Given that drones are basically robots with fast-spinning rotary blades that can fly high up in the sky, clearly there are safety issues to be considered since you don’t want these drones to fall out of the sky and land on someone’s head. This is why we can’t say we’re surprised to learn of one of the measures DJI is taking to ensure drone safety.The company has recently announced that they will be releasing a new firmware update for the DJI Spark which is meant to improve on the drone’s power supply during flight (presumably to prevent it from running out of juice mid-flight and fall out of the sky) as well as to integrate the Spark with the DJI Goggles. Sounds like a pretty standard firmware update, right? But it seems that this is a mandatory update because if users fail to update their drone, it won’t fly.
According to DJI, “If the firmware of either the aircraft or the battery is not updated by September 1, Spark will not be able to take off. DJI decided on the option of a mandatory firmware update in order to maximise flight safety and product reliability which we consider as top priorities.”
Of course this doesn’t mean that the drone is disabled permanently, but rather it won’t fly until you update it. So if you do own the Spark and you are prompted to update the firmware, you’d probably best go ahead if you plan to keep flying the drone.