I find this post(below) from a long time DJI Phanboy both telling and prophetic. It indicates things are shifting in the market space. I have nothing against DJI; other than their follow mode sucks, and hope them the best, but things are challenging for Chinese FBO's right now. Tension with the the US at the highest levels, trade wars with sanctions and higher prices will take a toll. China with near biblical natural disasters; just this week I heard the US is going after Chinese Tech companies that steal our technology; DJI was on a list to possibly ban.
I think Skydio has the technology everybody wants but how will they implement it? I do see an improved prosumer SD 3 or something in the future but honestly the SD 2 is not tapped out. It has a good camera, good flight time, amazing OA, better distance.... The SD 2 is a software driven drone and as a platform has a lot of life left. Flying at night or shrinking the OA bubble are a software update away. I would like to be a fly on the wall at SD, with DJI facing challenges, the US Military, Enterprise and Consumer demand off the charts they need to utilize the available resources to best advantage. Consumer requests are probably a secondary concern when they are selling as many SD 2's that they can make. Enterprise, Military, Inspection.... is money in the bank. When they can sell one $7K drone instead of seven $1k drones with the required tech support, marketing, packaging... it's clear where their priority should lie. But it's a double edged sword IMO, as the enterprise drone advances technology it will be backwards integrated into the consumer drone. A couple guys whining to fly at night is not a motivating factor in the big picture. My experience is SD went very conservative with OA, with early software as soon and you built up speed the SD 2 would gain a lot of altitude, the OA bubble was huge causing strange flight paths. As the software developed I can see things tighten up, fling lower to the ground and closer to object, flying further away... Remember SD wants to minimize crashes and warranty repair so staying conservative is best for them. We all see these Yahoo's driving 30 MPH over a suspension bridge weaving in and out of support cables and when the SD 2 fails it's all over YT how the technology doesn't work; so it is a compromise for SD what they offer the consumer. I'm blown away every time I fly my S2 and that's saying a lot since I have almost 50 years of RC experience. I remember Adam Bry saying they could unleash things like flying at night or flying lower but for the normal consumer it would add up to more warranty repairs.
The X2 along side the the new Parrot Anafi USA are two of the most important releases in the last 2 years.
DJI have closed to owned the turnkey enterprise and commercial drone market and this has largely been because of their tight integration of hardware and software. Some things set them down this path such as their in-house Lightbridge and then Ocusync link and their integrated camera option.
This put them ahead for a long time however in a short space Skydio and Parrot have released products that not only directly complete with DJI at their best but beat them in many ways.
The consumer space is really not where this is at and Skydio and Parrot have been grabbing real important backing from the US Gov and Military.
The X2 marks a step change and Skydio have just become a very serious player indeed.
This also now gives them a platform to built upon and making larger craft with better payloads is not a problem now.
For the first time in a long time DJI have a massive problem in the US especially. The world has changed, sentiment has changed and we have viable alternative products for SAR and small enterprise.
While there is still nothing for the M200/300 and Inspire 2 markets yet it’s not hard to see some options coming. Also it’s worth noting that smaller and more efficient craft are the buzz right now and not larger ones you can’t even travel with.
The Cine market is not really that big so I don’t see much wanting to compete with the I2 but I really can see a larger X series from Skydio next year with zoom and higher resolution thermal.
This is a shift for sure and it’s going going to grow.