Drone maker DJI may soon find its drones banned in one of its largest markets: the United States.
A drone ban bill that has been making its way through the halls of the US Congress (yes, conjuring up mental images of a DJI FPV drone flight) for over a year, the Anti-Drone Act of the PCC, passed in the full House of Representatives last week and is now ready to reach the United States Senate. It could be a short flight to US President Joe Biden's desk. The Biden administration hasn't said much about the bill, but based on how quickly the administration signed a bill that included a U.S. demand to sell TikTok to its Chinese parent company (or face a ban), the Outlook for DJI drones are cloudy at best.
The backdrop here is apparently who owns and builds those drones. DJI is a Chinese company, and US concern over Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage and deletion of US citizens' data is at an all-time high. The US government now considers any Chinese-built technology in US hands a threat.
There is also the question of competition, or lack thereof, in the US drone market. Most studies put DJI's drone market share in the United States at a high 70%. Lawmakers want to open the US market to American drone companies. Apparently, it's not about building better drones, but rather approving a flight plan for potentially more mediocre American-made drone products.
Too good to handle
How did DJI gobble up so much of the market? Building better drones. I've been testing and flying DJI drones for almost a decade and they always offer the best combination of flight capabilities and software control.
It was the first consumer drone company (it also has a significant professional line) to build foldable and ultimately pocketable drones. These shuttlecocks are light, durable, fast, and surprisingly easy to fly, even for beginners. This last part is mainly due to the intelligence built into each drone.
DJI drones have sensors that tell you where the ground is and, depending on the model, obstacles in front and behind. Drones, best described as flying robots, know their elevation and location, but can also perform multiple predefined tricks. Basically, you can have as much or as little control as you want over the flight plan. And if you want to stop flying, the remote controls always have a handy “home” button that returns the drone safely home.
Safety has always been one of DJI's main concerns. Drones won't fly towards people, and if you took one in mid-flight, it would shut down. The company has also long advised against flying in populated areas or around buildings and monuments. Professional travelers often sign up for free drone licenses from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which require you to enter an identification number on your drone. If someone finds your drone on your deck, they will be able to track it back to you.
None of this matters to the congressmen who are trying to sign this piece of language into law:
“This bill requires the inclusion of telecommunications and video surveillance equipment or services produced or provided by Shenzhen Da-Jiang Innovations Sciences and Technologies Company Limited (a Chinese drone manufacturer commonly known as DJI Technologies) in a list of equipment or services of communications determined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) poses an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”
Undefined risk
Just as no one has yet to definitively prove how TikTok is stealing our data and putting us at risk, I can't find evidence that DJI drones are putting the United States at risk.
It's also interesting that the bill's sponsoring representative, Elise Stefanik, points to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rather than the regulatory body responsible for drone operation in the US, the FAA. I suppose it's easier to add some existing FCC language that points to information transfer between the drone and the cloud (a possible hotspot for CCP) rather than asking the FAA to look at DJI drones as a whole and evaluate its impact on US privacy. The FAA has likely already assessed that DJI drones are safe for US citizens to fly.
The problem here is that our global market is, in some ways, failing America's efforts to keep pace. Labor is still cheaper outside the United States, and other countries can often make high-tech products more cheaply. However, I would say that DJI does not make cheap products.
In some ways, DJI reminds me of Apple. It has analyzed the burgeoning consumer drone market and generally set a higher bar for controls, motors, gimbals, cameras, battery life, and design. Their drones aren't sleek like Apple products, but DJI has its own design language and you know a DJI Mavic when you see one.
When I visited DJI's first US flagship store, located in midtown Manhattan, I saw a wide range of products. Some, like the DJI Mini 4K, cost just $299 (with remote), but a Mavic Pro Fly More package costs more than $1,000 (Pro models are more expensive). The company also makes portable cameras with small gimbals and portable microphones, both popular on social media. Will lawmakers try to ban them as well? Probably.
There are no better options
My frustration level with a US government that is moving Chinese tech companies from safe and acceptable to dangerous and bannable like beads on an abacus is at an all-time high.
It continues to act capriciously, with little involvement from the American citizens who actually use these technologies. DJI drones are still the best in the business and I have no idea what the CCP could do with my flight plan over a crevasse in upstate New York or Jones Beach. I'm not sure I care. It is not actionable information. Most American social media companies have much more information about me and have shown less care with it than foreign entities.
If DJI is banned (not a certainty yet), I'm not sure what will fill the void. There is no American drone company with as much recognition. To be honest, the drones from most drone startups pale in comparison to the brochures put out by DJI. The top six products on our Best Drones list are all DJI models.
I have no doubt that this flight has already passed takeoff and can land where I hope it doesn't. I'm not sure what DJI could do right now to change the minds of US lawmakers and Biden, especially since none of them seem to be listening to China-based companies.
The global market is becoming more and more of a memory, this time flying on the high-speed rotors of my favorite drone manufacturer.
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