DJI 4G Cellular Dongle 2 Review – Everything You NEED to Know

50 thoughts on “DJI 4G Cellular Dongle 2 Review – Everything You NEED to Know”

• it must suck to lived in your country with pre bureaucracy living my friend..

• Genius idea🎉

• Parrot Disco/Bebop 2 4G Mod it doing this for almost 8 years. With minimal costs. Kinda embarrasse for a company like DJI to come with this so late and with huge costs.

• I mentioned on Gavin's Mini 4 Pro / Dongle 2 You Tube clip that he posted yesterday that my dongle arrived yesterday but I had not yet got a nano sim as I was in the middle of having a gearbox, clutch and exhaust replaced on my Hilux. Got my van back last night and picked up a 120gb nano sim this morning from EE for thirty quid. I intend buying an uncapped pay monthly for £16.00 per month but got the one this morning as a trial. Fitted the sim in the dongle and the dongle into the Air 3. It was far less fidgety than I was expecting and took me less than 5 minutes. To anybody reading this who has not yet fitted theirs I highly recommend using the supplied cable clips which keep everything in line. Took the drone to an area that has historically caused me some issues with controller to drone connection. Switched on enhanced transmission and immediately pinged full 4g signal for drone and controller. Flew it and very soon ran lost signal regular signal between drone and controller. 4g took over seamlessly and there was absolute zero loss of control or degradation of video quality. Everything worked very well indeed. Upon bringing the drone back in once the RC and drone were able to reconnect by regular means they did so. If I tell the honest truth it worked about 50x better than I was realistically expecting. Gavin suggests that the dongle is a game changer. It really is and then some more.

• If I understand this correctly you don’t have to put a SIM card in the 4G dongle in your drone but I use the SIM card from your phone by means of a hotspot. But how can your drone use the SIM card in your phone when it’s let say 500 meters away from you and it looses the RC connection?

• Well, I just found out that the 4g Dongle isn’t available in the US. I had to change the country in the DJI store and use a VPN before I found the UK dongle. Crazy. Thanks for the video nonetheless.

• Oh, my main question. For those of us still rocking an iPhone with unlimited data and with a physical SIM card, assuming the sizes are the same, can you use the SIM card from an already active iPhone or any other phone?

  And nearly a gig of data…? You should do a video on that and see how much data it takes to pilot the quad normally then get into the Dongleified setup.

  Thanks for the video!!

• I have yet to purchase a DJI quad or even see one in person. That being said, if I was handed one, I could probably figure it out without much difficulty as thery are designed to be intuitive. That being said, that port where the dongle is installed looks like it’s not just an afterthought for nickel and dime add-ons, there’s purpose that compartment.
  Are there other “Dongles” ( gotta love that word) in the same form factor as the 4g bit of kit or is this it? And if this is it, these drones have been just cruising around waiting for someone to fill that void. All kinds of cool, weird, etc…
  Thanks for the video.

• What about DJI pro 2?

• Yeah because you get hours of fly time in a DJI battery , useless device

• Hold the phone. Hold the phone. Hold the proverbial Hong Kong Phooey phone. Just had an email from DPD to say that they are picking up my dongle. Please note that this is not a euphemism. With luck and a DPD driver who is a really nice lad and comes to my place a bit too much, I might have it tomorrow. All I need now is a micro sim with appropriate data plan. I still think it will be an uncapped monthly plan but if anyone has any other suggestions then please shout em out right now.

• so does it work on the mavic 3 pro

• Pretty sure you need a special radio operator license

• No advantage using in the Uk. In fact for the mini drones it takes them over 250 gms.

• Can it work with DJI mini pro3 ?

• Outlaw DJI in the USA. Known threat to us national security.

• Perfect. Now we can spy on that football club from 30 miles away instead of being near the stadium and getting caught. I know one coach who wishes she had used this!

• There's here odd and presumably FALSE assertions that DJI in conjunction with CCP would be able to use this option for spying surveillance operations. That's sad. I've looked in from a technical perspective on the subscription available in certain geographies. My best guess as we speak – is that Mobile Network OPS allows low latency 4G point-to-point connections at special conditions by priority that traffic in 3/4/5G networks. This comes probably with a cost that the vendor gets, i.e DJI. Then about €29 annually seems okay. Furthermore this 4G network point to point communication ISN'T able to get hold of by third party actors. PERIOD

• sending video stream to dji server is pretty bad idea

• So if solar flying would be a solution … infinit flying is an option 🙂
  The only thing that stops you to fly around the world is sleep….

• I have just watched an episode on Geeksvana regarding the DJI 4G Cellular Dongle.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTcEessky5c

  Simply put, purchasing the DJI dongle putting a UK sim card in and flying your drone, is (not legal.)

  As this has nothing to do with the CAA believe it or not, this has more to do with Ofcom the communications regulator for the UK. There are several hoops to jump through first.

  This DJI 4G dongle is not a product that is intended for the hobbyist/recreational market.
  
  But more for the DJI Enterprise market, where companies have gained the required licenses and permissions of which there are actually multiples required.

  This next statement is shown on Geeksvana from Ofcom.

  Anyone installing and using the DJI dongle must have a UAS Radio Operator licence from Ofcom for its use to be legal.
  
  It is a condition of the license that the user must get explicit written permission from the mobile network(s) they wish to use that they have consented to the use of the use of an airborne terminal on their network.

  For example, BT/EE has its own specific mobile drone business that provides specialist sim cards.
  
  Another requirement is that the drone must not to able to transmit on or connect to the 2.6 GHz mobile band due to interference risks to Air Traffic Control (ATC) Radars in the adjacent 2.7 GHz band. In most cases, this can achieved by the mobile network.

  Essentially what they are saying is, that you need a licence to do this from Ofcom.
  
  You also need a specialist SIM card that is sold by the telecommunications company.

  If someone purchases a standard mobile SIM card, places it into the dongle and uses it without having a written airborne agreement from the mobile network(s) they are using, then this is illegal.
  
  In the case of using a SIM card belonging to an MVNO (e.g. Tesco, GiffGaff, etc…)
  
  the permission must come from the network they are using (e.g. VMO2).
  
  For more information look at sections 3.4-3.11 of our UAS Radio Operator licence guidance.

  The reason for these restrictions, as well as the risk of interference to ATC radars, is that the mobile networks are not currently designed to handle airborne traffic.
  
  If used airborne the mobile terminal can see and try to connect to multiple mobile base stations causing congestion and performance issues for the network.

  This isn't the case when used on the ground.
  
  The worldwide mobile equipment standards being developed by 3GPP include drone functionality but these are likely to take a number of years before they are rolled out on the UK Networks.

  Concerning the second point on operation, this is the responsibility of the CAA and all drone operators must comply with the air safety requirements it has in place.

  The licence from Ofcom only covers the authorisation of the equipment user the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 as does not supersede any air safety or airspace management regulations.

• This £26 for subscription is monthly or yearly ?

• I have also been using the enhanced transmission mode with my Mavic 3 and the Dongle 1, works very nicely

• We need that kid from the a/c commercial , you know ? The one who made this a/c that made the air in his class drop too 65* in 15 minutes that led to his mates being able to concentrate and him being the hero. Now we need him to be ours and engineer a mini nuclear power cell that can be retrofitted onto a DJI.

• Great video mate!

• Sitting in my living room with the drone's video output on my TV would be incredible.

• All we need is a change in the laws and then DJI can add inductive charging and private homes can add landing pad and charger on their roof for a discount. We could literally use drones as private mail carriers. Imagine if we could use AI to send light equipment and products unlimited distances for deliveries.

• https://youtube.com/shorts/V21HXHTAYdc?si=tYJTmoAdjEaTgfL-

• If there is a drone that really needs this and it is the mavic mini

• One word for you "Latency"

• Hi Gavin great review, can I ask what sim you used. Thanks

• This marks the begining of subscriptions.Standard network will become poor and you will have no option except subscription.Looks like subscription model is working for big companies.
  The fact that this comes right after new US laws makes me suspicious of a lot of things

• it's must have in Europe… regulations here crippled signal strength… even the eye sight distance is hardly achievable

• Brilliant info, thanks.

• my question is, if I am 50 km from the drone, someone turns it on and I have the controller with me and the dongle attached to the drone, would it work?

• China is trying to gather everything

• It will not work in the UK!!!!

• This will not be safe to work in the US since it uses a relay to their service which means they received all the data including the streaming video before it gets sent back to your device. With everything going in with DJI in the US this will make it harder for services like this to work in the US.

• if we turn on drone other side of the globe do it connect?

• Confused about the SIM card. Does it come with it? Do I need one? Or would my phone account for this?

• So can this be turned on mid flight or do I need to set it up pre-flight? I would be using my phone’s hot spot

• This will only add another 20min to my pre flight set up – yay!

• Does it work in South America?

• Dji air battery+ when?

• My question is, could the air 3 use a rtk module using the same slot if a third party make it and custom firmware?

• Can we get it in the United States?

• So you need a sim card but then you connect to wifi hotspot on the other remote? Do you still need sim?

• MTOM of the mini 4 pro with donlge attached? Does it take it over the 250g?

• Great, concise video. First I’ve seen on the tech piece so far.

  Thanks again!

• Neat. Battery limitations hold back the possibilities. Perhaps an FPV fixed wing glider with some onboard power generation? Like, it’s big, long, glider wings are solar panels? Would using the wind generated during gliding to generate power violate the laws of thermodynamics or something? Kinda like blowing on your own sail? Anyway… to get real usage out of this tech, I’d want to be able to fly for hundreds of miles. I suppose that would be illegal as heck.

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