Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone-related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, and Electrek.
Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo
Oakland University Professor Jon Carroll went to Africa last summer to explore how drones can help in the fight against Malaria. He is using unmanned aircraft and software used for precision agriculture to support public health, environmental protection, food security, and other efforts.
Audi has used drones for headlights in a new electric vehicle concept car that was shown at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show. The new EV is called the Audi AI:Trail and like most concept cars, will likely never enter production. The design team at the German car manufacturer took things one step further on this vehicle and included five rotorless, triangular, battery-powered drones with integrated matrix LED lights to light up the path in front of the car.
In a year in which DJI has yet to launch a new drone, the competition is heating up. Parrot keeps prodding DJI at the lower end of the market with lightweight and affordable drones. Skydio is about to launch a competitor to the DJI Mavic 2 drone series. And today. FreeFly introduces the Alta X, a drone aimed at film and documentary makers, that puts new competitive pressure to the top of the drone market. Let’s take a closer look and see what FreeFly offers us with the Alta X.
The police of Kaysville, Utah are investigating reports of a drone approaching people and impersonating Kaysville Police. As the unmanned aircraft approaches people it barks orders.
Drones have been making their inroads into many different industries, one of which is the oil and gas industry. Today, BP said that the company is launching a new system of gas cloud imaging drones to monitor and help reduce methane emissions.
Led by Volvo owner Geely, air-taxi Volocopter has raised $55M and hopes to bring the passenger drone and services to market in the next two to three years. The company’s focus has not been on the US market due to regulatory challenges.
Maybe Skydio does it on purpose. Maybe not. Either way, the marketing team that releases the teaser videos for the new Skydio 2 drone always put a little easter egg in there somewhere. The first video showed the shade of the drone, which revealed to us that there will not be a metal band or casing around the entire drone as was the case with the Skydio R1. The latest video shows somebody who presumingly is flying the drone and he seems to be holding a remote controller for the Skydio 2 drone. More control over the unmanned aircraft with a dedicated remote controller might just turn the Skydio 2 into a true DJI Mavic 2 Pro competitor.
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A drone video shows a capsized cargo ship off the coast of Georgia. The ship started listing Sunday at 2 am off St. Simons island shortly after it left the Port of Brunswick, Ga., on its way to Baltimore.
A team of researchers from Montana State University’s College of Agriculture brought drones to examine climate trends to Fairbanks, Alaska. The research group will use data from the drones in combination with ground measurements and data from other sources to improve their understanding of how the climate might be changing.
Photo: Researchers from the Montana State University Land Resources Environmental Sciences department recently traveled to Alaska to collect data on thawing permafrost soils in boreal and arctic regions. Courtesy of MSU News Service.
One of the main hurdles preventing commercial drone applications from taking off in the US is Remote Identification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems or drones. Without Remote ID, officials will have no idea who is flying, where, where to, and for what purpose, and thus the FAA will keep their foot on the brake when it comes to allowing commercial drone services. The process of making Remote ID a reality has yet been delayed again by another three months as shown in this significant rulemaking report from August from the US Department of Transportation (USDOT).
Leadership from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) traveled to Florida and the Bahamas to assist general aviation organizations in mobilizing relief efforts following the devastation from Hurricane Dorian.
Photo: Extensive damage in the Bahamas was documented Sept. 3 by a U.S. Coast Guard crew from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Adam Stanton.
Dutch media report that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had helped authorities in the Netherlands to apprehend 24-year-old Abdulkadir Ü. after he discussed plans to use drones in a terror attack on New Year’s Eve in Paris in online chatrooms. The suspected drone terrorist was arrested late last year after the FBI tipped off the Dutch police.
Today, out of the blue, DJI announced in an email a discount on the DJI Osmo Pocket. The promotion apparently started on September 1st and will run until September 23rd. The 3-axis stabilized pocket camera, or handheld gimbal, can now be bought in the official DJI online store for $319 instead of $399 (although it was always offered for $349). That seems like a very good discount but our friends and colleagues at 9to5Toys have an even better deal for you. You can pick up the DJI Osmo Pocket for $271. See here for all the details.
About two weeks ago, we first reported on Prairie Village, Kansas, and the new legislation to restrict the use of drones that they were working on. Now the municipality has actually passed the ordinance, and violators can be fined up to $500 or even face jail time.
A missing 90-year-old woman from Marquette County, Wisconsin was found with the help of a drone. According to a release by the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office, the drone was equipped with a FLIR Thermal imaging camera. The missing woman suffers from dementia. She was found by the drone.
Altitude Angel, the world’s foremost UTM (unmanned traffic management) provider, has today announced it is to launch the world’s first ‘just culture’ reporting system for drone pilots and operators.
DroneInch announces the industry’s first low-cost pay-by- mission Drone Flight Automation solution on economical off-the-shelf drones for inspections, surveys, and deliveries.
Auterion, the leading open-source operating system for enterprise drones, today announced the release of MAVSDK, a set of libraries in different programming languages (C++, Python, Swift, Java) that provide a high-level API to the MAVLink protocol for communication between a ground control station and drones, or the drone and a payload sensor.
This doesn’t really come as a surprise, although I didn’t check for it right away when I wrote yesterday’s posts about DJI raising their prices as a result of the trade tariffs taking effect. DJI has now also raised the prices on their DJI Care Refresh packages. Apple seems to be absorbing most of the tariffs so that they don’t impact consumers in the US. So why does DJI simply pass them on to us drone enthusiasts?
Today we’ve learned that DJI has updated their website. From their main site for the US market, you can still view the information of the Phantom Series. However, if you click on any of the ‘Buy Now’ buttons you get the ‘Not available in your country/region’ message from DJI.
Even though the FAA recently put out a warning to not weaponize your drones, there are situations when a drone with self-igniting eggs or flame-throwers can help save lives. Check out this article by The Guardian about these ‘dragon’ drones.
As you might have read in our first post today, DJI has completely removed the DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 (and all other Phantoms) from their official DJI online store. In that article, we mentioned that we were trying to confirm whether this meant that the iconic drone would no longer make a temporary comeback in September. We now have an answer to that urgent question.
Earlier today, we updated you on the DJI drone inventory in the official online store. Unfortunately, the price increases are not limited to only the drones. The tariffs also result in a price increase for the DJI Mavic 2 Intelligent Flight Battery and the DJI Phantom 4 Series Intelligent Flight Battery.
On a positive note, at least you can now buy batteries for your DJI Phantom 4, as they have been out of stock at the official DJI online store for a long time.
In August we reported that almost all DJI drones were out of stock on the official DJI online store. Today, we provide you with a DJI drone update. Some drones, such as the DJI Spark and DJI Phantom 4, have been removed entirely from the DJI store. Whereas other drones like the DJI Mavic 2 Pro have become available again but at significantly higher prices. What is going on here? Let’s take a closer look.
Note: be sure to check these retailers’ sites (Adorama, Amazon, B&H, BestBuy, DroneNerds, or eBay) if you’re looking for a specific model that is no longer available through DJI directly.
Update: the article now includes an official response from DJI. See below.