Money never sleeps, and apparently neither does DJI. Fresh off the release last month of their first FPV Drone Combo, the latest DJI rumor is the pending release of a new Air 2S drone that may sport an enhanced IMX686 sensor.
We received the FCC notification by email this morning and while little is usually revealed in these filings, there were some data points worth reporting.
Like the recent name adjustment to the DJI Mini 2 (DJI dropped ‘Mavic’) from the name, this filing hints that DJI may also be dropping the Mavic from the Air series of drones.
This would differentiate DJI’s drones into defined series of Phantom, Mavic, Air, and Mini.
64MP Camera
First off is the potential use of Sony’s IMX686 CMOS sensor. This is currently used in the DJI Pocket 2 handheld camera and produces 64MP stills, mixed zoom, and 4K60p video.
The biggest difference is the larger area of the IMX686 at 1/1.72 inches compared to the 1/2 inch sensor of the IMX586 in the Mavic Air 2.
The current Mavic Air 2 uses Sony’s IMX586 Sensor in it’s camera that provides 48MP stills, and what we know from the IMX686 sensor in the DJI Pocket 2 is that it captures 64MP stills. Moving that sensor into a new Air 2S means it too will be moving to 64MP images.
Sony is able to ramp up the resolution in these sensors using a process called ‘pixel binning’. We won’t go into the technical side of it, but pixel binning basically combines adjacent pixels to make the larger when needed and can dramatically improve low light performance.
But don’t confuse big megapixel numbers with high resolution…it’s not an automatic relationship. While pixel binning improves low light image captures, it comes at the expense of resolution.
We use the Mavic 2 Pro and Mavic Air 2 pretty regularly, but we’ll take images from the Pro’s 20MP camera over the Air 2’s 48MP camera all day long.
Battery
The new Air 2S comes with a 11.55Volt, 35mAh battery just like the current Air 2 so it’s likely that the aircraft is identical and components like batteries and propellers are interchangeable.
The DJI Air 2S also uses the same power adapter (charger) as the Mavic Air 2, identified by model P2C38.
OcuSync 2.0 or 3.0?
DJI upgraded it’s OcuSync system to 3.0 for the FPV drone released last month. The current Mavic Air 2 uses 2.0 and is also compatible with the DJI Smart Controller.
It’s unlikely we’ll see OcuSync 3.0 in the Air 2S as it would not be compatible with the Smart Controller. When the Smart Controller was released DJI promised it would be compatible with all future OcuSync 2.0 drones. Updates have been slow, and we’re still waiting on compatibility for the Mini 2 drone.
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Cool! Any idea how much this will cost? Definitely more than the current Mavic Air 2 because of the top sensors and camera.