Really ever since the release of the Autel EVO II Series back in Spring of 2020, the world has known that Autel has a "future controller" planned or in the works for the EVO II series. That was made known when EVO II Rugged Bundles began shipping with the GPC EVO II Hard Rugged Cases and the case diagram indicated space for the "future controller". See below! 🧐

So, the big question is, when is the Smart Controller for the EVO II going to be released from Autel Robotics? The Advexure Team knows very well how anxious EVO II owners and future EVO II owners are to have a Smart Controller for this platform. We're not here to spin rumors, we'll leave that up to the guys at DroneDJ, but do want to address this very important and pressing question.

Release Date of EVO II Smart Controller

Our team here at Advexure hoped that we'd see Autel announce and release the Smart Controller during virtual CES in early January, but unfortunately they had bigger things to share like Dragonfish and their new EXOLANDER & Spotlight System for the EVO II in partnership with FoxFury. We still expect to see Autel release their Smart Controller within this quarter (Q1 2021). Our fingers are crossed! Time is ticking as we roll through mid-February with only a little over a month and half remaining in the quarter.

What can we expect to see from Autel's Smart Controller?

Over the last six months we've heard a lot of feedback and wishes from our customer base as to what they would like to see in a Smart Controller for the EVO II series. Some of the biggest asks have been for screen brightness, battery life, customizability, and the ability to run third party applications (Pix4D, DroneDeploy, DroneSense, AirData, etc). We really hope Autel seeks some inspiration from some of the newer Ground Controllers running Auterion PX4. We expect Autel will implement a larger integrated display compared to DJI's Smart Controllers at 5.5". They're simply too little of real estate, especially when it comes to running mission planners in the field from your Ground Control Station.

That being said, there is certainly a happy medium between monitor size and portability, after all, the EVO II Dual is designed for quick-deploy applications and public safety and commercial users don't want to lug around a large Ground Control Station. We would anticipate that Autel would seek to use a 2000-nit display, Android-based operating system (that is not limited to solely running the Autel Explorer app), and the ability to leverage an internal an external battery system for sustained missions.