Recommendations for which Remote ID to buy

[Kristina Fowler]

I recently ran across this but have no data on reviews or "shootouts" between certain models of Remote IDs. Hoping someone with real-world experience could share their findings here. Thanks in advance....

Where can I buy a Remote ID module? How much does it cost? [Sortable Table with pricing]​

 

[R.Perry]

Have you looked at the Blue Mark?

 

[GsquaredAerials]

From Alien Drones: Cheap Remote ID Modules & the HACKS to make them INVISIBLE

"BlueMark's New Drone Remote ID Modules are FAA Compliant, but learn what to do so free app users can't locate the pilot or drone."

By the way, what a scam to charge that much money to millions of people or force them to ground their drones. These modules should be either paid for by the same government who created this tattle-tail technology or force the module makers to drop a digit off of their pricing.

 

[R.Perry]

From Alien Drones: Cheap Remote ID Modules & the HACKS to make them INVISIBLE

"BlueMark's New Drone Remote ID Modules are FAA Compliant, but learn what to do so free app users can't locate the pilot or drone."

By the way, what a scam to charge that much money to millions of people or force them to ground their drones. These modules should be either paid for by the same government who created this tattle-tail technology or force the module makers to drop a digit off of their pricing.

You become part of the aviation world when you put something in the air. Flying is a little like a sport, either play by the rules or get out of the game. The remote ID is a tool that is really needed in many areas, and it isn't the government's responsibility to buy equipment for your drone so you can operate it safely. This technology can also help the government put a stop to some of the stupid things some people do with drones.

 

[BigAl07]

You become part of the aviation world when you put something in the air. Flying is a little like a sport, either play by the rules or get out of the game. The remote ID is a tool that is really needed in many areas, and it isn't the government's responsibility to buy equipment for your drone so you can operate it safely. This technology can also help the government put a stop to some of the stupid things some people do with drones.

Very well said and I completely agree.

 

[GsquaredAerials]

You become part of the aviation world when you put something in the air. Flying is a little like a sport, either play by the rules or get out of the game. The remote ID is a tool that is really needed in many areas, and it isn't the government's responsibility to buy equipment for your drone so you can operate it safely. This technology can also help the government put a stop to some of the stupid things some people do with drones.

With all due respect, remote ID is needed to keep idiots from doing stupid things and not for trained pilots or at least people with common sense and respect for aviation rules. Problem is, they let anyone with absolutely no experience or knowledge of the rules fly drones around the skies. Now we all have to literally and figuratively pay for those people because they've made the skies unsafe.

Having remote ID doesn't make me or anyone one else in this forum "safe". It's only a tool public safety officials get to use to monitor us and I'm fine with that if they were the only ones allowed to use it. Giving civilians access is stupid as hell and will do no good. The same Karen or Ken that'll rat out some FPV idiot for flying through their kid's baseball game will be the same people that try to report us for legally flying over their house at 150ft while doing a roof inspection or mapping mission.

If the government wants to keep us in line, I'm all for it to a point but when they want the public to help out, that's a serious problem.

 

[BigAl07]

With all due respect, remote ID is needed to keep idiots from doing stupid things and not for trained pilots or at least people with common sense and respect for aviation rules. Problem is, they let anyone with absolutely no experience or knowledge of the rules fly drones around the skies. Now we all have to literally and figuratively pay for those people because they've made the skies unsafe.

Having remote ID doesn't make me or anyone one else in this forum "safe". It's only a tool public safety officials get to use to monitor us and I'm fine with that if they were the only ones allowed to use it. Giving civilians access is stupid as hell and will do no good. The same Karen or Ken that'll rat out some FPV idiot for flying through their kid's baseball game will be the same people that try to report us for legally flying over their house at 150ft while doing a roof inspection or mapping mission.

If the government wants to keep us in line, I'm all for it to a point but when they want the public to help out, that's a serious problem.

You do realize that "trained/experienced/Part 107" operators also routinely break the rules. Merely having a few hours under your belt doesn't stop you from breaking the rules and "pushing the limits". Last time I checked even CDL drivers had to have ID, license plates, and registration to operate legally.

You'd probably be shocked how many Part 107 operators I've had "Legal" talks with who thought they knew the rules and totally misunderstood them. BVLOS and VO being some of the most common ones.

 

[TreeLineView]

I don't believe IOS device currently work as RID receivers. There you go. 60% of the Karens taken out of the equation.

 

[GsquaredAerials]

You do realize that "trained/experienced/Part 107" operators also routinely break the rules. Merely having a few hours under your belt doesn't stop you from breaking the rules and "pushing the limits". Last time I checked even CDL drivers had to have ID, license plates, and registration to operate legally.

You'd probably be shocked how many Part 107 operators I've had "Legal" talks with who thought they knew the rules and totally misunderstood them. BVLOS and VO being some of the most common.

First off, I said I was okay with law enforcement or government officials having the ability to watch us. My concern is mostly with civilians discovering they can use this technology to hurt pilots because they don't understand drone laws and think we shouldn't be allowed to fly or hover over their neighborhood or area they're in. For example, I was at a 4th of July event last month and there was a drone flying around 200ft getting video of the fireworks show. The pilot was taking off from a restricted area inside the concert event and was flying the drone at least 200 yards from the fireworks exploding in the air so, they're were obviously hired to be there. But because people on the ground could see the drone lights blinking and moving around to getting different angles, the people right next to us were complaining that the drone was distracting them and said they should be arrested. ARRESTED! This is what were gonna have to deal with in the real world and not some FAA official properly watching us making sure we're good little pilots while fining the trouble markers.

I understand that even experienced people still break the rules on purpose or by accident but having the module still doesn't make those people "safer" or keep them from breaking more rules. It just puts the worry in their mind that they could be caught easier or more often. Plus, this all only applies if someone with the remote ID app is in the vicinity as it doesn't work like the movie Enemy of the State where you're tracked 24/7 everywhere you go. Just like in your CDL example, most pilots will still break rules and never get caught. For those of us that don't do anything wrong and still get reported by someone (government or not) that wasn't properly trained in what we're allowed to do, is gonna get old real quick.

Even before I took classes for my Part 107 and knew all the rules, I still had common sense to not do anything stupid. Did I know the rules about flying near clouds, flying over public parks with people down below or flying inside an MOA? No, but RID wouldn't have made me any smarter or more knowledgeable pertaining to that stuff. Besides the worry of knowing you can be reported and eventually fined or grounded, explain to me why you think you should have RID on your drone and how it will benefit you. Odds are, you probably can't and know this was designed for the inexperienced pilots that don't know what their doing or the troublemakers that do.

 

[R.Perry]

The idea of RID is to eventually give air controllers the same information that transponders in aircraft do. That is identify your location and altitude and your aircraft ID. This should finally allow for safer operations of drones in high traffic airspace. Hopefully having the FAA relax some of the restrictions we are now faced with and for greater use of drones within what is now restricted airspace and altitudes. As for the public having access, I don't see any reason for the public to have my flight data. We are still in the wild west with this technology and drone operations, and changes will continue to come and be enforced.

 

[R.Perry]

What needs to be dealt with is BVLOS regulations, and to do that, we need collision avoidance and linking our drones to ATC. Honeywell now produces drones that use fuel cells for power and radar collision avoidance. This is a giant step because once we can safely fly BVLOS, it will be a huge game changer for the UAS world. We also need a secure satellite link to constantly communicate with our drones. Solve those issues, and it will be a brand-new drone world. Look at aviation today; pilots don't fly; the computer does until the 1s and 0s get mixed up then somebody needs to take over. I'm not ready to jump on an airliner and have HAL take me someplace.

 

[GsquaredAerials]

The idea of RID is to eventually give air controllers the same information that transponders in aircraft do. That is identify your location and altitude and your aircraft ID. This should finally allow for safer operations of drones in high traffic airspace. Hopefully having the FAA relax some of the restrictions we are now faced with and for greater use of drones within what is now restricted airspace and altitudes. As for the public having access, I don't see any reason for the public to have my flight data. We are still in the wild west with this technology and drone operations, and changes will continue to come and be enforced.

I agree 100%. I'm not trying to pick fights with my buddies here in the forum, I'm just frustrated to know that people that don't know anything about the rules and regulations will have the ability to report anything they don't like. I guess we'll see how it all plays out. I'm still protesting the high cost of the module

 

[GsquaredAerials]

What needs to be dealt with is BVLOS regulations, and to do that, we need collision avoidance and linking our drones to ATC. Honeywell now produces drones that use fuel cells for power and radar collision avoidance. This is a giant step because once we can safely fly BVLOS, it will be a huge game changer for the UAS world. We also need a secure satellite link to constantly communicate with our drones. Solve those issues, and it will be a brand-new drone world. Look at aviation today; pilots don't fly; the computer does until the 1s and 0s get mixed up then somebody needs to take over. I'm not ready to jump on an airliner and have HAL take me someplace.

Haha, Hal. I own a Tesla and still don't trust autopilot unless I'm on a sparsely populated interstate. So yeah, no Hal airlines for me unless there's a human babysitting the controls.

 

[MapMaker53]

I just ordered the Drone Beacon DB120 RID unit, which is currently on back order -- probably due to demand because September is crunch time. I purchased this unit because there is a firmware setting that allows law enforcement equipment to identify the drone but prevents average citizens from using the various drone tracking phone apps to see it. The video refers to it as a hack, but it's just a setting that the manufacturer has recently included in the firmware. If interested, here is the video that explains the newly added firmware setting on this unit along with a demonstration.

The one downside of all of these small self-powered units is that their battery life is only about 3 hours. Not a good situation if you have a particular job that will have you flying all day long. But I'll worry about that if/when the time comes. Like I said, mine is on back order so I can't report on how long the unit takes to recharge.

 

[R.Perry]

Haha, Hal. I own a Tesla and still don't trust autopilot unless I'm on a sparsely populated interstate. So yeah, no Hal airlines for me unless there's a human babysitting the controls.

My wife purchased a new Toyota and I must admit the car does a fantastic job of driving itself. As with you, I don' fully trust it.

 

[GsquaredAerials]

My wife purchased a new Toyota and I must admit the car does a fantastic job of driving itself. As with you, I don' fully trust it.

My son has the same car as me and he drove from Tennessee to Miami and back with auto-pilot and he loved it. I just don't trust Hal or any of his friends yet.

 

[MapMaker53]

As I mentioned above, I ordered the DroneBeacon Db120 RID unit thinking I would need it this month - which the FAA has now postponed. Lucky me. Well it just arrived in the mail after a few weeks of backlog delay, so I figured I would report a couple of initial observations regarding this unit. As mentioned in my post above, the nice thing about this unit (possibly unique) is the ability to change some manufacturer provided firmware settings so the Karens of the world cannot track your done and find out your location along with your registration information simply by using a phone app -- but authorities using their special equipment are able to do so. However I immediately noticed a couple of negatives.

The first thing that ticked me off was the fact that the unit is charged via a USB to USB-C cable which DOES NOT COME WITH THE UNIT! Seriously??? Despite the $149 cost of the beacon unit (far more than these small units were expected to cost), this manufacturer is too cheap to include a short necessary charge cable. Even my tiny strobe lights came with a short charge cable. So the cable cost me an additional $8 at Target. Doesn't break the bank, but it is annoying.

My second observation is a bit more important. When mounted on top of a Phantom4Pro, the unit interferes with the drone's GPS. Without the unit on top, my P4P was acquiring 10-13 satellites while idling on the ground in the middle of my yard with a large open sky. With the unit sitting on top of the shell (directly above the GPS antenna), the count dropped down to 6-9 sats with the drone icon slowly drifting across the controller screen. Why place it on top? Well the available real estate on P4P is rather limited if you don't want to interfere with any of the sensors. I've never had a problem with my strobe mounted in the middle of the top shell, but I guess the size of this RID unit blocks the GPS signal more. I'll probably wind up drilling a couple of small holes into one of the P4P legs and mount it there with two small screws. Or I may ask a friend if he can 3D print a leg mount for me. But only after RID officially becomes a requirement.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE: Out of the box (and once charged), my Db120 RID unit was detected by a publicly available phone app called "Drone Scanner". But once I changed a couple of the firmware settings as mentioned in my first post, the public phone app was in fact unable to see it.

 

[R.Perry]

I'm waiting for DJI software updates, they list several drones that will be compatible but haven't mentioned the Mavic 2 pro yet. We now have until the 15th.

 

[SteveBCH]

Received my DroneBeacon db120 today today as well but have a question about registering it on FAADroneZone. I have but one UAS (a P4 RTK) so have only one entry in the FAADroneZone inventory. When registering the RID module and updating the FAADroneZone info, do I simply overwrite the drone's S/N with the RID module's S/N or do I create a second entry in the inventory (and pay another $5 to register the module)? It's not entirely clear. If overwriting the S/N, that would seem to imply that the FAA no longer cares about the drone's S/N as long as the RID module S/N is registered. I don't intend to fly with the module attached until I have to, so didn't complete the RID module registration since overwriting the drone's S/N with the RID module's S/N would have me flying a drone who's S/N doesn't match the registration. I'd appreciate some guidance from those who are in the know on this topic. Also, saw the comment above from MapMaker53 that the FAA has postponed. Any details available on that action? Thanks.

 

[MapMaker53]

Received my DroneBeacon db120 today today as well but have a question about registering it on FAADroneZone. I have but one UAS (a P4 RTK) so have only one entry in the FAADroneZone inventory. When registering the RID module and updating the FAADroneZone info, do I simply overwrite the drone's S/N with the RID module's S/N or do I create a second entry in the inventory (and pay another $5 to register the module)? It's not entirely clear. If overwriting the S/N, that would seem to imply that the FAA no longer cares about the drone's S/N as long as the RID module S/N is registered. I don't intend to fly with the module attached until I have to, so didn't complete the RID module registration since overwriting the drone's S/N with the RID module's S/N would have me flying a drone who's S/N doesn't match the registration. I'd appreciate some guidance from those who are in the know on this topic. Also, saw the comment above from MapMaker53 that the FAA has postponed. Any details available on that action? Thanks.

In your Device Inventory List, chick on the 3 dots you see under the ACTIONS tab, then choose EDIT. You will be presented with the information you currently have in the system regarding this particular drone. The first question at the top will be "Does your drone broadcast FAA Remote ID information?" If you choose YES, the serial number field prompt changes from saying "Serial Number" (referring to the drone serial number) to "Remote Serial Number". At that point, for some unknown reason, the drone serial number remains in that box instead of being wiped out. As long as that field reads "Remote Serial Number", just delete the drone SN and enter the remote ID serial in that box. Then SAVE. Seems to be a bug in that form that the FAA should correct to avoid confusion. I guess once you have RID, the RID serial number takes president over the drone serial number and is the new serial number assigned to that drone as far as the FAA is concerned. Seems to me they should have both. Anyway, I just filled in that form field with the info it was requesting. The serial number on your drone inventory list will now show the RID serial number instead of the drone's serial number, but it also shows the drone registration number the FAA has on file -- which I'm sure still has the original drone serial number somewhere in the FAA system from when you registered the drone. Physically, I think the only important number associated with the drone is the registration number, which must be displayed on it's hull somewhere.

But I wouldn't add the RID info until you are ready to use it. It even changes the serial number on your registration card that you can print from the site.