heidi

[Nico Bykhovsky @BykhovskyNico]

Hardware has historically suffered from catastrophic TTDH (time to dopamine hit).

Atlas Desktop controlling a HackRF Pro over USB in one shot.

We’re on the best possible timeline @GSGlabs

[heidi @kim_cudi]

AR drone 🤝 IRL twin
ft. the teardown lab @arenaphysica

s/o @Trevs_Dev for building this 🔥 check it out at https://t.co/Hzlm2Kz9LD

[Arena Physica @arenaphysica]

Can the US build a DJI? We bought a 2019 Mavic Mini and a 2023 Mini 4 Pro, tore them down in our hardware lab, and put them under a bench microscope to find out.

What we found: https://t.co/2nxcHd8cSF.

[Trevor B (Trev The Creator) 🇬🇾🇺🇸 @Trevs_Dev]

Very proud of the craftsmanship and precision my team at @arenaPhysica put into this article

Every component of the 2019 DJI Mavic Mini and 2023 Mini 4 Pro, torn down and priced at its floor cost

We've also added an AR experience that shows the teardown in AR

https://t.co/QYxpjBYyYd

#buildinpublic

[heidi @kim_cudi]

@pangram @cute_n_clocky @PratapRanade @DJIGlobal thanks @max_spero_ ! nice to see you on here

[Pratap Ranade @PratapRanade]

Can the US build a DJI?

We tore down @DJIGlobal 's 2019 and 2023 Mini drones and priced every part. It's the first public cost breakdown of either. Here's what we learned:

DJI earns SaaS-like margins on hardware: ~79% gross margin on a $139 parts BOM. For comparison, Apple makes 53% on the iPhone. We estimate US-sourced parts would cost 2-3x more, cutting margins to 37-58%.

The result: US drone makers can't compete in consumer, and focus on premium enterprise and defense.

Sovereign silicon: DJI is building its autonomy lead starting at the chip. In 2019, the drone's key chips were American and Dutch. By 2023, all four were DJI's own.

Custom silicon jumped from 1% to 26% of the parts bill. Nobody else can buy these chips.

One notable exception is the GPS chip, still from Swiss firm @ublox . Chinese alternatives exist, but DJI's flight software is built around u-blox. In modern hardware, lock-in lives in the software.

"Cheap China" is an outdated perception. DJI paid more for lighter Chinese batteries, then spent the saved grams on sensors and compute. Their first priority is capability per gram, not cost.

Better battery tech → lighter weight → more onboard autonomy. US-made @SkydioHQ has better autonomy, but needs a heavier drone and a $399 chip to get it. We lost the war on cost. The next battlefield is autonomy.

DJI's real moat is speed. Shenzhen gets new circuit boards in hours, the US in weeks. "Move fast and break things" works for hardware in China, not America.

Banning DJI doesn't close that gap. Faster iteration does. We ran this teardown with our FDEs and Atlas, our engineering agent platform.

See our full analysis: https://t.co/XHTL8X5uyW

Thanks to @JonathonPSine @AkhilIyer1, Maggie Gray and Shaun Donovan for reading drafts of this.

[Arena Physica @arenaphysica]

Behind the scenes from our lab 👀