I am not a current drone pilot, but I've become increasingly interested in it since the start of the Ukraine war. The Senate is holding a vote on the NDAA today and this is part of that bill. “Countering CCP Drones Act” (HR 2864) could pass and ban the only high quality drone sold to the US consumer market. I've been learning about types of drones, transmitters, headsets, builds and mods. It started as watching FPV (First person view) flights, moved to product reviews and then build videos. That's my level of knowledge. In that time, I've found that DJI is the premier (by a lot) commercial and consumer drone maker in the world. They are the entry for most recreational drone pilots. This all started here before the US recognized that the PRC is positioning themselves as an adversary, and DJI built a relatively benign to positive reputation. That is solid now and the lack of viable competitors is certainly a factor. They also have decent social media capabilities. So their customer base is standing up for them. People love flying their drones, and don't want to give it up! That's totally understandable too. The difficulty here is that drone piloting is a critical, yet unrecognized skill. Ukranian pilots have shown just how powerful this skill can be. It is also a way for young people to make money. There are entire industries rising from various aspects of drone piloting. DJI is a legitimate threat due to their CCP ties, the sending of data back to China, to include high res images of areas where the drones fly and data it accesses through the phone app. But we need a US or at least a friendly company to step in to supplant DJI for consumer use, not only commercial. And then there's the FAA and its unfriendly attitude towards drones, but that's a rant for another day...
The Case AGAINST DJI - Where do we go next?
https://www.youtube.com/
Patrick Clark
1mo
Drones, cars, your cell phone, your rants on LinkedIn, all being tracked and sold to the highest bidders and the government(s). Welcome to the previously known but not acknowledged surveillance state...and it's only going to get worse the more we connect everyday things to the web.
Greg Phillips
1mo
IMHO Skydio is a worthy contender. They're autonomous flying (i.e. automatically following an object) is FAR superior to DJI's. https://www.skydio.com/
Gordon Roesler
1mo
The Defense Innovation Unit ran a program to fund six US drone companies to provide a security-safe alternative to DJI
CTO, Founder, OrbitsEdge Inc
1moHey, MilkyWayEconomy, you mentioned drones the other day, so you get a tag.