US House votes to bar new DJI drones
reuters.com
reuters.com
SkyDio, a US startup, entered the market producing drones with object avoidance so advanced that it was far beyond what DJI offered.
Their consumer pricing was quite competitive ~ 1000, the drone was by far the best in the market. Nothing was even remotely as good as a Skydio at high-speed object avoidance!
It seems like the US government became interested and probably funded them in some capacity, and with that, they exited the consumer domain. They only sell drones to governmental agencies now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skydio
> In March 2021, the company became a unicorn, becoming the first US company that both manufactures and sells its own drones to exceed $1 billion in value
Saying that that no one can compete with DJI is simply not true. You can't compete with these companies because each are probably heavily subsidized.
Drone technology, like chip technology is a national security issue.
No. It's because they have much lower skilled labor costs. See how much it costs to hire an experienced mechanical, hardware, firmware and software engineer in the US vs in Shenzhen.
You can't make a competitively priced consumer appliance or electronics product in the west anymore that's competitive to those coming from Asia and still expect to make western profit margins. Your profit margins will either be too slim to stay in business or to afford to attract any talent, or you can choose good profit margins but then your product will not be competitive on the "free market".
Why do you think there are no western companies making phones, TVs or computers any more since 20+ years? Apple is the only exception now, but let's not forget that before them creating the iTunes and AppStore markets that made them wealthy today, they were months away from bankruptcy when they were selling just computers made to compete with cheaper PCs.
To stay on the topic of drones, Skydio is an example of a US startup that produced drones in the US, and for some applications, it produced better drones than an established and sophisticated competitor. Is every component in Skydio manufactured in the US, very unlikely ...
I am no DJI hater, I have owned multiple of their drones and I think their products are awesome of extremely high quality. That being said, a SkyDio was light-years ahead of them when it came to high-speed object avoidance.
Why couldn’t they do both?
You can pick up Walksnail-protocol or HDZero-protocol goggles for ~$500 new, and HD 4k drones compatible with them like Caddx Gofilm 20 for $400 - and connect any controller which uses an open-source ELRS protocol.
Granted, all of the hardware is manufactured in China I'm sure - but the software is miles apart.
Archival link: https://archive.ph/pPXor
"The other early impact of these safety and geofencing features, though, is that DJI has become the only viable mass market drone manufacturer in the United States. There are DIY drones and racing drones, but the overwhelming majority of hobby drones on the market are made by DJI. Most of DJI’s main competitors are also Chinese. This is in part because geofencing and altitude restrictions made DJI drones more foolproof, easier to fly, and safer to use. Essentially, DJI made a better product than its competitors and now dominates the market. (There is one new hobby drone made by an American company, called the Blackhawk 3, but it has not yet found much of a market and most reviews say that comparable DJI drones are cheaper and better)."
"More powerful but more complicated drones like those made by onetime competitor 3D Robotics failed to find a user base, and that company no longer exists. Skydio, an American company that sells drones exclusively to cops and first responders, has fully shelved its hobby products. Consumer products from other drone manufacturers have similarly failed. This means that we are now in a situation where, if DJI is banned, there are few options ready to step in and replace it, because all of the companies that would have replaced it have utterly failed to provide the type of experience that the U.S. government demanded and is now upset about. A recent post on the Drone Girl blog [1], which has been covering the industry for many years, points out “There are no consumer drone companies in the U.S. worth talking about right now.”"
[1] https://www.thedronegirl.com/2020/06/23/american-drone-compa...
- All (Or the vast majority of) parts and manufacturers are based out of China (Generally Shenzhen)
- Finicky/involved learning curve. Ie, there is a much steeper learning curve than DJI
- If you want control systems like DJI like loitering, high-level controls etc, you will be looking at Ardupilot or PX4 firmware, which moves from my "finicky..." description above to UX disaster.> The bill [...] would prohibit the company's products from operating on U.S. communications infrastructure. It would not prevent existing DJI drones from operating in the United States.
How could existing drones continue operating while prohibited from comms infra? Does anyone have a link to the actual bill or some other source that goes into more detail? I have multiple DJI drones and would like to know how this affects me since I was planning to upgrade soon...
LTE connectivity that would use US infrastructure (LTE towers) for its connection.
Unless the drones start shipping with satellite radio, I'm not sure what the scare is about, seems to be mostly about that Chinese products just shouldn't be available to the average American.
This applies even for their sub-$1000 consumer drones, and FAA registration is mandatory for all drones above 250g weight.
That also isn’t using US comms infrastructure, correct?
My understanding is that is all broadcast via the ‘unregulated’ bands between the drone and controller + bits that are mandated to be broadcast by the FAA.
I found this video where Congressman Pallone summarizes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9dlYHN8dQ8
I'll type a quick transcript:
> In the last few months, we've seen reports that hacking groups linked to China, Russia, North Korean, and Iran are gaining access to our communications networks to conduct surveillance, collect massive amounts of data, and manipulate our elections. And because of this, there's a real risk that the information they collect could be used to launch cyberattacks on our critical infrastructure and undermine our democratic values of free speech and expression, as well as civil and human rights. But fortunately, Congress has acted with strong bipartisan support to bolster the defense of our communications networks. My bipartisan Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, which became law in 2020, established a list of equipment and services that pose a national security risk and prevent their use in our communications networks. And HR 2864 builds on that bipartisan work by adding the telecommunications and video surveillance equipment and services provided by so-called DJI Technologies, better recognizes the equipment and services used in their drones to the Federal Communication Commission's covered list. With this action, Congress will ensure that future versions of DJI drones cannot be imported, marketed, or sold in the United States.
This is the current bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2864
This is the earlier law that establishes the list that DJI stuff will be added to: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/4998...
The law prohibits providers of "advanced communications service" from using certain equipment, if they receive subsidies. And if they do, it reimburses them for replacing it with other equipment.
And here's what the current bill says about the DJI equipment:
> The communications equipment or service being—
> (A) telecommunications or video surveillance equipment produced by Shenzhen Da-Jiang Innovations Sciences and Technologies Company Limited (commonly known as ‘DJI Technologies’) (or any subsidiary or affiliate thereof); or
> (B) telecommunications or video surveillance services, including software, provided by an entity described in subparagraph (A) or using equipment described in such subparagraph.
So, if you're a phone company, ISP, cable company, etc. and if you get federal subsidies, then you won't be able to buy DJI drones or use their software / services, and you won't be able to "maintain" (keep using?) whatever you already have either.
I'm not sure what threat they're specifically trying to protect against. One guess would be exfiltration of video / photos of important infrastructure. Another guess would be DJI's software running on systems which could be used as a springboard for hacking.
DJI drones aren’t even a drop in that bucket.
Until recently, DJI drones stored some keyframes and flight records in the cloud by default. https://viewpoints.dji.com/blog/dji-to-disable-flight-record...
() true, all IP-connected devices can be launching-points for other attacks.
they do have a "video platform" where you can upload videos to from their drones, but i've never used it and doubt i even have an account on it.
[0] none of the ones i've used or seen, anyhow
Ring cameras are also manufactured in China.
Why are these restrictions happening in the first place? Went looking for reasons beyond "China may/may not be using DJI for spying" but beyond conspiracy theories, is there any factual arguments behind the ban?
It's definitely thin with actual data, but it's also likely we don't have the data that the Senate/House do.
I'd prefer they pass something similar to GDPR requiring all US user data be stored and operated on in the US and not transmitted to other countries.
I've read the reporting about TikTok, yes. Not sure if you linked the wrong article here, it doesn't mention DJI at all it seems.
> I'd prefer they pass something similar to GDPR requiring all US user data be stored and operated on in the US and not transmitted to other countries.
GDPR doesn't require all EU data to be stored in EU, it requires companies that do store EU data to follow specific guidelines and regulations regarding transit and storage.
Before wanting something to be implemented in your country, you'd do yourself a service to read a bit more about it first :)
That spans from general context like real-estate, to specific context like social networks or search (eg Google and Facebook), to infrastructure (eg AWS), to Disney not being allowed to own its own parks, to McDonald's not being allowed to operate its own restaurants. In fact it's so bad, it's the exceptionally rare case where a business is allowed to own & operate its business fully in China.
When McDonalds can't even operate their restaurants in your country properly, you're blatantly on a particularly bad list of very authoritarian nations.
The opposite is overwhelmingly true in the US. You are free, at any time, to set up and fully own a business within the US (as a foreigner). You can even pick the state based on legal structural preferences. Almost anyone on HN can do it whenever they feel like it, it's fairly simple all things considered.
The US is a nation that allowed companies like Toyota to come in and hammer the domestic competition. It allowed foreign operators to hammer huge domestic employers in industries such as steel. The US has far more often than not tended to allow very friendly access to its gigantic market.
The mistake the US has made for decades is to go too easy on China in regards to how they block access to their domestic market. This is the era of reciprocation, as such China should be increasingly blocked from easy access to foreign markets until they reciprocate and open up access to their economy.
How, exactly, is national security even a reason? Ok, so the drone has a camera, but that doesn't mean someone can magically transport the data. Ok, so the drone has a LTE modem, that still has to be connected to US infrastructure once connected somewhere within the US.
So how is it supposed to be a national security issue? Sounds as harmful as a calculator.
The drone (and controller) needs internet connectivity to download firmware updates. The drone and controller both have wifi and both automatically connect to wifi when it's available.
> Sounds as harmful as a calculator.
More like a wifi-enabled calculator that self-installs firmware updates, and whose every use is controlled and tracked by a Chinese company who operates at the mercy of the Chinese government.
Source: owned a dji mini and own a DJI mini 2, very close friends with people who own the mini 3 and other, more expensive ones (with the video screen built in to the controller). I fly mine and use an old oled android phone as the video/telemetry screen - no sim card or cellular connectivity. I can take the whole setup to the middle of a forest with no connectivity at all and it will connect, fly, and record telemetry and video on the phone and on the SD card in the drone.
The threat vector for my usage pattern is basically, a rogue firmware update could transmit the video feed, telemetry, etc via controller wifi connection to DJI/China in real time.
For people flying in remote locations with no connectivity, the threat vector is a bit more complicated.
I guess I should turn my wifi off.
And since the US supposedly is pro-capitalism and free markets, wouldn't it make sense that someone in the US develops a superior consumer product and "defeats" the evil competitor products that way?
In a nutshell, what's happening here is that China is employing industrial policy strategically [1]. Drones are one example, but there are plenty of others like ship building, EVs, batteries, rare earths and many others [2].
The way this works is that industries are subsidized directly or indirectly to drive competition of the market and get to economies of scale. One sufficient scale is reached, it's very hard to for new companies to out-innovate incumbents (at least in capital intensive industries like manufacturing).
Now, to answer your question, protecting your domestic industry against unfair competition is giving local companies chance to innovate and establish domestic production - which in case of military conflict will play a decisive role [3] (noting that it doesn't have to be "domestic", but can be "friendshored" to allied countries, e.g. ship building in Korea and Japan).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_policy
[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/11/america-industrialpolic...
[3] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/were-not-ready-for-the-big-one
Fuck congress
When you loosely throw around words like xenophobia it dilutes the meaning of that word and makes it more difficult to call out legitimate xenophobia later. If you want a serious discussion about serious problems then you need to use precise language.
China is by far the most restrictive large economy in terms of foreign access, free trading with that as a context is economic suicide. It's a one-sided plunder given enough time.
capitalism for me and not for thee (or vice versa)
The biggest mistake that the US made, was to believe that their brains are somehow special.
"Sir, the American workers refuse to work for less money"
"Fire them and give the work to the Chinese. They are good at copying and following instructions, and cheap as hell. We are obviously smarter, so they can mass produce our designs, but will never be able to make any of it by themselves"
A few moments later...
"Sir the Chinese are starting to eclipse us in every major area"
"Ban them. Ban their products. Tell our friends to ban them too."
Sir, it is not working. They keep growing stronger and more independent."
"Ready the nukes"