DJI FPV Drone “hacked” to increase transmission power with free web tool
Apr 1, 2021
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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It goes without saying that this is more than likely going to be illegal to do in much of the world, but it seems that DJI’s recently released FPV Drone & goggles have been hacked to trick the GPS into thinking it’s flying in the USA. Why might this be desirable? Well, the DJI FPV Drone offers over 1,400mW of transmission power. But for most of the world outside of the USA, it’s limited to 25mW (the legal limit in many other countries).
The new web tool, called “B3YOND” classes itself as a free DJI FPV Drone “unlocker”. And there are legitimate (and potentially legal – if you have all the necessary permits) needs and ways to fly with the drone’s full power unlocked, although the author of B3YOND, D3VL says those platforms “charge an exorbitant amount” of money. So, they decided to release their own tool for free.
The tool essentially tricks the drone into believing it’s in the USA putting it into “FCC Mode” via the drone’s FPV goggles over USB from your browser using the new Web Serial API. This new API allows your browser and websites to communicate directly with serial devices plugged into your USB ports. So there’s no app to download.
The normal transmission power limitation on the DJI FPV system in Europe is a mere 25mW. But this tool boosts that up to over 1,400mW. It’s a largely automated process, with on-screen instructions of what to plug in and turn on in what order and can be implemented in a few clicks. No source code is available yet, although D3VL says that will be going up on a GitHub repository soon.
Again, 25mW is the maximum unlicensed power you’re allowed to transmit in many countries around the world, particularly Europe. That means performing this modification without being in possession of the required permits to transmit stronger signals would be illegal. So, we’re certainly not suggesting that you go out and do this to your DJI FPV drone, especially as many countries have been cracking down on drone laws and licensing over the last few years.
Chances are, DJI will likely patch this bug “undocumented feature” soon with a firmware update anyway.
[via Hackaday]
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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4 responses to “DJI FPV Drone “hacked” to increase transmission power with free web tool”
United Peoples of the World How, exactly? It’s exactly what it says it is.
Parts of the 5Ghz band are used for weather radar in Europe and poorly configured WiFi networks are bad enough, I can only imagine the interference we’d see with a 1.4W transmitter a few hundred feet in the air.
James Harris
Matt MacDonell Shouldn’t cause too much of an issue. Various mitigation measures against interference to radar are required for red compliance. As long as the modification simply increases the TX power, all should be OK.