DJI’s new Inspire 1 quadcopter which was announced on Nov 13th, is going to be delayed. They were supposed to start shipping in late November/early December. The problem lies with the Inspire 1’s camera lens, in testing they found that in 10% of cases sunlight affects pictures negatively. The solution is adding a lens-hood.
The email sent to Customers of the Inspire 1:
Dear DJI Customer,
We want to give you an update on the status of the Inspire 1 shipments.
Because we are committed to giving you only the best systems DJI can produce, we have decided to postpone shipment of our first units, and we want to explain this decision to you.
Earlier this year, we started flying and testing the first Inspire 1 beta units. The technology we built into the Inspire 1 is based on all of our years of research and development, and we have always dreamed of combining these elements into one complete system. So these first flights were deeply important to us.
As these flight tests went increasingly well, we started bringing the Inspire 1 around the world to test it in different environments. At that time, we were 99% certain for a launch date in early December. Unfortunately, as we started ramping up to full production scale, there were unavoidable circumstances that prevented our best work from being completed.
So now it is the right decision to delay shipments. We apologize for bringing you this news, but we are working hard to give you the best products you need.
We will update you on our shipment times soon.
Sincerely,
DJI
The following information was found on the DJI Support Forum on November 30th:
Hey guys，
I apologize for the shipment delay.
Actually we do have encountered some problems in production.
The worst one is the lens. The original design is lens + filter glass.
But we found that when the sun is not appeared in the filed of view, the sun light will affect the image quality.
Engineers advised to accept the result because it is just one case and will be ok in 90% of applications.
But the product manager disagreed. He insisted that the camera is the key point of the inspire 1.
We should do something to make things better.
So we decided to add lens hood onto the camera.
And you can find out the camera on website is different with the introduction video.
It is a big change and the date is close to release.
However，there are a lot of work to do.
Redesigned the camera within limited weight and room.
Changed the design of lens.
Made the plastic molding which is 20 days in general and we compressed it down to 15 days.
Test and so on.
The shipment date was estimated to the end of November if everything goes well.
But unfortunately, troubles happend time by time.We have to inform you the delay info reluctantly.
Please believe that we are doing our best to get it done.
We are more anxious than you.
Image courtesy of cheesycam.com
