Fully understand your SAR requirements, and I wasn't aware the Boson didn't have a radiometric sensor. Wow, the impact you'd have in SAR if you provided a 640 Boson in this small package... that would be a game changer for deployment, cost, gear store, etc. A M210 vs a M2 Thermal, that would be a easy decision for many PD's. Does the smaller Boson 640 sensor have the same clarity at extended range compared to the larger sensors in the XT?
For my clarification, without the ability to view both simultaneously the MSX feature is not available and your're working with non-MSX enhanced images... similar to a XT 360.
You're modifying a
M2Z or a M2E, was just curious of the top electronics housing in the zone of the plug-in Enterprise components.
Overall it's looking great, you've come a long way with a nice product!
Cheers, it's been a lot of work so far.
The 640 boson has much the same image quality as the other cores (Vue, Tau etc...) and perhaps slightly better as the Digital Detail Enhancement on the Boson works really well. Turning it off makes it look like looking into a bowl of soup. Only issue is that Boson 640 would add another $3000 or so to the price, at which point it would need some more features to make it viable. The 320 gives us great results for what it is, and the ability to deploy such a small and cheap drone with such a powerful thermal sensor is pretty impressive. I've been able to track down and chase rabbits at night from about 250 feet away. For reference, the Boson 640 is around 2800GBP vs 1300 for the 320.
We're modifying a
M2Z due to lower cost (M2E is inexplicably double the cost of
M2Z) however we can simply modify our housing and move the accessory port on top of it.
In future, if there is enough demand we could invest into making the processing gear smaller which would remove the need for a top cover piece and also reduce overall cost. We'd need to sell a few hundred of the current units before going that way however.
A point worth noting is that we have included a way to turn off all the LEDs on the drone from the controller, much the same as the "stealth" mode on the M2E.
Image quality will be much the same as the 320 resolution Zenmuse XT, and at present there is no enhancement but it might be possible in future (again, this would be much further down the line and only if we found significant demand).
Overall I think this opens up a new position in the market which is current unfulfilled. There is the Anafi and the M2ED at the lower end of the range (£1500-£2700 ish), and an enormous price jump to the next option which is a M210 with XT2 (£13,000 minimum with a low res XT2 and around £20,000 with a high res XT2 and Z30 etc..), so our solution which combines the thermal quality of the larger drone (almost) with the portability of the cheaper options fits nicely in between at £3900. It's also 1/3rd the cost of a basic M210 thermal setup.
I find DJI's pricing interesting. They own the market completely so they can charge what they like, but consider the following:
The difference between the
M2Z and M2E is about £30 in parts, yet the price is doubled. Sure, it's priced for the market but it's still a big markup. The £650 difference between M2E and M2ED basically covers a low quality visible light camera and a thermal sensor which costs £150 in quantity.
The Zenmuse XT2 is a Flir Duo Pro R in a new case with a gimbal attached, yet DJI sell it at
double the price of the Duo Pro R. Other than the DJI system integration, the XT2 has no more features than the original Flir standalone camera yet DJI still sell it at over double the price (£12,500 for 9mm 640 XT2 and £5300 for same spec Duo Pro R).
All that is to say, I wish I had DJI's margins!