Kilby
Active Member
I don't know if anyone noticed, but buried at the bottom of all the recent DJI announcements was talk of an updated SDK. For those not familiar, they launched a Software Developer Kit last year that allowed developers of Mobile software (iOS & Android) the chance to write apps for the Phantom 2 Vision +. This could be large companies or one man teams working from home. At the time of original launch, the program was pretty limited. It only worked with the Phantom Vision models. That looks to have just changed. This week DJI launched support for the Inspire 1 as well as the brand new Phantom 3.
Adding these two aircraft, as well as a few new features for devs, seems like a smart move for DJI. If they can attract independent 3rd party developers to start writing awesome software for their ecosystem, it could have a similar effect as when Apple and Google opened up their mobile platforms with SDKs. The only major drawback that I still see getting in the place of that is how they divide up their developers. Level 1 can control everything on the copter (camera, gimbal, telemetry) except aircraft navigation. Level 2 has access to everything. As you might have guessed it, Level 1 is free, Level 2 will cost you. When I signed up last year, there was no set price for how much Level 2 would cost. It was a case by case basis, meaning if they think you are going to write a killer app that would make a lot of money, they will charge you more. To me, that doesn't seem to be the most inviting way to attract new developers, but that is a whole other post.
If you like to play around with code and want to check out the SDK, you can go to http://dev.dji.com to download it and find all the documentation.
Here is a video that shows what happened last year when they gave the SDK to several Universities around China.
View attachment 24498
View attachment 24500
View attachment 24499
Adding these two aircraft, as well as a few new features for devs, seems like a smart move for DJI. If they can attract independent 3rd party developers to start writing awesome software for their ecosystem, it could have a similar effect as when Apple and Google opened up their mobile platforms with SDKs. The only major drawback that I still see getting in the place of that is how they divide up their developers. Level 1 can control everything on the copter (camera, gimbal, telemetry) except aircraft navigation. Level 2 has access to everything. As you might have guessed it, Level 1 is free, Level 2 will cost you. When I signed up last year, there was no set price for how much Level 2 would cost. It was a case by case basis, meaning if they think you are going to write a killer app that would make a lot of money, they will charge you more. To me, that doesn't seem to be the most inviting way to attract new developers, but that is a whole other post.
If you like to play around with code and want to check out the SDK, you can go to http://dev.dji.com to download it and find all the documentation.
Here is a video that shows what happened last year when they gave the SDK to several Universities around China.
View attachment 24498
View attachment 24500
View attachment 24499
Attachments
Last edited by a moderator:
