DJI couldn’t confirm or deny it disguised this drone to evade a US ban
DJI barely sells drones in the United States anymore. The shelves are bare; resellers are jacking up prices. It appears an unofficial ban at US customs is to blame. But on Amazon, you can now buy a drone that’s a a dead ringer for the DJI Mini 4 Pro — the SkyRover X1 — for a reasonable $758. And that’s probably because DJI made it happen.
There’s evidence suggesting so, and DJI was not able to immediately deny the SkyRover X1 was a DJI product when we reached out.
As reported by DroneXL, security researchers have discovered the SkyRover X1 not only has the same specs, features, and an incredibly similar app to the one DJI provides for its drones, it uses DJI’s own online infrastructure.
“It has connections to @DJIGlobal @DJISupport @DJIEnterprise via @DJIFlySafe references, and ‘AASKY’ references,” tweeted Kevin Finisterre, a hacker who’s made headlines for digging into DJI’s products in the past. Finisterre was even able to log in with his DJI username and password.
Another security consultant, Jon Sawyer, discovered the SkyRover app even uses the same encryption keys as DJI, and that the company which created the app only did a rudimentary job of trying to hide its tracks, renaming instances of “DJI” to “xxx” or “uav.”
But that’s not the only shady thing going on: someone doesn’t want you to know this drone is a DJI-alike. After drone reviewer AirPhotography took flak in the comments of his SkyRover X1 review for not pointing out obvious similarities to DJI, he revealed that he’d agreed not to mention any other drone brands in the video in order to secure the review unit. “That was their only stipulation,” he wrote.
AirPhotography has since thought better of this, it seems; he now has two extra videos that directly compare to the Mini 4 Pro, calling it “suspiciously similar”:
Note that the drone isn’t exactly the same. AirPhotography says there are slight differences with the camera, and he told viewers that the SkyRover won’t fit existing DJI batteries and won’t connect to existing DJI controllers. He put up another video shortly before we published this story to get into all the differences.
We gave DJI a full day to confirm or deny whether the SkyRover X1 is a DJI product, but the company was not able to meet that deadline. “I’m still looking into this with our headquarters team,” spokesperson Regina Lin tells The Verge.
If the SkyRover X1 is created or licensed by DJI, it wouldn’t be the first time. US lawmakers are already aware — and some are annoyed — that DJI found a seeming loophole by finding a US company, Anzu Robotics, to manufacture a Mavic 3 clone called the Raptor, and a Hong Kong one, Cogito, for the Specta and Specta Mini clones.
The SkyRover X1 seems to be made by SZ Knowact in Malaysia, according to FCC filings. Malaysia is currently a popular destination for Chinese companies to escape the worst of US tariffs, though it too may have a higher rate in August.
The SkyRover app lists SZ Knowact as its developer in Apple’s App Store, and as Konrad Iturbe shows, its website is nearly identical to the one that Cogito provides for its own DJI clones.
The US government has yet to formally ban DJI drones, but a de facto ban will happen automatically by December if “an appropriate national security agency” doesn’t publicly declare that its products do not “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.” The US Commerce Department finally opened an investigation to figure that out on July 1st.
Here’s my interview with DJI about what will happen if the ban goes through.
In the meanwhile, DJI has stated that US Customs is blocking many of its drones from entering the United States. US Customs and Border Protection will not deny this: we’ve repeatedly asked, but the agency claims it’s not allowed to say even that. Here’s a statement via CBP spokesperson Trish Driscoll:
CBP is not authorized to disclose specific company or commodity information pursuant to various federal laws and internal policies including but not limited to the Trade Secrets Act (18 USC 1905), and certain information that may be responsive to your request may also be deemed to be law enforcement sensitive information, which CBP will not disclose. This response ensures the confidentiality of proprietary trade information and law enforcement sensitive information, which in turn preserves commercial privacy and trust in CBP handling of sensitive information.
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