You may have heard that there’s a new Autel Evo II “v2” being released and that the existing Evo II (which now becomes the “v1”) is therefore now End of Life, less than one year after release.
I thought I’d share some insight in to what’s going on, what the differences between the two models are, and what the future will bring.
TL;DR
the only difference is the current Evo II v1 is single band on 2.4GHz and the new v2 is dual band on 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz. The v1 controllers are not compatible with the v2 drones and vice versa.
Longer read:
On the 5th June 2021 Autel Robotics published the following announcement:
Well, that was bit of a shocker to all Evo II owners
Now the dust has settled from that announcement and Autel CEO Randal Warnas has provided a couple of interviews and released a few more statements, things are clearer and a bit more settled now.
The difference between what is the current Evo II (v1) and what will be the new Evo II (v2) is simply the wireless radio chipset used to allow the drone to communicate with the controller.
The current Evo II v1 has only ever operated in the 2.4GHz frequency band.
The new Evo II v2 will operate on 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz.
Quite why the v2 can’t work with the v1 is not clear (to me) but apparently the chips come in pairs and something here is preventing it being backwards compatible with the 2.4GHz-only chipset.
This is the only difference between the v1 and the v2. One is single-band, one is dual-band.
The airframe, props, cameras and other payloads, batteries, and everything else remains the same - and compatible between the two versions.
What’s not compatible between the two is the regular controller, the smart controller or the Live Deck. The Live Deck will likely be replaced with a different product in the near future anyway. V1 owners might keep an eye out for a bargain LD soon as they look to clear stock
The v2 will carry a new and very subtle marking on the top of the shell casing:
Randal Warnas has stated that Autel will retain large stock of the existing v1 chipsets in order to support warranty and servicing of the v1 drones and controllers for some time to come. He also stated that if the v1 can’t be repaired due to lack of parts availability then it will be replaced with a v2 unit.
Therefore only 500x Smart Controller v1’s will be made.
The Evo II v2 is expected to ship sooner than originally expected (it’s on the FCC database already) and the Smart Controller v2 will ship shortly thereafter.