Drone News Roundup: Lake Garda in 6K with Mavic 4 Pro, DJI Policy Change Could Lock You Out of Your 2nd-Hand Drone, and More!
BY Zacc Dukowitz
19 June 2025This week we’re covering a cinematic drone tour of Lake Garda in Italy shot in 6K on the Mavic 4 Pro.
We’re also covering a new DJI policy that could lock you out of your second-hand drone, our review of the best three mobile apps for drone editing, a West Coast warehouse supplying domestic drone parts, and an AI-powered algorithm that helps drones fly better in bad weather.
Now on to the links!
Lake Garda, Italy in 6K on the Mavic 4 Pro
Denis Barbas always delivers. In this latest video from him, we get a 6K aerial tour of Lake Garda, Italy, shot entirely on the Mavic 4 Pro. The video covers the lake’s clear waters, mountain views, and historic towns, all captured with the new 4/3″ sensor and triple-camera setup. The footage highlights the Mavic 4 Pro’s Infinity Gimbal and 6K resolution, making for smooth, detailed shots of the region’s landscapes and vineyards. The video also features a mix of wide panoramas and close-up details, showing off what the latest DJI flagship platform can do.
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New DJI Policy Could Lock You Out of Your Second-Hand Drone
Credit: DJI
Starting June 19, 2025, DJI is enforcing a strict new policy that only allows account unbinding, rebinding, or binding requests from the current bound account holder. (Binding refers to connecting a drone to its owner—so unbinding and rebinding just mean disconnecting a drone from its original owner and connecting it to a new owner, which you have to do with a second-hand drone.)
The bottom line? If you buy a used DJI drone that hasn’t been properly unbound by the previous owner, you won’t be able to transfer it to your account—or fly it fully. The policy affects most consumer and enterprise DJI drones, including the Mavic 4 Pro, Mini 4 Pro, Air 3S, and more. So be forewarned: second-hand DJI buyers and sellers now must ensure devices are unbound before transfer to avoid being locked out.
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Best Free Mobile Apps for Drone Editing
Want a free app to edit your drone footage? In this video, we review the top three mobile apps for editing drone photos and videos—LightCut, Snapseed, and Adobe Lightroom Mobile—all of which are available on Android and iOS.
Here’s the overview:
- LightCut stands out for video editing, offering robust tools and seamless integration with DJI drones via the DJI Fly app.
- Snapseed delivers advanced, easy-to-use photo editing for free.
- Lightroom Mobile provides strong organization and editing features, though some advanced options require a subscription.
Watch the full 3-minute video for a clear rundown of what each app offers, so you can decide which to use for your next project.
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West Coast Warehouse Boosts U.S. Drone Supply Chain Amid Tariff Pressures
Credit: Cofactr
The U.S. drone supply chain needs work—we all know this. Right now, we’re so dependent on Chinese drone parts that even companies that tout their “made in America” credentials often rely on components from China. Cofactr, a supply chain and logistics management platform, is working to change this. The company has opened a new 10,000-square-foot, AI-powered warehouse in Long Beach, California, aimed at supporting drone and aerospace manufacturers with faster, domestic access to parts and components. The Long Beach location is Cofactr’s second warehouse—it already operates a similar facility in Brooklyn.
Cofactr’s expansion comes at a critical time, as ongoing Chinese tariffs continue to disrupt global supply chains, underscoring the need to move drone production closer to home. By localizing inventory and leveraging AI for precision logistics, Cofactr’s facility helps U.S. drone companies reduce their dependency on overseas suppliers and improve resilience in a challenging trade environment.
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AI Algorithm Helps Drones Fly Better in Bad Weather
MIT researchers have created a new AI-driven adaptive control system that helps autonomous drones maintain their flight path amid unpredictable, gusty winds. Using meta-learning, the system learns from just 15 minutes of flight data to automatically select the best optimization algorithm for current conditions, reducing trajectory tracking errors by 50% compared to traditional methods. This approach allows drones to adapt in real time to new wind speeds and disturbances without prior knowledge, improving performance for tasks like wildfire monitoring or heavy parcel delivery in challenging weather.
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