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Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

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Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#41

Post by philips »

deeeeeplearning wrote: post #32
philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

>But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese companies erode US business like boeing, cisco or Facebook DJI makes consumer grade products and Boeing is a military contractor? How exactly does DJI impact Boeing's bottom line?

Boeing does have UAV programs afaict. And from the article:

> “The US Congress is considering banning the US federal government from using foreign-made drones as part of its 2021 National Defense Authorization Act,” reported Flight. A junior US defence minister, Ellen Lord, in charge of procurement, added to the aerospace magazine: “We looked at the fact that basically DJI from China had decimated our industrial base for small UAVs, quadcopters and so forth, through pricing that was sub-cost and so forth.”

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#42

Post by alistairSH »

omgbobbyg wrote: post #26
dellcybpwr wrote: post #9

Not that I need a drone.. but I've thought about one in the past.. and having to not only use their app but have it connected to the internet has been a big deterrent and thus far have not used one.

I have a DJI Mini drone (which is awesome), I use it with a Google Pixel that has no internet connection (no SIM card and no WiFi) and it works fine.

Is that true for the larger drones? The Mini is light enough that it doesn't need approval to fly (in the US). The larger drones require approval to fly, which is often accomplished real-time within the control app. [I don't know if this is the case, just guessing/wondering if it is]

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#43

Post by coldtea »

davinic wrote: post #40
zaroth wrote: post #27

I have a DJI Mavic Mini and I was very impressed with the hardware and software overall. My kids and I have had a lot of fun flying this little drone! It does log every flight to the cloud, showing the telemetry logs of exactly where the drone flew and what it sent and received along the way (not full video, just telemetry). I find the logs extremely cool to look over after the fact when analyzing a flight. Their ins…

> Drones are a serious responsibility, and can be misused to cause a lot of damage >I flew the drone over to a friend's back yard, and had misconfigured the "return-to-home" altitude too low You claim to understand the need for responsible drone ownership, yet in the same comment mention how you crashed your drone (luckily only into a tree) while violating clearly-stated FAA line-of-sight guidelines (and also not hav…

What is the real cognitive dissonance is how "flew the drone over to a friend's back yard" is interpreted as some violation rule about line-of-sight guidelines -- or whatever this has to do with "not having understood the basic flight controls and recovery options".

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#44

Post by coldtea »

libertine wrote: post #6
philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

While I agree with you, I think there's something that should be pointed out: China stance on foreign companies doing business in China. Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

>Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

That's the same for the US. When it suits them there's sanctions, embargoes, tariffs, and questioning/forbiding foreign companies, investments, etc.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#45

Post by a_t48 »

alistairSH wrote: post #42
omgbobbyg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a DJI Mini drone (which is awesome), I use it with a Google Pixel that has no internet connection (no SIM card and no WiFi) and it works fine.

Is that true for the larger drones? The Mini is light enough that it doesn't need approval to fly (in the US). The larger drones require approval to fly, which is often accomplished real-time within the control app. [I don't know if this is the case, just guessing/wondering if it is]

That should be true unless you're near an airport.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#46

Post by 0xffff2 »

philips wrote: post #41
deeeeeplearning wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese companies erode US business like boeing, cisco or Facebook DJI makes consumer grade products and Boeing is a military contractor? How exactly does DJI impact Boeing's bottom line?

Boeing does have UAV programs afaict. And from the article: > “The US Congress is considering banning the US federal government from using foreign-made drones as part of its 2021 National Defense Authorization Act,” reported Flight. A junior US defence minister, Ellen Lord, in charge of procurement, added to the aerospace magazine: “We looked at the fact that basically DJI from China had decimated our industrial base…

Boeing drones are things like the MQ-25 [0]. They don't compete with DJI. I'm a researcher (US government contractor) in the aerospace field, and they've been trying to ban us from using DJI drones for years. They keep pushing it back and making exceptions because it has been incredibly hard for us to find anything comparable that's made by a US company (and even then the hardware is all Chinese, it's just assembled in the US and presumably running software that phones home to a server in the US rather than one in China.)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_MQ-25_Stingray

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#47

Post by grecy »

alistairSH wrote: post #42
omgbobbyg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a DJI Mini drone (which is awesome), I use it with a Google Pixel that has no internet connection (no SIM card and no WiFi) and it works fine.

Is that true for the larger drones? The Mini is light enough that it doesn't need approval to fly (in the US). The larger drones require approval to fly, which is often accomplished real-time within the control app. [I don't know if this is the case, just guessing/wondering if it is]

I think the app figures out where you are based on GPS co-ords and lets you fly or not. That's what my mavic mini appears to do when I fly it with no internet connection. It will even pop up warnings like "airport flight restriction nearby" and it does that with no internet...

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#48

Post by zaroth »

davinic wrote: post #40
zaroth wrote: post #27

I have a DJI Mavic Mini and I was very impressed with the hardware and software overall. My kids and I have had a lot of fun flying this little drone! It does log every flight to the cloud, showing the telemetry logs of exactly where the drone flew and what it sent and received along the way (not full video, just telemetry). I find the logs extremely cool to look over after the fact when analyzing a flight. Their ins…

> Drones are a serious responsibility, and can be misused to cause a lot of damage >I flew the drone over to a friend's back yard, and had misconfigured the "return-to-home" altitude too low You claim to understand the need for responsible drone ownership, yet in the same comment mention how you crashed your drone (luckily only into a tree) while violating clearly-stated FAA line-of-sight guidelines (and also not hav…

I think it’s possible to both understand that something is a serious responsibility as well as still crash a drone as an inexperienced operator.

There was never danger to people or property (besides the drone itself). I just misjudged the one tall tree in the field between our houses which managed to exceed 30 meters, and somehow was unlucky enough for the drone to decide to fly exactly straight into the very top of it when the link dropped out.

Worth noting that the range of the remote is significantly less than claimed in the marketing materials, which is not really surprising because they claim 4km (!) and it dropped out on me at ~200 meters.

I do think they oversell their “return to home” feature and after spending more time on the forums and reading many similar experiences to my own, it’s much better to configure it to hover-in-place (or go up to a set altitude and hover there) on a lost signal, and then you can go to it instead of having it come to you.

Basically the marketing, training videos, and manual all make “return to home” sound like a better idea than it really is in practice.

Now I know from experience if the drone ever decides to fly itself somewhere you’re probably going to have a bad day. You aren’t going to learn that from reading their manual or watching their video tutorials.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#49

Post by sneak »

Even DJI stuff that poses no risk whatsoever to health or safety, like their Osmo Pocket 4k gimbal camera, or their Osmo Action gopro-clone, require that you “activate” them, iPhone style, which logs at the very least your OS + IP (and thus rough location) + serial number to DJI.

It’s bullshit. These are not internet-attached devices, they shouldn’t be spying on us. I’d love to see similar approaches to even domestically-made and domestically-hosted manufacturers and collection APIs.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#50

Post by mytailorisrich »

libertine wrote: post #6
philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

While I agree with you, I think there's something that should be pointed out: China stance on foreign companies doing business in China. Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

It is "allowed" because everyone has so far benefited tremendously.

It is of course possible to invest in China, most large Western companies have, and it is profitable.

We've also all benefited from the huge pool of Chinese cheap labour.

China has also obviously benefited through an incredible economic development, which actually also benefits Western economies.

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