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Comment by cush | Hacker News Reader

What's with all the hate here for DJI?

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but the demo video with the choreographed, dynamic, repeatable waypoints, was wild. Seems incredibly powerful and novel

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Their drones are pretty damn good, but I still hate all of the crap the DJI forces upon their users. This is pretty much a universal feeling towards DJI. They realized from the beginning that they had to force users into flight restrictions as the normal user would A) not know of flight restrictions, B) not care about them, C) break those restrictions at any time. So in order to keep their gear from being outright banned, they added these draconian restrictions to give the impression they were bending over backwards to making a product meant to comply with regulations. That's just a wee bit of the hate. The other shenanigans they do with their apps are not pleasant either.

great drones/gimbals/quality otherwise though <smacksforehead>

Is there really another option if you want to be able to sell drones to the masses at the mall?

No because otherwise the civil aviation authorities would ban them. I have a drone and a license and the restrictions are not draconian. They are the law.

They are draconian as I happen to live close enough to an airport that it will not allow me to fly in my own backyard. I have plenty of space to fly and I never even have to get above 6' to do it. I'm under tree canopy, so I couldn't even get high enough to be noticed. I get that there are asshats that will fly a drone in an airport because they're curious, think it'll be epic footage, and/or just stupid and reckless. There are also others that can enjoy the skill of flying the thing low altitude and doing turns around trees like they're pylons. Once again, idiots ruin it for those that are happy working within the regulations.

Are there any open source firmware or jailbreaks for DJI hardware?

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