Autel robotics thermal drone, any good?

[johndrone33]

Just found out that autel robotics have a thermal drone for around 3k usd but since i not seen much video and review about it, i dont know how good it is.

My plan is to search for animals with it and then use my mavic 3 pro to record them.
Bear,moose, lynx,wolf is seen regulary in my area but they are shy and not that common so I have only seen them a few times over the last 15 years wandering in the woods.

For example, at what distance can the thermal camera detect a human?
100 feet, 300 feet, or even more?

These animals often have big terretories so the longer the distance i can find an animal at,the better.

Youtube dont have much info on this drone wich is weird i think.

 

[mavic3usa]

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[Felix le Chat]

Just found out that autel robotics have a thermal drone for around 3k usd but since i not seen much video and review about it, i dont know how good it is.

My plan is to search for animals with it and then use my mavic 3 pro to record them.
Bear,moose, lynx,wolf is seen regulary in my area but they are shy and not that common so I have only seen them a few times over the last 15 years wandering in the woods.

For example, at what distance can the thermal camera detect a human?
100 feet, 300 feet, or even more?

These animals often have big terretories so the longer the distance i can find an animal at,the better.

Youtube dont have much info on this drone wich is weird i think.

Read through the reviews and spec sheets for the Evo 2 thermal payload a few years back. Pretty much every reviewer agreed that it was superior to the camera fitted to the DJI equivalent.

The other tick in the 'plus' column is the fact that all three camera types (8K/6K/FLIR) can be swapped whenever the user wants to deploy different optical solutions.

 

[LandWaterSky]

I did a deep dive into thermal drones about a year ago, for search and rescue, and I ended up purchasing a DJI Mavic 3T Enterprise. I have no regrets.

I strongly considered the Autel Evo II v3. The main thing that steered me away from the Autel Evo were reliability problems expressed by owners on this and other drone forums. According to the owners, they also experienced terrible customer service support when they had problems with their drones.

I am not trying to be ugly about Autel. I have nothing against them. I am suggesting that you continue researching various opinions of the drone before you purchase one.

 

[Felix le Chat]

Wholeheartedly agree. Autel drones have the capability of being just as good as DJI, but... and here I can offer first hand experience... there is a degree of mechanical unreliability that turns the purchase process into a bit of a crap-shoot. You might get a good-un from word 'go' and get to see how top-notch the Evo 2 is... but you might end up with a turkey and have to send it back for replacement under warranty (which is what happened with me... not once, but twice on the trot with the model I chose).

 

[LandWaterSky]

Wholeheartedly agree. Autel drones have the capability of being just as good as DJI, but... and here I can offer first hand experience... there is a degree of mechanical unreliability that turns the purchase process into a bit of a crap-shoot. You might get a good-un from word 'go' and get to see how top-notch the Evo 2 is... but you might end up with a turkey and have to send it back for replacement under warranty (which is what happened with me... not once, but twice on the trot with the model I chose).

Thanks for your detailed response, Felix.

 

[jaja6009]

OP, for your use case, the Autel Lite Enterprise will more than meet your needs.

If you wanted in the future to do other use cases, you may run into trouble.
If you wanted to expand into infrared inspections, make sure that this new model works in Autels proprietary thermal inspection software. Also you will not find any easy solution for creating thermal orthomosaics (maps).

When comparing the quality of the thermal image, Autel produces a very competitive product. They use a Chinese spec thermal core that looks better than when they used a FLIR Boson core in their first thermal iteration.

I use 2 different Autel drones and have found them to be reliable and valuable tools. But their life cycle support tends to be short, some promised features never became reality, and there were some firmware hiccups.

For what your use case is and the price, it looks like it fits your needs.

 

[LandWaterSky]

OP, for your use case, the Autel Lite Enterprise will more than meet your needs.

If you wanted in the future to do other use cases, you may run into trouble.
If you wanted to expand into infrared inspections, make sure that this new model works in Autels proprietary thermal inspection software. Also you will not find any easy solution for creating thermal orthomosaics (maps).

When comparing the quality of the thermal image, Autel produces a very competitive product. They use a Chinese spec thermal core that looks better than when they used a FLIR Boson core in their first thermal iteration.

I use 2 different Autel drones and have found them to be reliable and valuable tools. But their life cycle support tends to be short, some promised features never became reality, and there were some firmware hiccups.

For what your use case is and the price, it looks like it fits your needs.

Excellent suggestions and overview.

 

[johndrone33]

I did a deep dive into thermal drones about a year ago, for search and rescue, and I ended up purchasing a DJI Mavic 3T Enterprise. I have no regrets.

I strongly considered the Autel Evo II v3. The main thing that steered me away from the Autel Evo were reliability problems expressed by owners on this and other drone forums. According to the owners, they also experienced terrible customer service support when they had problems with their drones.

I am not trying to be ugly about Autel. I have nothing against them. I am suggesting that you continue researching various opinions of the drone before you purchase one.

Why do you mention mavic 3t enterprise?
Its not a thermal drone.

 

[LandWaterSky]

Why do you mention mavic 3t enterprise?
Its not a thermal drone.

Hi John, I believe you are thinking of the Mavic 3E Enterprise. That model has no thermal capability. With the Mavic 3T Enterprise... the "T" designates it as the thermal model.

 

[johndrone33]

Hi John, I believe you are thinking of the Mavic 3E Enterprise. That model has no thermal capability. With the Mavic 3T Enterprise... the "T" designates it as the thermal model.

Its about twice the price as the autel drone so I dont really see how its a fair comparison.

 

[LandWaterSky]

Its about twice the price as the autel drone so I dont really see how its a fair comparison.

You're right. But there is no fair comparison. There are very few choices for thermal drones under the price point of around $5000 US.

 

[Dmcvey]

we own 50 Autels and 30ish DJIs; both are workhorses. I would compare them to Chevys: Autel is solid and will get the job done, and DJI is the Cadillac, the same vehicle with leather seats.