 (2020) brought very welcome range and camera improvements. I don't have first hand experience with anything more recent but it looks like both the range and the camera keep improving in those. The flight time, top speed and wind resistance are also increasing.

So i'm not sure what in particular you feel hasn't improved significantly.

True, I suppose I was referring to rate of change during those early years.

The product they make, that I think is a lot cooler than their drones (but probably was inspired by them), is their Osmo Pocket minicam[0].

[0] https://store.dji.com/product/pocket-2?vid=98631

It seems like the Osmo Pocket line has stagnated a bit. I bought a Pocket 2 in the summer of 2021, and more than two years later, it still is the current model. That's a shame because while it's a good idea, the camera has some problems. Video quality is not great, especially in low light. It does not work well for creating vertical format (TikTok-style) videos. The screen on the camera is smaller than a postage stamp and is pretty much unusable -- you really need to pair the camera with your phone. ...which then leads to the question, why not just use DJI's excellent Osmo Mobile gimble and record footage using the much better camera that your phone has.

I have a Pocket and used it a few times but it's sat idle for a while now. For general casual filming, the workflow on a good phone is better. For anything the phone won't do well enough, use a proper camera.

Main remaining use of the Pocket is having rotating timelapses. That's the only reason I still pack it, and even then only use it on 1/10 trips.

The Pocket 3 has been rumored to be coming out any day for like a year now... the camera tech in the Pocket 2 is just not that great anymore, even if the gimbal is fine. I want to see what kind of improvements DJI has made over the last 3 years.

I have DJI drone. It's very easy to fly, however there are all sorts of restrictions that exist in the software which are not in sync with local laws (which may be more liberal than what the software thinks), so your only option is to use sketchy means to actually use the drone.

I've got the Mavic 3, and while it's an awesome piece of Hardware all around, I am royally fucking pissed about DJI retracting on their promise to release an SDK for them, which stops me from using litchi with it.

Where is the US or EU competitor to DJI? They are running away with it. Oh right, we instead pioneered regulation and legislation, all those deaths from drones falling down and drones hitting planes.

Do it before someone dies: "Regulation out of control!"

Do it after someone dies: "Why didn't you do anything?!"

It's not insane to get out in front of drone regulation; their numbers are likely to continue to increase. Lack of regulation certainly isn't DJI's advantage; they still have to comply with it to sell their product in a whole bunch of major markets. That's the exact reason this drone weighs 249 grams.

> It's not insane to get out in front of drone regulation

Nor is it surprising. There are a lot of regulations around aviation (though perhaps not as many as there are in other places) and safety is the reason. Every flying object in the sky is sharing the space with commercial airliners, hobbyist pilots, logistics companies, government aircraft, etc. All of which share the same regulations or have specific ones depending on the industry. It makes sense that drones would be regulated as well.

Solution: stop saying "why didn't you do anything", righteously slap people who do.

No. Sometimes "you should have anticipated this would be a problem" is the appropriate response. I don't subscribe to the idea that government should be exclusively reactive to things.

And anyway, I get the impression the real reason we went so hard on drone regulation was that it thought it'd be easier to make unlicensed drones illegal than it was to investigate every time somebody shot a drone out of the sky. That violations of the anti-anti-aircraft-artillery laws haven't risen commensurate with drone usage really speaks highly of the general populace (although there are a fair number of news stories surrounding incredibly dumb people shooting down drones)

I think there's plenty of room to criticize the degree of regulation, while accepting the need for baseline rules.

See the other reply upthread with respect to line of sight ("You're not allowed to use binoculars.") If true, that's stupid and unnecessary.

Why is it stupid and unnecessary? Binoculars give you a very narrow view, limiting situational awareness; the whole point of the line-of-sight rule is so you know what obstacles are near it.

Same reason sniper teams like to have someone on overwatch who isn’t zoomed into a target.

"Under" 249g. They never say how much it actually weighs, like they do for the larger model.

US competitor to DJI in what? Consumer marker or technology?

If it's consumer marker where less cost matters a lot, there won't be a US competitor. DJI has home-turf, scale, and first mover advantage there, and a US competitor can maaybe match DJI in price.

In technology/autonomy? Skydio beat them years ago (https://www.skydio.com/). They launched as a consumer drone but I guess recently realized how consumer market in west isn't as profitable as enterprise/defense market so they shut down their consumer division. Skydio founders were pioneers in autonomous aerial vehicles, and it's not surprising they beat everyone else in autonomy. When they launched their first drone a few years ago, they were doing outdoor vision based autonomy for drone using on board compute only - it's an insanely hard problem, especially when you want to do in reliably in a product and not in a lab setting for nice videos. They did it and blew everyone away. DJI fan boys will say 'oh but DJI had autonomy too'. No they didn't, at best they had feedback based obstacle avoidance.

I often tell my friends, one of my biggest regret was not signing up for an internship at Skydio back in 2018. They came to UIUC for recruiting, and they didn't realize their product yet. Back then I was a dumb first year grad student, I didn't check the founders background, and naively thought it was yet another dumb drone company trying to get some VC money by pitching something they'd obviously fail it. I've never been so wrong.

> In technology/autonomy? Skydio beat them years ago (https://www.skydio.com/).

In technology, hell no.

Admittedly, Skydio had this pretty good VSLAM a few years ago. Still their drone was pretty useless in most use-cases where you would have taken a DJI. In many situations you don't really need more than "sense-and-avoid". Don't under-estimate DJI. The day VSLAM is important, they may have it much faster than you think.

It's a common mistake in the West to think that "we are better at technology than China". In the drone industry, we are years behind. And because of the technology, not because of the production cost.

> I've never been so wrong.

Well they have been struggling like the rest of the Western drone industry, it's not exactly a serious competitor to DJI. I would say that back in the days, Parrot was more successful than Skydio ever was. Since then I would think that the Anafi competes with Skydio (again they don't have the Skydio VSLAM, but who most use-cases don't need that).

> I guess recently realized how consumer market in west isn't as profitable as enterprise/defense market so they shut down their consumer division.

Subsidies and regulation played a major role here, although probably not the same kinds the parent post is whining about.

The US government and enterprise market requires drones which are compatible with US Federal requirements ("Blue UAS") as well as state-by-state bans on DJI drones. It's a lot easier to compete in a space where your primary competition is being made illegal.

Fwiw, Skydio is failing in Ukraine, where Russia's electronic warfare downs its drones. Their "vision-based autonomy" has severe limits, because GPS jamming can fell them.

You can replace DJI with any other consumer electronics manufacturer. It's hard to compete with China's vertical integration + cheaper labor. Skydio (Californian startup) used to manufacture consumer drones but recently exited that business to focus on enterprise, probably because of the higher margins.

DJI is particularly hard to compete with, because it is a very reputable and highly sought after company to work for and thus gets the brightest Chinese engineers on top of everything else you mentioned

GoPro tried and failed, but I don't think regulation and legislation were the reason.

GoPro has never had the hard core engineering culture/background to compete with a company like DJI.

GoPro started IIRC as a company that just branded cameras they ordered from overseas.

Anduril I guess? but they're exclusively focusing on the military applications.

What about zipline? There's also some other startups focusing more on use of drones rather than building drones from ground-up.

The moment DJI really took off from the competition is when they began using high-end cameras and optics.

DJI is a video camera company that happens to put the cameras on drones.

Not what I saw at all. I saw them take off with their shitty camera on the Phantom 2 Vision+. They had really good consumer drones long before they started having really good cameras. Then they bought e.g. Hasselblad.

I think it's less to do with regulation, and more to do with China acquiring most of the production capacity for the necessary components. Makes it easier to move quickly and iterate when the vendors are right there and speak your language.

There are numerous people and companies dealing with self-build kits, there is an active open source scene for literally everything around drones. There used to be an US-designed mass market drone, GoPro's Karma (which I happen to own and, somewhat regularly, fly), but well, GoPro suffered from financial issues back then, and couldn't afford competing with DJI.

It isn't clear to me that there is a reason for a US competitor to exist in the pro-sumer market. There are plenty of US firms selling their own parts/BNF kits for the hobbyist market and plenty doing commercial.

> Oh right, we instead pioneered regulation and legislation

To be honest, we were far, far behind DJI waaaaay before we started talking about regulation and legislation. And since then we have not really been catching up at all.

Furthermore, their drones comply with our registration.

The US doesn’t have the engineering talent to pull off what DJI has.

Really telling when all the drone deaths thus far have been from DJI drones being weaponized in the Ukraine-Russia war.

Let's hope this thing is compatible with DJI's own goggles. They seem to be getting better about this, but for a while they released drones that weren't... a real disappointing WTF.

Slightly off topic but it's wild how their online store is almost a direct rip-off of Apple's store. Has this been discussed before?

LOTS of webstores look just like that.

In Europe, it is limited to a flight height of 120m

That’s enough for photographing an entire small city from above. Though in the Netherlands for example the normal limit is 50m.

There is no way you can keep visual contact at this distance, especially for a tiny drone like this, and you’re getting relatively close to air traffic in some places. Europe is quite dense. Makes sense that going further requires a license / flight plan.

Dammit! and i just purchased the Mini Pro 3 a few months back... i mean, i love it, but this is awesome too!

But how many grenades can it carry?

Zero?

The interactive 3D model at the end is really sick.

I had the original Mini and it drifted away to the sea. I launched it from my home which was already in a steep location. RIP I'll never buy a light drone again.

I have a Spark and a Mavic Air 2. I really love flying the Spark, it's a fun zippy little drone. I'd compare it to something like a Miata. The Mavic on the other hand is all serious, professional utility. It's more like a mini-van. It's a great tool but it's not even remotely fun to fly.

My biggest issue with my Spark is the 9 minute battery life. Even though I have 4 batteries, having to constantly land and swap the batteries is a real drag.

Does anybody have one of the older Minis? How do they compare to the Spark?

The original was more like 20-25 minutes.

Which at some point becomes boring. Like you usually don't have enough interesting things to do with the drone to stay engaged that long.

So something like a 45 minute flight is not going to make me buy a newer one, cause i don't have something interesting/important I need to do for that long.

I have the original Mini, 20 minute flight time is common, I go over 30 when there is little to no wind.

I'll probably sell it if you're interested

I can't find replacement batteries for the Spark. My spark went into cold storage during covid, during which time all the batteries irreparably self-discharged.

I'm hesitant to buy another DJI for the reasons above but I haven't seen any non DJI products that wow me. I guess it's a toss up between the FPV and the mini 4.

Original mini here, and I've flown a friend's spark. The mini flies about 30 minutes on a charge, and is much more compact when folded. The spark had more sophisticated collision avoidance than my mini. They seemed comparably zippy to me, but I never flew them back-to-back.

The Mini 2 has a battery range of close to 30 minutes. It's a big improvement over the Spark, in particular the 3-axis gimbal makes a big difference.

But how does it handle? The spark is really agile. It doesn't go as fast as the bigger drones, but it accelerates and turns much quicker.

The successors can handle stronger winds and i've also noticed a reduction in latency going from the Mini (which wasn't great) to the Mini 2.

Anyone see pricing?

$750 or so

How many mm of rolled homogeneous steel does it penetrate?

Reactive armor would just shrug it off.

battery life good

everything else idk

might make drone LED shows easier though, those are probably a bigger use case than the one off drone enthusiast

LED shows use custom built drones, not commercial/recreational ones. You can’t program these, and you can build similar hardware for 1/5th of the cost.

that's nice! but can it drop F1 grenades?

I got all excited thinking of the potential of keeping this at the bottom of someone's pack given it's low weight, until I remembered how much I despise people flying drones on top of my head whenever I'm out in the outdoors, looking for a peaceful place to connect with nature.

Yeah this. In the middle of bloody nowhere in Central Asia completely off any beaten track and there was wanker with a drone buzzing around.

Exactly how I feel. For me, I think the best use case for drones, if I were to get one someday, is for shooting sports/events where the prop noise would be drowned out by an already noisy environment.

Like motocross, or a basketball game, or a car meet.

There's no way I'm taking out a buzzy drone when out on a quiet hike or at a typical campground. Just kills the calmness.

You’re not legally allowed to fly a drone over people without authorization.

Waiting for DC Rainmaker review before clicking buy!

Terrible website. So difficult to view.

DJI's website is literally one of the best out there, what do you mean?

So with all this talk over banning TikTok violating the 1st a. rights of Americans using Orwellian, authoritarian tactics critics are decrying, you'd think DJI and sketchy cloud-based webcams would be banned first over more obvious capabilities.

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