DJI arguably makes the best consumer drones - and as a platform I love my Mini Pro 3. It's small and light enough to easily put in a pack, easy to fly, and just works well apart from DJI's geofencing system.
HOWEVER - I'm heavily restricted from using it at my own property, not because of the FAA or any other government restrictions, but because of DJI.
I live about 10-miles from an airport. Per the FAA's on "B4UFLY" app - my rural property is clear of any restrictions, outside of the altitude restricted zone of the airport. However, DJI draws their own "FlySafe Geo" map differently, and places me in an altitude zone where I'm limited to 150-meters.
This wouldn't be so bad, except that I live next to a large hill/small mountain, that's a great place to fly over and take photographs.
If I were to go to the top of the mountain (also in DJI's altitude restricted area) and take off, I could fly out 150m from the top of the mountain, no issues. But since DJI takes no note of the ground height changing as you fly, if I take off from my property and try to fly my drone to the top of the mountain, I'd crash into its side long before I got there.
There's really no solution to this issue, besides hoping that someone creates a hacked firmware for my drone that ignores DJI's restrictions, like they have for other DJI models.
If another manufacturer developed a comparable drone that didn't suffer from DJI's restrictions, I'd buy it in a second.
Autel's app will pop up a warning - a small warning that's easily dismissed and doesn't get in the way - if it thinks you're in restricted airspace, but won't prevent you from flying.
There's one Asian country - Japan? - where the Autel app does restrict based on geofences, but otherwise it's up to the operator to ensure regulatory compliance.
DJI arguably makes the best consumer drones - and as a platform I love my Mini Pro 3. It's small and light enough to easily put in a pack, easy to fly, and just works well apart from DJI's geofencing system.
HOWEVER - I'm heavily restricted from using it at my own property, not because of the FAA or any other government restrictions, but because of DJI.
I live about 10-miles from an airport. Per the FAA's on "B4UFLY" app - my rural property is clear of any restrictions, outside of the altitude restricted zone of the airport. However, DJI draws their own "FlySafe Geo" map differently, and places me in an altitude zone where I'm limited to 150-meters.
This wouldn't be so bad, except that I live next to a large hill/small mountain, that's a great place to fly over and take photographs.
If I were to go to the top of the mountain (also in DJI's altitude restricted area) and take off, I could fly out 150m from the top of the mountain, no issues. But since DJI takes no note of the ground height changing as you fly, if I take off from my property and try to fly my drone to the top of the mountain, I'd crash into its side long before I got there.
There's really no solution to this issue, besides hoping that someone creates a hacked firmware for my drone that ignores DJI's restrictions, like they have for other DJI models.
If another manufacturer developed a comparable drone that didn't suffer from DJI's restrictions, I'd buy it in a second.