Ishveena Singh

Last Black Friday, DJI showered us with some really good discounts on a number of products. This year, not so much. So, we decided to look around for deals with the best free gifts instead. And we found a couple of winners.

Autel Robotics has announced its Black Friday deals, and this year, the spotlight is on refurbished products. On sale are refurbished EVO II and EVO II drones, EVO II remote controller (V1), EVO battery, EVO II battery charger, and EVO II Pro and EVO II 8K rugged bundles.

Germany-based drone startup Beagle Systems wants to offer geospatial data users on-demand aerial imagery at resolutions up to 50 times higher than currently available from commercial satellites. And it wants to do that remotely, much more quickly.

Drones are saving lives and transforming the way we live and work on an almost daily basis. This is why more than two-thirds (68%) of the British public believes drones will have a positive impact on their lives in the future, and almost half (49%) say they’re excited about the potential drone technology holds.

Drone automation specialist FlytBase has announced its Black Friday 2021 deals. The company is offering discounts of up to 90% on annual subscriptions to remote drone operation and fleet management software FlytNow Live, which is recommended for the DJI Mavic 2 series.

Amazon may have been teasing us with promises of aerial deliveries since 2013, but it’s retail giant Walmart that’s proving that being the first to announce a program doesn’t necessarily guarantee an industry leader spot. Teaming up with Virginia-based drone startup DroneUp, Walmart has begun commercial drone delivery services in northwestern Arkansas this week.

On-demand drone delivery service Flytrex has raised a $40 million Series C funding round to ramp up expansion throughout the US suburbs and advance partnerships with leading retailers and quick-service restaurants.

DJI is celebrating the holiday season by offering its best drones, stabilizers, and cameras with free goodies, weekly product giveaways, and a chance to win the first DJI consumer product of 2022.

The DJI FPV Drone Combo has dropped to $999, its biggest price cut ever, for Black Friday 2021. Meanwhile, some authorized retailers are throwing in a bunch of free accessories, such as a hard case, strobe light, and microSD card, to sweeten the deal even further.

Cleo Robotics is announcing that its palm-fitting Dronut X1 drone, which is designed specifically for indoor operations, is now available to buy commercially. A ducted fan design gives the Dronut its unconventional looks and allows it to fly comfortably near people, in tight spaces, and around sensitive equipment.

On-demand residential drone delivery service Wing is bringing Christmas magic directly to Australia’s driveways and backyards this holiday season. Starting today, customers who live in Wing’s service areas in Canberra and Logan will be able to order a free “The Elf on the Shelf” plush toy and have it delivered to their home by a drone within minutes. And that’s not even the best part.

Home to more than 1,400 unique and traditional holiday events spread across 40 days, Grapevine holds an official trademark for being the “Christmas Capital of Texas.” And this year, along with the sparkle of millions of lights, enormous decorations, and animated characters, the town is playing host to two Christmas-themed drone light shows.

DJI has announced a major revamp to its developer ecosystem support policies. To make the development of third-party drone solutions on DJI’s platforms easier than ever before, the technology giant is reducing the cost of its SDK software and hardware kits, making all member services free of charge for SDK developers, and ramping up technical support dramatically.

Drone-in-a-box solutions provider Percepto, whose autonomous inspection platform AIM has been named as one of 100 Best Inventions of 2021 by Time magazine, has launched a new drone called Air Mobile. In addition, the Israel-based company has also updated AIM to deliver AI-powered packaged solutions for sector-specific use cases, such as solar, mining, energy, oil and gas, etc.

SkyeBrowse, a drone reality capture platform that can convert your DJI or Autel drone video into a 3D model at the speed of coffee, has launched a new factual diagram tool to reduce the time spent on paperwork by over 99%.

In the seven months since Brandon Torres Declet was appointed as its chief executive officer, AgEagle Aerial Systems has been aggressively pursuing its goal to become a global billion-dollar drone company.

After a particularly hectic launch season with three back-to-back product releases, you may think DJI is done for 2021. But the technology giant has just unveiled two new drones in its home country of China: the DJI Agras T40 and T20P.

Toronto-based drone logistics firm Drone Delivery Canada has unveiled the next generation of its Sparrow aircraft. The company says the new drone, which will be commercialized as the Canary, has already passed its first tests successfully.

Drone Racing League (DRL) has launched its first mobile game, Drone Racing Arcade, to bring the thrill of drone racing to players across the globe. This first-of-its-kind mobile game with real-world prizes is available as a free app for both iOS and Android mobile devices.

Featuring an all-star ensemble of Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, Netflix’s latest mega-production, Red Notice, has made history by scoring the streaming service’s biggest opening day. But in addition to the A-list trio, the movie also features an A-list star from the world of FPV drones, albeit he stays behind the camera.

In May 2017, Amazon announced the opening of a new Prime Air Development Center in Clichy, France, to boost research and development into its drone delivery program. Today, the dozen-strong team focusing on drone navigation stands reassigned to new roles.