been seeing some chatter about Autel's roadmap for this year and apparently they're pushing harder into the enterprise space but also supposedly have a consumer-ish release planned. i've always kind of rooted for Autel to give DJI real competition because monopolies in this space arent great for any of us, but every time i get my hopes up they kind of undershoot. the EVO Nano was fine but it never really felt like it was competing with the Mini series on the things that actually mattered to most people.

anyway curious if anyone here actually flies Autel gear regularly and whether the ecosystem has gotten better. last time i checked the app was kind of rough compared to DJI Fly. also heard something about a new regulatory push in the EU that might actually benefit non-DJI manufacturers if theres some kind of data privacy procurement preference but i dont know enough about that to have a real opinion on it yet.

I fly an EVO Lite+ and have for about a year and a half. Honestly the app has improved quite a bit ? it's not DJI Fly but it's not the disaster it used to be either. The image quality on the Lite+ genuinely surprised me when I first got it, the variable aperture lens is something you dont get on a lot of drones in that price range. That said the ecosystem around it ? accessories, community knowledge, tutorial videos ? is just nowhere near DJI's and that does matter when something goes wrong or you want to learn a new shooting technique.

The EU procurement angle is real though. There have been some government contract discussions in Europe where DJI has faced scrutiny and that opens a door for Autel and also Skydio on the enterprise side. Whether that trickles down to better consumer products is a different question but it does mean Autel has reason to keep investing.

i mean every year someone says this is the year autel catches up and here we are lol. not trying to be harsh because i actually want more competition too but until they sort out things like the waypoint mission reliability and the controller latency i feel like its hard to recomment them to anyone but enthusiasts who specifically want an alternative to DJI. for casual flyers the path of least resistance is still just... DJI. hopefully that changes but i'll believe it when i see a product that actually makes me think twice at the purchase decision point