is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3, the baby steadicam, is one of the most popular gadgets the company’s ever made. But you’ll pay a hefty Trump tax to get one in the US: $799 after tariff-fueled back-to-back price hikes this spring.
What if I told you DJI may have found a way to dodge those tariffs and pesky customs inspectors by offering a disguised version of the camera? What if I told you an entire new “US” company has quietly been erected to sell it on Amazon for far lower, even as low as $499 during Amazon’s big new sale?
Konrad Iturbe, a software engineer and DJI watcher, recently brought such a company to my attention. It’s called Xtra Technology, but there’s nothing “extra” about it — near as we can tell, it’s selling exact hardware copies of the DJI Osmo Pocket 3, DJI Osmo Action 4, and DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro.
And when I say “near as we can tell,” I don’t just mean we’re taking an educated guess.
I mean:
These cameras use the same components inside, the same boards, the same chips as DJI, according to FCC teardowns. Check out the pictures below.
Security consultant Jon Sawyer scanned Xtra’s app for us, and we discovered countless places where DJI’s code had been copied and pasted, only with names like “DJI” changed.
Despite changing names like “DJI,” whoever did this didn’t remove 7,552 references to DJI’s LightCut video editing app, and even a reference to DJI’s Avinox e-bike drive system
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