Hi,
I need a strobe light for my mini 3 pro. Which one is the best?
Thanks

Hello there RogerLswe. Good day and thank you for reaching out. I hope that our fellow DJI Co Pilots who have installed a Strobe Light on there DJI Mini 3 Pro can give out the best recommendation with regards to this matter.  Just a reminder that since this is a 3rd party accessory ( Strobe Light ) for your DJI Mini 3 Pro. These 3rd party accessories might affect your DJI Mini 3 Pro performance when in use and DJI cannot guaranteed the stability of this 3rd party accessory if it will work all the time with no issues and might void the warranty of the DJI Drone as well. Thank you and have a safe flight always.

" These 3rd party accessories might affect your DJI Mini 3 Pro performance when in use and DJI cannot guaranteed the stability of this 3rd party accessory if it will work all the time with no issues and might void the warranty of the DJI Drone as well."

That is strange!
The DJI Mini 3 pro should fly according to the technical rules and safely with regard to interference immunity, which is also confirmed with the EU Declaration of Conformity (CE).
If a clocked LED already interferes with the drone, you should reconsider.

Beside this, if I would use one in night, I would go for Flytron Strobon Cree or C-1 Cree, check flytron.com for more information.
Indeed you leave the official weight clasification

Because DJI decided to switch off the green lights on the drone's arms, when filming videos at night (not during normal flight and only for the shutter time, when taking photos), the Mini 3 would become totally invisible in this night filming scenario.

@DJI: Did you consider that under these circumstances night filming would mean illegal flying in most countries, especially the whole EU?! And did you consider, what a huge security risk it is to switch off lights at night?! It seems you did NOT :-( Unbelievable!

And due to EU drone regulations a green flashing night light is a must-have. EU drone pilots are forced to use an add-on night light, that flashes green to the ground, if they want to fly at night.
In case of the Mini 3 that means, at least when taking videos at night. When only taking photos, that might not be needed, because the drone's front arms are flashing green. But it depends, because the EU drone regulations demand, that the green night light flashes in the ground direction.

A further problem, that we need to consider is the weight. Most add-on night lights have a weight of around 6 grams, so when adding this to the Mini 3, it's no longer a drone flying in A1, but with more than 250 grams flies in the A3 class with much stricter regulations. Night videos of any City? Forget it? It's then illegal.

In Germany we are lucky, because someone from the German drones forum contacted the Federal Aerial Ministry about this problem and they replied, that such a security add-on (night light) will be accepted, if it has less than 20 grams, if I remember that correctly. Fact is, 6 grams would be tolerated. But what if the Police will check us at night and don't know about this allowed weight tolerance?!

And what about other EU countries ... above weight tolerance is not written in the EU drone regulations, so it only applies to Germany, I guess.
And what about the USA? I don't know.

You see, it's a complex and somewhat delicate topic.

I just purchased the Firehouse "Micro" Basic 800 Lumen High Intensity Strobe Light for my Mini 3 Pro.  It only weighs 4 grams and features 5 different modes.  You can take a look at it here.  

I love the ViFly strobe.  It's plenty bright, but is smaller and weighs a lot less than the Firehouse strobe.  Plus, it costs like $13.

Drone Jockey Posted at 9-9 02:29
Because DJI decided to switch off the green lights on the drone's arms, when filming videos at night (not during normal flight and only for the shutter time, when taking photos), the Mini 3 would become totally invisible in this night filming scenario.

@DJI: Did you consider that under these circumstances night filming would mean illegal flying in most countries, especially the whole EU?! And did you consider, what a huge security risk it is to switch off lights at night?! It seems you did NOT :-( Unbelievable!

a drone who's lights switch off at night when the camera is activated (leaving the drone totally dark) is not a huge security risk.

The Saint Posted at 9-9 07:36
a drone who's lights switch off at night when the camera is activated (leaving the drone totally dark) is not a huge security risk.

Sorry, completely wrong or why do you think the night light is mandatory due to EU drone regulations ... keyword: Rescue Helicopters.

PS: I know that from experience, that those helis sometimes fly lower, than they should ... they sometimes pass by here on their way to the hospital of my home town. And they are sometimes that fast, that you might have problems to lower your drone fast enough accordingly. And if such an accident should happen and your drone was invisible, your insurance won't pay ... well, and then, good night, as we say in Germany.

Just remember - as close as the Mini 3 is to the 250 gram limit, ANY light will put it over the 250 spec weight.

Drone Jockey Posted at 9-9 07:53
Sorry, completely wrong or why do you think the night light is mandatory due to EU drone regulations ... keyword: Rescue Helicopters.

PS: I know that from experience, that those helis sometimes fly lower, than they should ... they sometimes pass by here on their way to the hospital of my home town. And they are sometimes that fast, that you might have problems to lower your drone fast enough accordingly. And if such an accident should happen and your drone was invisible, your insurance won't pay ... well, and then, good night, as we say in Germany.

insurance company won't pay for what? the millions of dollars in damages your little drone will do the rescue helicopter?  the lawsuit from the patient that was affected and now has damages because you "invisible" drone interfered with a rescue helicopter?

has never happened; never will.

it's a fantasy.  but understandable.  unlike over here, your government could tell the citizens to run green lights on top of their autos so in case emergency helicopters have to land on teh street or highway and you guys will mount them because you are told.  because after all, it has happened once before (unlike never for a drone), a helicopter has had to land some place other than a heliport, airport, or clearing.  so let's prepare the cars?  if youre going to force a drone to run green lights for something that has never happened, you might as well force cars to run green lights for something that has happened.

oh wait, unlike motorist, drone owners are gullible and easily bullied with threats of fines in the millions of euros and grounding their drones.  what am i saying?  rescue helicopter has zero issues with drones today and if they do, it's going to get ugly when the sky is actually really full of drones tomorrow.  a green light on a drone at night has never ever prevented an unintentional aircraft collision with a drone.  it's a myth.  i understand, it's the law, designed to prevent the very first accident.  doesn't mean you should drink the koolaid (as they say in my country) and talk about how big of a risk and dangerous are drone are, just begging to be controlled and regulated.  of course, i'm exaggerating but you get the point.
queue the tds. lol

The Saint Posted at 9-9 09:57
insurance company won't pay for what? the millions of dollars in damages your little drone will do the rescue helicopter?  the lawsuit from the patient that was affected and now has damages because you "invisible" drone interfered with a rescue helicopter?

has never happened; never will.

If I follow your argumentation, I could start riding my Harley without a helmet, because so far I never had an accident. It's forbidden, but who cares?

Strange arguments, sorry, my opinion still varies.

Drone Jockey Posted at 9-9 13:24
If I follow your argumentation, I could start riding my Harley without a helmet, because so far I never had an accident. It's forbidden, but who cares?

Strange arguments, sorry, my opinion still varies.

negative.  quite the opposite.  in a free country, like most states in america, there is no law against riding a motorcycle without a helmet.  only after a whole bunch of heads starting rolling that governments decided to step in and make it a law and the only way they get away with it because of safety reasons.  but they have the facts, the number of crushed heads, the deaths, and the stats that show same/similar accidents where a helmet actually saved some lives.  not guessing a helmet might save a life but actually arriving on the scene of the horrible accident, observing a mangled body with a fresh head underneath a helmet....you get my point.  the drone laws are based on zero accidents, no collisions, and in fact likely not even a single near miss.  not a single pilot has ever said "wow, i almost hit that drone and crashed my plane if it hadn't been for that flashing green light that i saw from 2 miles aways...."  wanna pass a green light flashing drone strobe law, fine; but don't pretend like it's making the skies safer and without it, you're endangering people and property and you should be punished.  that's b.s.  do we have to wait for a collision and for someone to get hurt; no, but maybe you can lower the fine from 50 million marks to maybe 50 marks for a strobe light violation; it's just not that important.  i'll change my mind when the airspace is full of commercial drones, drones can fly over 400 feet, recreational drones can fly at night in controlled airspace, and bvlos is a thing.

Dirty Bird Posted at 9-9 14:09
You should be free to ride a Harley without a helmet.  It's your head.

But I'm not that free, because I live in Europe, Germany to be precise. If you ride without it, every police guy seeing you will stop you at once. And it will cost a lot.

And with drones I see a similar trend, because the crowd of drone haters grows exponentially here. And regulations are so strict now, that some former pilots already gave up this hobby. I Germany drone regulation penalty fees can go up to 50.000€

Drone Jockey Posted at 9-9 14:15
But I'm not that free, because I live in Europe, Germany to be precise. If you ride without it, every police guy seeing you will stop you at once. And it will cost a lot.

And with drones I see a similar trend, because the crowd of drone haters grows exponentially here. And regulations are so strict now, that some former pilots already gave up this hobby.

no offense but exactly what i don't want this country to become.  

The Saint Posted at 9-9 14:19
no offense but exactly what i don't want this country to become.

All countries have their pros and cons ... Germans e.g. can drive much faster on highways legally than US guys ;-)

Joking aside ... we have to live with it ... drone law is EU law.

The Saint Posted at 9-9 09:57
insurance company won't pay for what? the millions of dollars in damages your little drone will do the rescue helicopter?  the lawsuit from the patient that was affected and now has damages because you "invisible" drone interfered with a rescue helicopter?

has never happened; never will.

has never happened; never will.
Ignorance must be bliss.
https://www.thelocal.at/20160816/drone-nearly-collides-with-rescue-helicopter-in-austria/
https://globalnews.ca/news/2867335/near-miss-between-drone-and-eps-helicopter-could-have-been-catastrophic-police-warn/

Here are a few more (varying degrees of seriousness)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UAV-related_incidents

Almost all aircraft have strobes. Why would you think drones should be any exception? Your entire argument on "free country" limps on the fact that you're never free to put other people in danger. In fact, the entire basis of a free country rests on the shoulders of responsible adults who don't just shrug off regulations they don't agree with because it suits them.

duk4S Posted at 9-9 16:20
has never happened; never will.
Ignorance must be bliss.
https://www.thelocal.at/20160816/drone-nearly-collides-with-rescue-helicopter-in-austria/

i never said there were no near misses between drone and aircraft, fake or exaggerated or real.  i said there were no near misses between drone and aircraft at night that were caused because the drone was flying without a green flashing strobe light.  i am all for regulations to prevent near misses but mandating a flashing green strobe light at all times during the night is not one of them.  what i am trying to prevent is drones having 5000 rules and regulations they must follow (like cars) just to fly/drive.  this will drive up the drone cost, increase the fines, lengthen the launch process, increase and encourage even more regulations, and ultimately impact casual recreational flyers who just want to fly around in their backyard.  you already see it, you can't even lift off with a toy drone at 25 feet in your backyard under controlled airspace.  most fpv flyers don't need more rules, they need less.  but in the drone world you won't have bicycles and skateboards, and e-bikes and motorcycles along with cars; everything is a 747 unless it's a toy.  fill out and submit a checklist/flight plan, get an inspection, get on the radio....

if you allow me fly at 4000 feet like the illegal drone flights in your examples, i would mount a strobe; not a problem.  until then, legal drone flyers who obey the rules are not a problem and i simply disagree with placing a burden on us because the drone has "capabilities."  but of course, every near miss with a drone is a calamity of epidemic proportions; never do you hear that drone came close to us and a few more feet and we would have shredded someone's poor $1000 mini 3 pro.  it's always sucked into the engine fright.

The Saint Posted at 9-9 16:43
i never said there were no near misses between drone and aircraft, fake or exaggerated or real.  i said there were no near misses between drone and aircraft at night that were caused because the drone was flying without a green flashing strobe light.  i am all for regulations to prevent near misses but mandating a flashing green strobe light at all times during the night is not one of them.  what i am trying to prevent is drones having 5000 rules and regulations they must follow (like cars) just to fly/drive.  this will drive up the drone cost, increase the fines, lengthen the launch process, increase and encourage even more regulations, and ultimately impact casual recreational flyers who just want to fly around in their backyard.  you already see it, you can't even lift off with a toy drone at 25 feet in your backyard under controlled airspace.  most fpv flyers don't need more rules, they need less.  but in the drone world you won't have bicycles and skateboards, and e-bikes and motorcycles along with cars; everything is a 747 unless it's a toy.  fill out and submit a checklist/flight plan, get an inspection, get on the radio....

if you allow me fly at 4000 feet like the illegal drone flights in your examples, i would mount a strobe; not a problem.  until then, legal drone flyers who obey the rules are not a problem and i simply disagree with placing a burden on us because the drone has "capabilities."  but of course, every near miss with a drone is a calamity of epidemic proportions; never do you hear that drone came close to us and a few more feet and we would have shredded someone's poor $1000 mini 3 pro.  it's always sucked into the engine fright.

i never said there were no near misses between drone and aircraft, fake or exaggerated or real.
The list does not only contain misses.

that were caused because the drone was flying without a green flashing strobe light
An incident is never caused by a light. It is caused by a drone flying into another aircraft, or an aircraft flying into a drone. A light may or may not help prevent that.

i am all for regulations to prevent near misses but mandating a flashing green strobe light at all times during the night is not one of them
Why? Of all the possible regulations that are silly - having aircraft blink in the sky doesn't feel like one of them.

what i am trying to prevent is drones having 5000 rules and regulations they must follow (like cars) just to fly/drive
This requires drones to not cause problems for others. Having them be identifiable in air (just to tie it to this argument) is an effort to, among other things, prevent just that.

this will drive up the drone cost, increase the fines, lengthen the launch process, increase and encourage even more regulations, and ultimately impact casual recreational flyers who just want to fly around in their backyard.
I think we can agree that regulation for the sake of regulation is rarely a good thing.

you already see it, you can't even lift off with a toy drone at 25 feet in your backyard under controlled airspace
Where it is (your yard or not) is indeed not relevant for airspaces. I too find this kind of silly when dealing with very low altitudes.

if you allow me fly at 4000 feet like the illegal drone flights in your examples, i would mount a strobe
It's not about what you're allowed to do - it's about what you can do. I'm not allowed to go above 120m, but I can. The strobes, in those situations, can absolutely make a difference.

i simply disagree with placing a burden on us because the drone has "capabilities."
I get what you're saying, but I think it's perhaps slightly tunnel-visioned or egocentric to the recreational drone pilot community. We all want our drone flying to be as trouble-free as possible, but we can't have that unless we also comply with basic safety requirements that allow our hobby or profession to co-exist with others. Just like we can't have deregulated roads, for obvious reasons.

What I'm really reading here (and do correct me if I interpret you correctly) is that it's perhaps not so much about the strobes as it is about a worry that the regulations will become too complex to follow.
If so, I agree and think this is an unfortunate result of government. An often unintended side-effect is that with more complex regulation, users instead remain ignorant (or just willfully ignore them) because following the regulations feels unreasonable or too difficult.

A prime example from where I live is that there are specific licenses and permits needed to fly beyond visual range. These are time-limited when you apply for them, and can easily cost upwards of $2000.
This puts it out of range for most consumers / hobbyists entirely. I'd wager that a lot of of people ignore that regulation entirely. Would we not have been better off with requiring certain drone capabilities and more education from those pilots, than them just ignoring it entirely? I guess I'm rambling a bit here, but it felt sort of on topic.

but of course, every near miss with a drone is a calamity of epidemic proportions
I guess, but keep in mind that it doesn't take a whole lot to mess with an aircraft engine (especially not a jet engine). Birdstrikes are a prime example of that.

Dirty Bird Posted at 9-10 02:53
"Almost".  "Could have been...".  In the world of horrific "what ifs", a drone could fly off, crash through the window of the local maternity ward, & slash defenseless newborns to bits.  Of course none of these things have happened.  To my knowledge there has not been a single accidental fatality caused by a consumer drone.  This despite the fact there are now millions of drones inhabiting the skies world wide.

Why shouldn't drones have strobes?  Because they typically operate well below the altitude of passenger aircraft, not to mention they are the size of birds, billions of which frequent the skies, & none of which are fitted with strobes.  If you are operating a drone at thousands of feet, then a strobe is warranted.  If you are operating below 400', then it is pointless except as a convenience to keep visual tabs on your drone.

To my knowledge there has not been a single accidental fatality caused by a consumer drone.
And we'd like to keep it that way.

This despite the fact there are now millions of drones inhabiting the skies world wide.
Further and further increasing the probability of accidents occuring - which is exactly why tighter regulations come in place. With barely any in the sky, the probability becomes so miniscule that it doesn't warrant attention.

Why shouldn't drones have strobes?  Because they typically operate well below the altitude of passenger aircraft
Aircraft at cruising altitude? Sure, but that's hardly relevant. Airspaces include the areas where planes descend. There's also nothing preventing me from sending my drone up at altitudes where especially lighter planes can and do fly. Drones capable of that should have strobes, just like the other aircraft at that altitude.

not to mention they are the size of birds
Are you sure you want to compare drones to birds, knowing how fatal birdstrikes can be and have been? It doesn't help your reasoning much. We can't control birds, but we _do_ control drones.

No one should simply acquiese & submit to unreasonable, reactionary, needless regulation & rules
No, let us all advocate for breaking rules that we don't agree with and aren't qualified to understand the impact of!

Submission to the donning of masks, enduring multiple ineffective jabs, shuttering of businesses, or the heedng of any pointless regulations simply because "We just have to deal with it." is not an acceptable solution.  
You are NOT more qualified than the FAA, to decide what is safe, unsafe or needed for interoperability. Just like you are not more qualified than the combined medical expertise of the world. End of story.

unbelievable

Dirty Bird Posted at 9-10 10:16
And we'd like to keep it that way.
Roughly 14 tons of micrometorites fall to Earth each day.  You never hear of anyone dying as a result, but using duk4s "logic" we should all don Chobham helmets.  Can't be too careful!

Aircraft at cruising altitude? Sure, but that's hardly relevant.  Airspaces include the areas where planes descend. There's also nothing  preventing me from sending my drone up at altitudes where especially  lighter planes can and do fly. Drones capable of that should have  strobes, just like the other aircraft at that altitude.
It is absolutely relevent.  Consumer drones aren't operating at aircraft cruising altitudes.  The immediate vicinity around major airports are essentially NFZs, precluding drone operation at any altitude.  Theoretically, nothing prevents one from attempting to cross the Atlantic in a dingy.  I supposed all dingies should require fog horns?   If you are operating a drone at aircraft altitudes, then I agree it should be fitted with a strobe.  But to require a strobe to fly a couple hundred feet above your neighborhood, WHERE NO CIVILIAN AIRCRAFT OPERATE, is senseless.


Not true. Where I live, we have small planes and helicopters flying below 400' every day. Right over my house. I agree with the rest of your statement.

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Dirty Bird Posted at 9-10 10:16
And we'd like to keep it that way.
Roughly 14 tons of micrometorites fall to Earth each day.  You never hear of anyone dying as a result, but using duk4s "logic" we should all don Chobham helmets.  Can't be too careful!

I think we've exhausted this discussion. You think I'm overly cautious, I think you're willfully ignorant (and perhaps somewhat of a conspiracy theorist).As an aside; you say you advocate common sense. Common sense dictates that you should listen to experts in a given field instead of outright ignoring them.

Dirty Bird Posted at 9-10 14:20
Not a conspiracy when it's true.  Huge study released a couple months back.  Masks do nothing.  Actually cause other diseases.  A recent Hopkins study shows none of the mitigation strategies served to reduce the spread.  You don't even need a study to see all the people who have been "fully vaccinated" & triple-jabbed yet still became infected.  Joey Dementia just had back-to-back infections.

"But it would have been so much worse had they not been vaccinated", that unquantifiable reasoning for why one should submit to an experimental vaccine.  What happened to "the science"???

I'm not being dragged into COVID conspiracy talks on a drone forum, and I doubt either of us would change our minds on the subject

Wish you a great day too!