For its part, DJI accused the U.S. government of anti-competitive measures, especially given its market standing in the U.S. “As the industry leader, DJI has advocated for an open, competitive market that benefits all U.S. consumers and commercial users, and will continue to do so,” the company said in a statement. “DJI products are among the safest and most secure on the market, supported by years of reviews conducted by U.S. government agencies and independent third parties. Concerns about DJI’s data security have not been grounded in evidence and instead reflect protectionism, contrary to the principles of an open market.”
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Jowi Morales Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
USAFRet "foreign made" not just DJI. And this is only for new models. Current ones will continue to be sold. Reply
helper800 USAFRet said: "foreign made" not just DJI. And this is only for new models. Current ones will continue to be sold. Current models will continue to be sold with the caveat that at any time, and on a whim, that can be discontinued as well. I don't see the same enthusiasm with other Chinese made electronics products which is extremely hypocritical. Reply
magbarn I think this is basically a backhanded way to keep the US populace from owning drones as the domestic market is either pitiful or priced for commercial use only. Reply
USAFRet helper800 said: Current models will continue to be sold with the caveat that at any time, and on a whim, that can be discontinued as well. I don't see the same enthusiasm with other Chinese made electronics products which is extremely hypocritical. And this too shall pass. Reply
emike09 This will be interesting to see how it plays out. I get the idea of wanting UAVs to be manufactured in the US, but give us a respectable US product before banning the sale on new drones. Recently bought a DJI Mini 5 Pro w/Fly More kit – I'd like to see any US company make a drone that capable and reliable for $1400. It's just not going to happen. Particularly the camera sensor. I'm all for buying US-made products, but not if the price is outrageous or the quality/capabilities are sub-par. All of the current US drone manufacturers cater toward military and high-end commercial use. I just want to record beautiful landscapes of the places I visit to share with my family and friends. Reply
USAFRet emike09 said: This will be interesting to see how it plays out. I get the idea of wanting UAVs to be manufactured in the US, but give us a respectable US product before banning the sale on new drones. Recently bought a DJI Mini 5 Pro w/Fly More kit – I'd like to see any US company make a drone that capable and reliable for $1400. It's just not going to happen. Particularly the camera sensor. I'm all for buying US-made products, but not if the price is outrageous or the quality/capabilities are sub-par. All of the current US drone manufacturers cater toward military and high-end commercial use. I just want to record beautiful landscapes of the places I visit to share with my family and friends. Skydio was at the top of my shortlist to upscale from my Holystone. Then they abandoned the consumer market, and went all govt/corporate. Reply
abufrejoval For me the main interest in drones was alway the ability to code their "brains" or the rules that would govern their behavior. I didn't see a lot of appeal in flying dones: it was quite apparent that way too much energy would just be required to keep them aloft, while that sheer air repelling effort would also make them quite intrusive if not downright annoying: the idea of keeping one around like a Peter Pan Tinker Bell or some other sidekick djinny is made absurd by the physical effort of just defeating gravity and hovering in place. The DJI Robomaster S1 with its Mecanum wheels which allowed basically unconstrained omnidirectional travel and orientation on 2D ground without any energy expense unless moving, while supporting a 'classic' DJI gimbal camara turrent and some type of Python interface seemed to solve the unobtrusive and long-term presence issue: of course it couldn't conquer 3D space, but it could generate a rather good reprentation of it and then reason, if you let it use angles enabled by motion and ground truth and plenty of external AI. It seemed like an ideal telepresence platform, that could be expanded via Python control to become really, really smart using vision models on the live camera feed and full Python motor control…. None of that was actually provided, the Robomaster S1 was locked down, because it was supposed to operate in a very regulated competition, not as the experimental ground drone platform I assumed it to be. I was thinking of integrating it somehow into an Unreal engine platform with the ability to use a dino template from the ARK Survival Evolved developer kit (using the Unreal Engine) to replace its dino brain with my own code, including escapes to vision and agent AI models… something actually far more akin to Carson from Downton Abbey. The mechanical qualities of the Robomaster S1, it's drives, the gimbal etc. impressed the hell out of me: the quality of DJI's plastics and mechanical engineering had me completely change my mind about Chinese engineers and their ability to deliver top quality products: it was quite simply breath-taking putting it together and seeing it perform! But that Python API turned out to be a complete fail, there simply was no way to feed the video into a GPU vision model nor was the sensor and motor control exposed for programming. Six years later what DJI can fit into <250g drones is quite simply Earth shattering again, but without the ability to then take control and program the drone's brain, it simply doesn't matter what it can do. All around collision control, wind compensation, gimbal ability and sensor precision deliver almost zero value, if you can't program them. These days the weaponization of these devices is at the top of everyone's concern and yes, the amount of damage a fully programmable brain could inflict, is huge. But I mostly lament the loss that this means for creativity and arts, what programmed cameras with all the positional and motion freedom these drones permit could deliver for dance and music, explodes my brain, but without the ability to translate that into reality via programming on open source frameworks, it quite simply can't happen and the vast majority of the value of these fantastic feats of engineering will just be lost or be used for destruction. The realization that the most creative use of drone technology today is war is extremely depressing, very likely also to those fine DJI engineers, who very likely weren't aiming there, initially. If they are judged enemies today, that's not on them, but their leaders. Reply
USAFRet abufrejoval said: I didn't see a lot of appeal in flying dones: it was quite apparent that way too much energy would just be required to keep them aloft, while that sheer air repelling effort would also make them quite intrusive if not downright annoying: the idea of keeping one around like a Peter Pan Tinker Bell or some other sidekick djinny is made absurd by the physical effort of just defeating gravity and hovering in place. Clearly you don't have one or never flown one, even at just the hobbyist level. I do, and it can be a lot of fun. Reply
bwana I appreciate abufrejoval's response. It's not just drones that are 'dumbed down' but inceeasingly entire segments of our world. In the 'old days' you could tinker with your car, your bicycle, heck, even your telephone (looking at you Capn Crunch). It is this tinkering that teaches problem solving, develops intelligence and moves an individual to make useful discoveries and technologies. When everyone is worried about intellectual property and locks everything down, we are reduced to consumers restricted to using the devices with training wheels – only for their intended purpose. However we did not evolve this way. Nature reuses fundamental processes. I still remember the joy of loading my games onto the hard rive of my xbox so they would play better and i didnt have to keep swapping dvds. Swarming and collaborative behavior of drones can be useful but as of now, out of our reach. Reply
TCA_ChinChin Nothing in America comes close to DJI O4 air units for DYI drones. Such a shame. Reply
Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/u-s-fcc-bans-foreign-made-drones-from-dji-others-dji-to-be-heavily-affected-by-the-announcement-with-many-american-drone-pilots-up-in-arms-due-to-lack-of-viable-alternatives#main
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