Why do people Skydio is responsible for DJI's problem with the government? The bigger problem is with AUVSI which is a large organization made up mostly of companies with government contracts?
I have bad feelings for both, Skydio and AUVSI.
THat being said, Skydio does have some interesting products coming out.
The fixed wing drone will have cool abilities for large area mapping, long range surveillance and similar use cases.
The R10 they are releasing will be a great Public Safety or inspection tool. It is an FPV style drone for building entry, confined spaces and enclosed area inspections.
The above look very promising and added along with the X10 allow Skydio to have a very competitive product line that checks the boxes for a lot of use cases.
I am wondering if they secretly have a consumer version waiting in the background for if/when DJI gets the boot. The consumer market will be wide open for a company that can offer a competitive product. But I do not think they will. Skydio has found the professional, governmental side of business to be very lucrative and why go back to a market that obviously wasn't as profitable for them in the past.
I work in Public Safety and we use DJI and Autel drones. Our program took 6 years to get where it is at and right at our pinnacle we are going to lose DJI and have to plan for our drone fleet to faze out through attrition in the future. We use Flight Hub 2 for situational awareness and live streaming and possibly losing this will be tough. We use DJI for repairs and for their maintenance program.
We fly some missions under a COW/A and this entails us to have and practice a maintenance program. DJI has canceled maintenance in the US so we will have a lesser maintained fleet in the future. We are currently rewriting our maintenance procedures to attempt to address this. We may use a US company to provide comprehensive maintenance in the future.
We are already planning to move on to Skydio. I am not happy about it, but must be realistic. Our costs will increase massively when comparing hardware and software. Skydio's aircraft costs are not the issue. THe X10 by itself is not too expensive. Its when you add the subscriptions to enable the cool things it does that skyrocket the price per year. DJI Care was dirt cheap and a proven replacement program. Skydio's similar plan is multiple times more expensive. FLight Hub 2 is free for situational awareness, and its live streaming is dirt cheap along with buying storage and mapping. Skydios version of this are a large increase in price.
We may get our first Skydio X10 sometime in 2026. I will hold off full judgement until we can assess all aspects of how it integrates into our program. The X10 flys weirdly also. It has a subtle delay to input and a weird nose down to move. You get used to it, and it does not interfere with flying, but the first time you watch it happen makes you appreciate DJI Mavic type drones and their smooth a precise movements.
I will give Skydio some credit. They are currently using the newest FLIR Boson+ 640 sensor, and it beats out any DJI spec 640 sensor. It is radiometric, ultralow NETD and makes quite a nice thermal image both live and JPG. When I say it beats it out, it does not blow it away, I mean when comparing stat to stat it takes the win in most categories if only by edging out. DJI thermals are also top notch. Its zoom while not as good as the H30 series is still very good. Its mapping sensor does a really good job with image quality and its RTK add-on payload works and it can deliver "survey grade" deliverables. Its dock works as advertised. It has 5G connection availability for BVLOS. The X10 if it already is not available will have an AVSS PRS that will make it a Category 2 and Skydio has already started to think about how to integrate it into Part 108.
