FCC Expands Crackdown on Alleged DJI Shell Companies

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For months, drone shoppers on Amazon have encountered a growing roster of unfamiliar brand names — SkyRover, Specta, Muse, and others — selling hardware that looked strikingly familiar. Priced attractively and fulfilled with Prime shipping, these products drew immediate comparisons to DJI's consumer lineup. Now the Federal Communications Commission is moving to close what it sees as a deliberate gap in its equipment-authorisation framework.

The FCC has released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking public comment on whether to prohibit the continued importation and marketing of previously authorised equipment from nine companies it says are linked to entities on its Covered List. The companies named are Cogito Tech, Fikaxo Technology, Lyno Dynamics, Skyhigh Tech, Spatial Hover, SZ Knowact Robot Technology, WaveGo Tech, Xtra Technology, and agricultural drone maker XAG.

The NPRM did not appear in a vacuum. On July 10, 2026, the FCC's Enforcement Bureau had already proposed $25,000 fines against eight of those same companies for refusing to respond to Letters of Inquiry (LOIs) issued in May 2026. The LOIs asked each company to declare whether it markets radio-frequency equipment tied to the Covered List. None of the eight replied by the July 20 deadline, triggering the proposed forfeitures. Each company may pay, contest, or seek reduction of the fine, but the FCC has warned that continued non-compliance could trigger additional enforcement.

Crucially, those fines are a procedural sanction for stonewalling investigators — not yet a determination that any company actually violated Covered List restrictions. The NPRM now escalates the matter toward a substantive product ruling.

The timing maps directly onto the regulatory architecture the FCC put in place in December 2025, when it expanded its Covered List to include foreign-produced UAS and critical drone components, effectively blocking new equipment authorisations for affected manufacturers. Regulators appear to have concluded that some market participants responded not by exiting the US market, but by cycling through newly incorporated entities to obtain fresh FCC equipment IDs for what investigators allege are materially identical products.

The Commission says it has drawn on both its own investigation findings and publicly available information — including open-source research cataloguing these companies — to build its case that several businesses are functioning as intermediaries for Covered List manufacturers. The proposal also follows FCC enforcement action against at least one certification laboratory involved in approving products from some of the flagged brands.

For consumers, the NPRM does not immediately change anything. The FCC has opened a public comment period before commissioners vote on a final rule. Manufacturers, retailers, trade associations, drone operators, and individual buyers will all have an opportunity to submit evidence before any prohibition takes effect. The agency has also clarified that a future import-and-marketing ban would not affect products that consumers have already purchased.

The nine-company NPRM is the latest instalment in a broader regulatory sequence. In late June 2026, the FCC used the same legal mechanism to close the import window on previously authorised Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua equipment — demonstrating that the agency is willing and able to act on grandfathered hardware, and that the process from NPRM to final prohibition can move in roughly three months.

Technical Breakdown

Platform class: Consumer and prosumer quadcopter UAS; action cameras
Key brands under scrutiny: Specta Air and Specta Mini (Cogito Tech), SkyRover (SZ Knowact Robot Technology / WaveGo Tech), Muse 2 Pro (Xtra Technology)
RF technology at issue: DJI's proprietary OcuSync protocol, which operates across dual-frequency bands of 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz using OFDM modulation and frequency-hopping control uplinks. OcuSync transmissions produce characteristic RF packet structures that independent researchers have used to fingerprint hardware regardless of brand labelling.
Internal hardware findings: Hardware teardowns of Cogito Tech's Specta Air and Specta Mini have identified DJI's proprietary P1 ("Pigeon") OcuSync chipset on PCBs whose board design, part numbers, and layout are reported to be identical to DJI production units. Internal firmware and code-level analysis of at least the Specta Air has surfaced "DJI" listed as the manufacturer identifier while displaying "SPECTA" as the vendor brand string.
Specta Air published specs: Dual 48 MP cameras; 4K/60fps HDR video; 360° obstacle avoidance; 20 km transmission range — a specification profile that mirrors the DJI Air 3.
Specta Mini: Sub-250 g class; 4K UHD camera; derived from the DJI Mini 2 SE platform.
Manufacturing geography: Cogito Tech products are labelled as manufactured in Malaysia by a Hong Kong-incorporated entity; SZ Knowact products carry the SkyRover brand.
Autonomy level: Consumer-grade automated flight modes (comparable to DJI's QuickShots and subject-tracking features on equivalent platforms).
Detection methodology: Independent researcher Konrad Iturbe developed an automated RF-frequency monitoring system capable of identifying OcuSync packet signatures in FCC registration filings, enabling systematic identification of devices using DJI's proprietary wireless stack regardless of commercial branding. The FCC's own investigation referenced this and similar publicly available research.

Industry Impact

For manufacturers and integrators: The NPRM signals that the FCC intends to enforce Covered List restrictions at the level of product substance, not just corporate identity. Companies attempting to obtain new equipment authorisations for hardware that shares a supply chain, firmware base, or RF chipset with a Covered List entity now face heightened scrutiny. The separate action against a certification laboratory also suggests that the authorisation process itself is being audited for compliance gaps.

For US drone market structure: The December 2025 Covered List expansion blocked new DJI and Autel models from receiving FCC authorisation. If the NPRM results in a final rule stripping previously granted authorisations from the nine named companies, it would narrow the pool of consumer-grade camera drones available through major retail channels further still. The FCC noted in a related proceeding that domestic UAS producers have already raised billions of dollars in investment following the initial Covered List update — suggesting the regulatory pressure is accelerating US manufacturing scale-up.

For retailers and e-commerce platforms: Amazon, which has been the primary sales channel for the flagged brands, would face the removal of affected product listings if a final prohibition is adopted. Retailers stocking inventory from the named companies face potential clearance obligations.

For operators and consumers: Existing owners of hardware from the named brands are not immediately affected — the FCC has stated that a prospective import-and-marketing ban would not reach products already purchased. However, the absence of manufacturer support infrastructure (several flagged companies operated with minimal or no direct customer-support presence) creates long-term serviceability questions.

For regulators: The Huawei hardware precedent established in June 2026 showed a three-month NPRM-to-final-rule timeline. If the FCC moves at a similar pace on the drone intermediary proceeding, a final determination could arrive before the end of Q3 2026. The parallel move to restructure the Covered List into manufacturer-based and geography-based categories — proposed in a separate July 2026 rulemaking — would further complicate the compliance calculus for any entity with mixed supply chains.