DJI Spark Owners Must Update Firmware By September, Or Their Machines Will Be Bricked (suasnews.com)

garymortimer shares a report from sUAS News: News has arrived of a mandatory firmware update from DJI. Owners of DJI's latest and smallest quadcopter must update their firmware by September the 1st or their machines will automatically ground themselves. The Firmware update apparently is to stop in flight shutdowns that have been occurring. So no bad thing to fix, a safety issue. Perhaps questionable is DJI's ability to brick other peoples property if required. The "Kill Switch" option is already causing consternation in user groups.

Comments

Kill switch?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just begging to get hacked and have their firmware code leaked.

So what is the kill mechanism?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Anyone know how the kill is implemented? Was the original firmware set with an expiration date, in anticipation of it receiving an exciting and mandatory upgrade; so the deadline was baked in from day one? Did some earlier, smaller, update quietly add this 'feature' to be announced at a later time? Is there no change whatsoever in the drone's behavior; but some companion app does a version check before it issues any flight commands; and will be updated to refuse to talk to the older version?

Regardless of implementation, this is a fine testament to the advantages of products that spend their entire lives phoning home to the vendor; but some implementations are even worse than others.

Re:Now is the time

[amiga3D]

Sadly, you may be joking but these companies now seem to think just like that.

Think drone == aircraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine you had bought a full-fledged aircraft. If the manufacturer finds a dangerous flaw, the FAA can ground the entire fleet; no recourse. I am not pleased with society's over-reaction to drones (getting hard to find places to fly them), but I do believe in making them safer (and limiting the ability of idiots to give drones an even worse reputation).
As for the "bricking" headline, I suggest the original poster stop hyperventilating. Requiring you to update the firmware before flying again is nothing at all like bricking your device. Get a grip!

Re:And the Army is really buying these things?

[_Sharp'r_]

The army already builds (contracts out the building of) their own drones.

The micro-UAVs, the ones closest to a DJI ~(4.5 lbs), cost the Army (These are the inexpensive ones) $35,000 each for a Raven RQ-11B. A complete system (controller, spare parts, and three UAVs) costs $250,000 for the Raven and over $400,000 for Puma (6 lbs, heavier battery, flies longer).

So yeah, for the price of one Raven, you could only afford to buy 25 DJI Phantom 4 Pro drones. The Raven can go farther faster, the Phantom has a better camera and can avoid obstacles on it's own and circle/follow a target on its own, so they have complementary uses, but one is obviously way cheaper than the other.