I seriously doubt that the FAA will subsidize the price of an RID. The government has a long, sad history of not cleaning up its messes. After WWI, aka The Great War, it took a march on Washington by vets in 1932 to get the war bonus. Two of them were killed. During air testing of nuclear weapons in the desert, US troops were marched onto detonation sites as human guinea pigs to see what effect radiation would have on their bodies. Compensation was denied for decades, after most of them had died of various cancers. Agent Orange was used extensively in the Vietnam war and our troops and nurses and doctors were exposed and later came down with all sorts of neurological diseases, including Parkinson's. To this day, there are still 'Nam vets who cannot get VA approval for treatment. So, don't hold your breath that the government controlled FAA will spend a single red cent on a bunch of drone flyers.I have updated my previous post to clarify and make it easier to understand. There really isn't a such thing as a #1 module and a #2 module but I wanted to illustrate the differences between the types of modules that are hitting the market vs. the type of modules that Autel is referring to in their correspondence.
I wouldn't worry about the $299 price. The market will decide and the prices will go lower....for sure; I guarantee it.
You only need to buy one external module and you can use it on as many different drones as you wish. If we are lucky, the FAA will subsidize the price for one for anyone who wants one....
I agree, bad actors will not register and bad actors will not use external RID modules.
Does an RID exist for the Autel EVO Pro II? According to Autel customer service, they do not and will not offer one, and the CS person told me via email that no one else offered one either. If they cost 300 bucks, I am out of the game in any event.Greg is a reliable source.
I have 8 batteries and will be getting an external remote ID for sure. However I would not have a problem buying one or two batteries that include RID. I think it could be a sweet deal for those that feel abandoned by Autel or pushed around by the FAASo if you use 8 batteries, you would pay an extra $100 each and then more if/when they need replaced? And, if you use more than one model of drone you are out of luck?
Umm.. I don't think so! Try again?
upon closer inspection, you'll see only these serial numbers are accepted. outside the range likely indicates no rid.
Very interesting observation! I wouldn't have caught that. So if were to buy someone's used drone, I should definitely check this first, since it appears that an "Evo 2" aren't all the same
i believe it can be interpreted by the layperson as evo v1/v2 not rid-compliant, and evo v3 is rid-compliant.
We are only a few months out and they are still $299. The "cheap" $89 ones have to be wired into the drone with power, and antennas, with parts being an additional cost. I have 6 registered drones and it's not true that you can only buy one module to work on all of them. Sure, technically, you can do that, but each time you put it on a different drone, you must register it again on Dronezone. The FAA will never subsidize anything. That would require an act of Congress for funding.I have updated my previous post to clarify and make it easier to understand. There really isn't a such thing as a #1 module and a #2 module but I wanted to illustrate the differences between the types of modules that are hitting the market vs. the type of modules that Autel is referring to in their correspondence.
I wouldn't worry about the $299 price. The market will decide and the prices will go lower....for sure; I guarantee it.
You only need to buy one external module and you can use it on as many different drones as you wish. If we are lucky, the FAA will subsidize the price for one for anyone who wants one....
I agree, bad actors will not register and bad actors will not use external RID modules.
You will be surprised how quickly the market makes decisions these days. You don't have to complete your purchase by September. The market has the rest of the year to bring those prices down. If a manufacturer thinks he can charge $300 in September and the market thinks otherwise and nobody flies with an external rid module, October will change that price.
Hmm. It seems to me the clever Chinese, in the guise of DJI, figured a long time ago how to know where your drone is. That is exactly WHY the Congress is passing laws against DJI, because DJI knows exactly where your drone is and that is why they can disable your drone remotely when you are in a no fly zone. So all this hooey about RID is nonsense. It doesn't take a lot of figuring to figure out that the best way to deal with drone location is by tapping into the radio signal coming back from your drone that displays the Lat/Lon location that you see on your controller. Duh!
The GPS antenna location on the V1 Evo II (like the one I've got) could and did present a realtively minor issue for certain fliers with anti-collision strobes. A problem arose for those who had Velcro'd their Firehouse Arc V to the part of the top orange shell near the "cowl" piece, a spot that appeared most inviting but was directly over the GPS antennas. Apparently, this can interfere with getting a GPS lock, and when that happens mid-flight, all manner of things ensue, none of them good. Worse was somebody posted this as an image of the way to mount an Arc V strobe that got shared and re-shared a bunch. Thankfully, I found the solution was pretty simple-- just move the Velcro patch to the nose of the "hood" and not directly over the GPS antenna. Done. I've always gotten excellent signal and range with or without the Arc V mounted so I haven't given it a lot of thought since.Sure beacon light is no problem. I have one as well. All I can say is that the Autel CS person who emailed me said that the DroneTag will not work properly on the II. I do not see how there would be room for both the beacon and the DT on top. Here is the problem with compatibility: I did not know until I had bought mine that during the pandemic when chips were scarce, Autel just used whatever components they could find. This resulted in several versions of the II, each one expressed in a *dot....* designation. There was apparently enough difference in the various iterations to make some work with DT and some not. In any event, it is a moot point for me. I will not be spending $300 just to make the FAA happy. The RID is a fool's errand anyway, rant, rant. If someone is flying in an unsafe manner, and if the pilot is not obvious, how are the cops going to locate him/her/them if they do't even have an RID? Yes, I know that NFL/MLB stadium security and suchlike has equipment to monitor drone activity and locate the pilot, but I seriously doubt that the KCMO cops will be carrying it around. I also doubt that unless blood is shed and/or property severely damaged, that they would even show up. Heck, they do not even respond to auto collisions unless someone is bleeding or the drivers start shooting at each other, which does happen with some frequency in these parts. End of rant
Autel is not saying that. Trainflyer made that up in his own head and stormed off like a fool. What is actually happening is that Autel is not going to recommend or provide direction on any third party external device which they didn't manufacture or test. Nor should they. Nor does DJI or anyone else. That is all that's going on here.
Not much communication between the out of touch FAA and drone manufacturers. According to Autel CS the EVO 2 does NOT have RID, and as the CS person told me, "You are on your own to find a compatible RID."
