DJI
DJI Matrice 300 RTK Found Hidden Hotspots in Clarkson Apartment Fire
The Matrice 300 RTK spotted hotspots that would have required firefighters to climb to the third floor with handheld thermal cameras
All Coverage
The full firehose — every story on DroneXL, newest first. Breaking news, deep dives, reviews, and the deals ticker archive.
8,694
Articles
285
Beats covered
14
Reporters on beat
Aug 26
Last updated
DJI
Osmo Pocket 3 Drops to $378—Still Your Best Gimbal
The Osmo Pocket 3 is dropping to $378 on Amazon this week, down from its $499 list price. That matters because the Osmo Pocket 4 just launched, and what most people do not understand is that the new model did not make the Pocket 3 obsolete. It made it cheaper without making it worse. Here…
Skydio
Hayward City Approves Drone First Responder Program
Hayward has approved an expanded Drone as First Responder program for 911 calls, putting eight new drones into a Bay Area policing model that promises faster scene awareness while raising familiar questions about privacy, protests, and how far “reactive” drone use can stretch before it starts looking proactive. Hayward Moves Drones Ahead Of Officers Hayward’s…
Amazon
DJI Mini 4K Fly More Combo Drops to $255 on Amazon—Down From $389
I grabbed the Mini 4K Fly More Combo last month to see if it deserved the beginner hype, and I flew it for two weeks straight. What surprised me was not the camera quality or the gimbal stabilization, but how much less friction there is when you are actually ready to fly instead of still…
DJI
EASA Moves To Drop Drone Registration To 100 Grams, And European Hobbyists Will Carry The Cost
EASA’s NPA 2026-103 would drop EU drone registration, training, and Remote ID to 100 grams, following the UK. Pros get lighter rules; hobbyists get squeezed.
Police
Western Star Maps Nevada Tungsten With Drone Magnetics
A junior mining company just used a drone to map a Nevada tungsten property that nobody had explored since the 1950s. Western Star Resources, trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange as WSR, said on June 22 it is running a high-resolution drone magnetic survey across the White Star Tungsten Project in the Charleston Mining District…
Aloft
Marines Fly V-BAT Spy Drone From Warship in South China Sea
The U.S. Marines just launched a ship-based spy drone into the airspace China considers its backyard. Operating from the USS Portland with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, troops put a V-BAT vertical takeoff intelligence drone over the South China Sea, flying surveillance missions in a stretch of ocean where Beijing has spent more than a…
Police
Chino Police Scale Drone Fireworks Enforcement To 65 Officers After One-Drone Test
The Chino Police Department will put several drones over residential neighborhoods this Fourth of July and pair them with 65 officers dedicated to illegal fireworks enforcement, a sharp expansion of a program the city ran with a single aircraft a year ago. Each drone flies with a two-person crew, a pilot and an observer, with…
DJI
Sacramento Sheriff Used A $999 DJI Avata 2 To Disarm A Suspect, And The Politics Are Sharper Than The Knife
A Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office pilot flew a consumer FPV drone into a garage, found a barricaded parolee holding a knife, and pulled the blade out of his hand with a magnet before any deputy stepped into the room. The agency calls it a nationwide first. The aircraft that did it is a DJI Avata…
Counter-Drone
FBI Has Seized 300+ Drones At World Cup Stadiums, And The Per-City Numbers Show Who Is Actually Getting Caught
The FBI has intercepted more than 300 unauthorized drones at FIFA World Cup 2026 venues across the United States in the first ten days of the tournament, a figure that converts a year of federal counter-drone spending into a hard enforcement count. Individual field offices confirmed their own seizure totals on Monday: 34 drones around…
Ukraine
China Unveils 55-Pound Laser That Burns Drones in 4 Seconds
China just put a counter-drone laser on a soldier’s back. At the Defence Information Equipment & Technology Exhibition that opened June 16 in Beijing, the state-linked contractor Harbin Xinguang Optic-Electronics Technology rolled out two man-portable laser weapons, the Lijian II and Lijian III. They were designed to let a single soldier shoot down drones at…
DJI
Young Touts Indiana FAA Test Site At Spray Drone Field Day While The Aircraft On The Tarmac Stay Chinese
Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) spent part of June 8 at the Southeast Purdue Ag Center in Butlerville, watching agricultural spray drones lift off at the Indiana Spray Drone Association Education Day. The visit gave a sitting U.S. senator a close look at the same machines that Hoosier farmers now use to seed and spray thousands…
Germany
Urban Ray Pushes Medical Drone Logistics Forward
The useful part is what that implies, because the real bottleneck in drone logistics has never been the flight alone, it has been the operational chain around it.
Brinc
TCSO Drones Will Answer 911 Calls Before Deputies Do
The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office is about to get its own fleet of 911 response drones. The county is finalizing a deal with Motorola Solutions to run a Drone as First Responder program built on BRINC hardware, the same setup the Porterville City Council already approved for its police department. The Tulare County Board of…
Skydio
Boynton Beach OKs $90K Axon Drone Over Budget Fears
Boynton Beach is getting a police drone first responder program, but not without a fight over the bill. On June 16 the city commission approved an Axon drone package in a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Aimee Kelley the lone no after she questioned the timing of the purchase during early budget talks. The drones will…
DJI
DJI Pulls the Matrice 4D’s C6 Compliance Off the Dock, Handing STS-02 Operators a Cheaper Path to BVLOS
DJI has extended the existing C6 class certification on its Matrice 4D Series to cover standalone flights with the DJI RC Plus 2 Enterprise controller, removing the requirement that the aircraft launch from a DJI Dock 3 to fly compliant European BVLOS missions. The change applies to the Matrice 4D and 4TD running firmware version…
Ukraine
Fire Point Turns a Moscow Strike Into a Trade Show Ad
Fire Point ran Thursday’s combat footage from a Moscow oil refinery strike as floor entertainment at its own booth in Paris. The Ukrainian drone and missile maker ran the raw video on a screen at Eurosatory 2026 hours after its FP-1 and FP-2 strike drones hit the Kapotnya refinery, turning a live war into the…
Walmart
FCC Cracks Open the Door for Chinese Toy Drones, Walmart and Wing Expand, and a Man Shoots a BB Gun at a DFR Drone
Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. I have three stories for you this week. The FCC opens the door for Chinese toy drones, but there’s a bit of a catch. Walmart and Wing are expanding their drone delivery operation. And then in Lee County, Florida, a DFR drone gets shot at with a BB…
Police
Newport News Sends Drones to 911 Calls in 90 Seconds
Newport News, Virginia is about to start sending drones to 911 calls before officers or firefighters arrive, with some aircraft reaching a scene in under 90 seconds. The city has eight drones staged at four launch sites, ready to lift off after high-priority calls like a homicide, a shooting, a missing person, or a medical…
Mexico
Mexico Downs Drone Over Korea’s World Cup Training
A drone flew over South Korea’s closed World Cup training session in Guadalajara on June 17, and Mexican forces brought it down before the team ran its tactical drills. Coach Hong Myung-bo confirmed the sighting a day later and called it unfortunate, two days before his side faced co-host Mexico. Whether the drone was spying…
Search & Rescue
Drone Pilot’s Motor Trick Warns Surfer of Circling Shark
A drone pilot in Northern California spotted a shark circling a surfer on June 10, then used the aircraft itself to push the man out of the water before anything happened. Nick Bertocchini was flying over Seascape Beach in Aptos when the shark moved in behind a surfer named Rex and began to circle. Instead…
DJI
DJI Pocket 4P US Ban Spawns a Near-Clone: Meet Muse 2 Pro
American creators who wanted the DJI Osmo Pocket 4P and got blocked by the FCC now have a workaround with a familiar shape. A US-registered brand called Xtra is preparing the Muse 2 Pro, a dual-lens gimbal camera whose spec sheet reads almost line for line like the Pocket 4P that DJI cannot legally sell…
Police
Oakland Sheriff Drones, K-9 Find Missing Holly Toddler Safe
A Holly homeowner’s doorbell camera caught an 18-month-old boy walking alone past the 500 block of Elm Street at 11:54 a.m. on June 19, and within minutes Holly Police had Oakland County Sheriff’s Office drones and a K-9 team in the air and on the ground looking for him. The aerial search ran for the…
Technology
Thales and Renault Unveil 4 TROOP at Eurosatory 2026
Thales and Renault Group rolled out a joint hybrid 4×4 tactical vehicle named 4 TROOP at Eurosatory 2026 in Paris-Nord Villepinte on June 15, designed to serve as a mobile command and control node for unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles operating around it. The platform is a civilian Renault chassis carrying a Thales…
— The DroneXL Briefing · Free
The drone industry moves fast. Stay ahead of it.
One email with the drone news that matters — DJI, FAA, public safety, and everything in between, straight from the newsroom. No spam, no fluff.
Free forever. Unsubscribe in one click.
8,400+
Articles published
340+
Beats & desks
2020
Covering drones since
100%
Independent