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Side topic: DJI is the clear market leader, and it's also a Chinese company. Is there a viable alternative for EU customers that are sensible about the geopoli

Side topic: DJI is the clear market leader, and it's also a Chinese company. Is there a viable alternative for EU customers that are sensible about the geopolitical aspects of this? I also looked at some open source firmware, but didn't find anything particularly appealing. e.g. [0] [0]: https://www.parrot.com/en/open-source-drone-software https://www.parrot.com/en/open-source-drone-software

palata 4y ago
Parrot Anafi is pretty nice. Haven't tried the Anafi Ai though. That won't be a Mavic, but that's european, and really not bad. Open source would be PX4, Ardupilot and BetaFlight, pretty much. But there you need to build your own frame.
- ChemSpider 4y ago
  Anafi is still "made in China": https://parrotpilots.com/threads/parrot-anafi-is-made-in-china.3971/ https://parrotpilots.com/threads/parrot-anafi-is-made-in-chi...
  - jokowueu 4y ago
    That's not the issue here . Almost everything is made in china . People here care if it's a Chinese company or not.
    - texasbigdata 4y ago
      Perhaps a little pedantic but as a thought experiment, if ABC corp was awesome at drones and wanted to solely manufacture in China, but in order to do so was forced to form ABC_China_LLC and transfer al the IP and know-how, how would you feel about it then? It's like a reverse "what if China invades Taiwan and takes TSMC".
      - jokowueu 4y ago
        The main threat here is CPP's control/influence over the company's action not that it's a Chinese company specifically . https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/party-committees-in-chinese-companies/ https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/party-committ... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/technology/who-owns-huawei.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/technology/who-owns-huawe...
ChemSpider 4y ago
I wanted to post the same question, but you beat me to it. I would really like to buy a "not-made-China" drone. For me it is just for fun & tinkering, but I can imagine that there is a significant market for it (government, military, schools,...).
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > not-made-China All the parts are going to come from there anyway...
  - dividedbyzero 4y ago
    I'm sure there are ways, but I guess a lot of nefarious things one could do with a drone product get a lot harder if you don't also make the finished system assembled from those parts and the software controlling the whole thing.
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      You build one then connect a pixhawk to it for flight control and communication
    - yaddaor 4y ago
      What secret and hidden, nefarious things could those reasonably be?
      - blincoln 4y ago
        > What secret and hidden, nefarious things could those reasonably be? Collecting photo and video footage combined with GPS data without the explicit consent of the owner would be the biggest one, IMO. That would be a great way to build maps of areas that aren't visible from satellites, or to get more detailed imagery than a satellite, or to build full 3D maps of areas using photogrammetry or similar. Just the GPS data could also be very useful, as it would be a map of the space that drones are likely to be able to fly through. If someone has a 3D map of areas where consumers successfully flew drones, seems like that would make it much easier to send semi- or fully-autonomous drones through there too, if the area were of interest. The US Navy has a problem with mystery drones surveilling their ships, so it seems reasonable to assume that folks are doing the same with sensitive facilities on land. Maybe it would even be useful for plotting flight routes for cruise missiles, so they can stay as close to the ground as possible? Capturing wifi access point information, like some mapping companies have done, could be beneficial to an organization that doesn't have traditional mapping vehicles. Same for any other radio signals that the device can pick up. All of that is more or less passive, with the exception of sending the data somewhere. There are a lot more options if the manufacturer is willing to be more aggressive and risk someone noticing that their products are behaving oddly.
jart 4y ago
What are the geopolitical aspects of having a flying toy built in China?
- samatman 4y ago
  It's a good question, what are the geopolitical aspects of a Chinese company running cloud software and shipping firmware to a bunch of flying cameras? Does that mean they can run the metadata through machine learning and save all the video their filter decides is interesting? That sounds like it has geopolitical aspects whether they're doing it right now or not.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - sockaddr 4y ago
    Also, one aspect is financially supporting an entity which is based in a country that doesn't have a good notion of separation between corporation and state. You are very much purchasing a drone from the Chinese state. Corporations are required to have a certain percentage of party members. Instead, putting that same money into a corporation from a place where privacy is valued and there isn't a direct benefit to the state is best in my opinion. All of these little micro-choices add up in the long run. I think, if you value personal freedom and rule of law instead of rule by law, you need to stop funneling money into the Chinese economy. Surely a company in Taiwan could be competitive in this space?
- zoba 4y ago
  Modified DJI drones are being used by Ukraine against Russia. Conceivably if the Chinese government wanted they could force the company to issue an update to disable this use case.
  - texasbigdata 4y ago
    As a n00b bet, I'd guess if actual top 5 or top 10 powers fought you'd see some scary / impressive / novel drone warfare usage.
samatman 4y ago
Skydio is an American company and is ahead of DJI technically, at least for now. Better obstacle avoidance, a beacon for tracking shots, and (this is the best one) you can fly the drone through a path and set splines in 3d space, which the drone will then fly for you as many times as you want. I don't own one, just a fun little DJI Mini 2, but it's only a matter of time. The US isn't the EU, but I have negative trust in DJI (that is, I assume they're doing dastardly things with their huge firehose of data) and figure Skydio has a reputation to maintain if they want to differentiate, so neutral and even slightly positive. I hope Skydio learns from Apple that privacy is something consumers who don't want the cheapest Chinese model of something demand, and does a better and more consistent job of delivering it.
- zeristor 4y ago
  I saw a YouTube video of a drone following a spline path, shooting day, dusk and night video then the YouTuber blending it altogether, very impressive. I had been searching for it on YouTube thinking it was a DJI video, I’m fairly sure it was, hence me not finding it.
- blensor 4y ago
  I keep stumbling over the Skydio, they look quite impressive, and I think almost what I am looking for but all their inspection videos are tailored towards relatively big structures (factories, RF towers, ...) Does any company make an indoor capable drone that can fly a fixed path (through a house). It does not really matter how fast it is, and it does not need to be a strong drone. "All" I want is to walk through a house with a drone, capturing the video and then have it repeat the same path over and over again autonomously. I don't even care about obstacle avoidance beyond the most basic "stop if you can't move to the next point"
  - achow 4y ago
    Amazon's Ring Home Cam? (Though currently "Available exclusively by invitation") Ring Always Home Cam | Flying indoor cam with multiple perspectives, custom flight paths, and In-Flight Live View https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Always-Home-Cam/dp/B08YH144XD https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Always-Home-Cam/dp/B08YH144XD
finikytou 4y ago
you are aware that most of electronic components are made in china right?
bitL 4y ago
How is a Chinese company spying on you going to affect your daily life?
- pookha 4y ago
  Depends. The Chinese government kidnaps their own citizens in the US and have been known to torture relatives of whistle blowers that live abroad. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r... So if you were one of these people and some jamoke was flying one of these drones around your area I'd imagine that would have a profoundly negative effect on your psyche. Which is one of the reasons I'd never fly a DJI drone. I'd expect there's a potential that the drone is feeding back track and positioning data w\ imagery to a "service".
  - bitL 4y ago
    That's a bit extreme example for high value targets, a hasty generalization fallacy. Imagine a regular US Joe - how is that going to affect them? Now imagine when a US corp will irreversibly shut down your account based on what you wrote on your Android phone on Reddit because some dodgy ML flagged you - which one has a higher probability to happen? A Chinese hit squad or automated ban from a "friendly" US corp?
icoder 4y ago
As the discussion already shows there's 2 ways to interpret what you mean with geopolitical aspect. Assuming it's the privacy one, could someone elaborate on how feasible it is to use a drone in isolation? For example, I have Huawei headphones, but did not download their app. Even with bad intent, there should be no way they can 'phone home' over regular BLE, through my device's default audio drivers. Same for a password app that doesn't have internet access allowed or a WiFi device that's on a closed network (only works if they don't need cloud to function of course). Perhaps this kind of isolation is not possible for a DJI, maybe because they have 3G or (need) WiFi on board or in the app that's connected to the world? The further away this need is from the core usage, the easier it may be to 'block' or replace it with something 'Western'.
Manuel_D 4y ago
Adupilot is another significant open source "drone" (really, tons of different RC craft) firmware: https://ardupilot.org/ https://ardupilot.org/
83 4y ago
Building a drone is incredibly easy these days, there's so much reference information out there now and pretty much all the pieces just plug together. There's tons of great open source flight controller software out there - ardupilot, inav, betaflight, etc. I'm wondering what you didn't find particularly appealing about them?
- the__alchemist 4y ago
  Take a look at the brands for the most popular parts - almost all Chinese.
  - 83 4y ago
    Isn't the concern with DJI mostly the software (artificial flight limitations, phone-home ability, ability for China to lock you out on a whim). I'm not concerned that the motors and carbon tubes on my drones are made in China, I'm worried about truly owning the device I'm flying. If I were a Ukrainian DJI pilot I'd be worried about China doing Russia a favor by releasing a firmware update with this logic: 1) drone is flying in Ukraine? 2) motor amperage is higher than normal (probably carrying a grenade)? If 1 and 2, just return to takeoff point and drop the grenade Maybe mix in a rand() so Ukraine doesn't catch on too quick.
    - the__alchemist 4y ago
      Valid! It is interesting to me how the hobby market is all Chinese. I'm not sure why - perhaps it's a race to the bottom on price, and non-Chinese hardware manufacturers can't complete on price, but that's speculation.

palata 4y ago

Parrot Anafi is pretty nice. Haven't tried the Anafi Ai though. That won't be a Mavic, but that's european, and really not bad. Open source would be PX4, Ardupilot and BetaFlight, pretty much. But there you need to build your own frame.

ChemSpider 4y ago
Anafi is still "made in China": https://parrotpilots.com/threads/parrot-anafi-is-made-in-china.3971/ https://parrotpilots.com/threads/parrot-anafi-is-made-in-chi...
- jokowueu 4y ago
  That's not the issue here . Almost everything is made in china . People here care if it's a Chinese company or not.
  - texasbigdata 4y ago
    Perhaps a little pedantic but as a thought experiment, if ABC corp was awesome at drones and wanted to solely manufacture in China, but in order to do so was forced to form ABC_China_LLC and transfer al the IP and know-how, how would you feel about it then? It's like a reverse "what if China invades Taiwan and takes TSMC".
    - jokowueu 4y ago
      The main threat here is CPP's control/influence over the company's action not that it's a Chinese company specifically . https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/party-committees-in-chinese-companies/ https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/party-committ... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/technology/who-owns-huawei.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/technology/who-owns-huawe...

ChemSpider 4y ago

I wanted to post the same question, but you beat me to it. I would really like to buy a "not-made-China" drone. For me it is just for fun & tinkering, but I can imagine that there is a significant market for it (government, military, schools,...).

shapefrog 4y ago
> not-made-China All the parts are going to come from there anyway...
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  I'm sure there are ways, but I guess a lot of nefarious things one could do with a drone product get a lot harder if you don't also make the finished system assembled from those parts and the software controlling the whole thing.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    You build one then connect a pixhawk to it for flight control and communication
  - yaddaor 4y ago
    What secret and hidden, nefarious things could those reasonably be?
    - blincoln 4y ago
      > What secret and hidden, nefarious things could those reasonably be? Collecting photo and video footage combined with GPS data without the explicit consent of the owner would be the biggest one, IMO. That would be a great way to build maps of areas that aren't visible from satellites, or to get more detailed imagery than a satellite, or to build full 3D maps of areas using photogrammetry or similar. Just the GPS data could also be very useful, as it would be a map of the space that drones are likely to be able to fly through. If someone has a 3D map of areas where consumers successfully flew drones, seems like that would make it much easier to send semi- or fully-autonomous drones through there too, if the area were of interest. The US Navy has a problem with mystery drones surveilling their ships, so it seems reasonable to assume that folks are doing the same with sensitive facilities on land. Maybe it would even be useful for plotting flight routes for cruise missiles, so they can stay as close to the ground as possible? Capturing wifi access point information, like some mapping companies have done, could be beneficial to an organization that doesn't have traditional mapping vehicles. Same for any other radio signals that the device can pick up. All of that is more or less passive, with the exception of sending the data somewhere. There are a lot more options if the manufacturer is willing to be more aggressive and risk someone noticing that their products are behaving oddly.

jart 4y ago

What are the geopolitical aspects of having a flying toy built in China?

samatman 4y ago
It's a good question, what are the geopolitical aspects of a Chinese company running cloud software and shipping firmware to a bunch of flying cameras? Does that mean they can run the metadata through machine learning and save all the video their filter decides is interesting? That sounds like it has geopolitical aspects whether they're doing it right now or not.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sockaddr 4y ago
  Also, one aspect is financially supporting an entity which is based in a country that doesn't have a good notion of separation between corporation and state. You are very much purchasing a drone from the Chinese state. Corporations are required to have a certain percentage of party members. Instead, putting that same money into a corporation from a place where privacy is valued and there isn't a direct benefit to the state is best in my opinion. All of these little micro-choices add up in the long run. I think, if you value personal freedom and rule of law instead of rule by law, you need to stop funneling money into the Chinese economy. Surely a company in Taiwan could be competitive in this space?
zoba 4y ago
Modified DJI drones are being used by Ukraine against Russia. Conceivably if the Chinese government wanted they could force the company to issue an update to disable this use case.
- texasbigdata 4y ago
  As a n00b bet, I'd guess if actual top 5 or top 10 powers fought you'd see some scary / impressive / novel drone warfare usage.

samatman 4y ago

Skydio is an American company and is ahead of DJI technically, at least for now. Better obstacle avoidance, a beacon for tracking shots, and (this is the best one) you can fly the drone through a path and set splines in 3d space, which the drone will then fly for you as many times as you want. I don't own one, just a fun little DJI Mini 2, but it's only a matter of time. The US isn't the EU, but I have negative trust in DJI (that is, I assume they're doing dastardly things with their huge firehose of data) and figure Skydio has a reputation to maintain if they want to differentiate, so neutral and even slightly positive. I hope Skydio learns from Apple that privacy is something consumers who don't want the cheapest Chinese model of something demand, and does a better and more consistent job of delivering it.

zeristor 4y ago
I saw a YouTube video of a drone following a spline path, shooting day, dusk and night video then the YouTuber blending it altogether, very impressive. I had been searching for it on YouTube thinking it was a DJI video, I’m fairly sure it was, hence me not finding it.
blensor 4y ago
I keep stumbling over the Skydio, they look quite impressive, and I think almost what I am looking for but all their inspection videos are tailored towards relatively big structures (factories, RF towers, ...) Does any company make an indoor capable drone that can fly a fixed path (through a house). It does not really matter how fast it is, and it does not need to be a strong drone. "All" I want is to walk through a house with a drone, capturing the video and then have it repeat the same path over and over again autonomously. I don't even care about obstacle avoidance beyond the most basic "stop if you can't move to the next point"
- achow 4y ago
  Amazon's Ring Home Cam? (Though currently "Available exclusively by invitation") Ring Always Home Cam | Flying indoor cam with multiple perspectives, custom flight paths, and In-Flight Live View https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Always-Home-Cam/dp/B08YH144XD https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Always-Home-Cam/dp/B08YH144XD

finikytou 4y ago

you are aware that most of electronic components are made in china right?

bitL 4y ago

How is a Chinese company spying on you going to affect your daily life?

pookha 4y ago
Depends. The Chinese government kidnaps their own citizens in the US and have been known to torture relatives of whistle blowers that live abroad. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r... So if you were one of these people and some jamoke was flying one of these drones around your area I'd imagine that would have a profoundly negative effect on your psyche. Which is one of the reasons I'd never fly a DJI drone. I'd expect there's a potential that the drone is feeding back track and positioning data w\ imagery to a "service".
- bitL 4y ago
  That's a bit extreme example for high value targets, a hasty generalization fallacy. Imagine a regular US Joe - how is that going to affect them? Now imagine when a US corp will irreversibly shut down your account based on what you wrote on your Android phone on Reddit because some dodgy ML flagged you - which one has a higher probability to happen? A Chinese hit squad or automated ban from a "friendly" US corp?

icoder 4y ago

As the discussion already shows there's 2 ways to interpret what you mean with geopolitical aspect. Assuming it's the privacy one, could someone elaborate on how feasible it is to use a drone in isolation? For example, I have Huawei headphones, but did not download their app. Even with bad intent, there should be no way they can 'phone home' over regular BLE, through my device's default audio drivers. Same for a password app that doesn't have internet access allowed or a WiFi device that's on a closed network (only works if they don't need cloud to function of course). Perhaps this kind of isolation is not possible for a DJI, maybe because they have 3G or (need) WiFi on board or in the app that's connected to the world? The further away this need is from the core usage, the easier it may be to 'block' or replace it with something 'Western'.

Manuel_D 4y ago

Adupilot is another significant open source "drone" (really, tons of different RC craft) firmware: https://ardupilot.org/ https://ardupilot.org/

83 4y ago

Building a drone is incredibly easy these days, there's so much reference information out there now and pretty much all the pieces just plug together. There's tons of great open source flight controller software out there - ardupilot, inav, betaflight, etc. I'm wondering what you didn't find particularly appealing about them?

the__alchemist 4y ago
Take a look at the brands for the most popular parts - almost all Chinese.
- 83 4y ago
  Isn't the concern with DJI mostly the software (artificial flight limitations, phone-home ability, ability for China to lock you out on a whim). I'm not concerned that the motors and carbon tubes on my drones are made in China, I'm worried about truly owning the device I'm flying. If I were a Ukrainian DJI pilot I'd be worried about China doing Russia a favor by releasing a firmware update with this logic: 1) drone is flying in Ukraine? 2) motor amperage is higher than normal (probably carrying a grenade)? If 1 and 2, just return to takeoff point and drop the grenade Maybe mix in a rand() so Ukraine doesn't catch on too quick.
  - the__alchemist 4y ago
    Valid! It is interesting to me how the hobby market is all Chinese. I'm not sure why - perhaps it's a race to the bottom on price, and non-Chinese hardware manufacturers can't complete on price, but that's speculation.