Just a short introduction, I am a senior computer technician in my company, photography is one of my hobbies, and since we are a few hundred people here in Austria, people often ask me if I heard of or tried this and that (yes, I am the companies test subject), and since I did not want to invest too much money into a large gimbal, the DJI Pocket 2 seemed to be ideal, even more so considering the footage made with it I have seen so far was very good.

I will never ever again purchase literally any product of DJI in my life.

The Pocket 2 would not connect to the (absolutely insanely overblown btw) DJI Mimo App on my Samsung phone; after five tries, the device is now a brick. We checked this forum, various videos on YouTube, et cetera, nothing worked, we technicians here have gotten frustrated by this thing to no end, so here is what I will do:

Second, we will try to dig out some old iPhone in a last attempt to get the already locked device back to life. If that should fail, the device will be dissambled to get the battery out (which of course means that the device will be destroyed), for the battery needs to be recycled seperately, and the rest will go into the e-waste.

First, we already warned everybody who was curious about the Pocket 2 about this product, I also wrote to a few review-sites, will warn our retailer about the product also, and will contact our national organisation for customer-protection. Do not be mistaken:

The DJI Pocket 2 is a defective product.

There is no technical or legal reason for being forced to activate the device for issues of warranty (see devices of other manufacturers), the activation process itself however works so unreliably, that there is a very good chance that you will get yourself a € 300.- (or more!) paper weight. Since customers (contrary to e.g. smartphones) can expect a camera to work without activation of any kind, I think the way DJI handles this may also be problematic from a legal point of view, but I will customer protection figure this one out.

The way I see it, the manufacturer did not provide a solution despite the problem being known for years, neither has the activation process been made reliable, or – which would be the more reasonable approach – made optional, so … this. is. it. I will see if we can get that brick back to life with an old iPhone, if not, it gets destroyed, in any case however rest assured that this is the only time I ever bought something from DJI.

Impressive hardware alone is not “it”, anybody remember the Zune? Its hardware, sound quality et cetera was actually better (!) than that of the competition, and it still failed as a product. DJI? No trust, not now, not in the future.

What I just wrote is not basis for discussion or something, it is a statement. I do not care for corporate blah-blah or wasting time with tech-support, I am in the industry for about 30 years, too long to not know what's going on. DJI? Thanks, but no thanks. I will see what the competition has to offer should the need for gimabals, drones,… arise, with this manufacturer however I am through. Have a nice day.

Are ... you ... kidding me? I just had trouble entering a post, because I used a smiley??? Which is an absolutely valid unicode-character. I never had this problem anywhere! Who programmed this forum? The same people who wrote the app? Okay, I get it, DJI, bye bye.

Hi 1TimeCustomer. Sorry for that.
Plz let me know if the iphone can help to activate the pocket2.

May I know your samsung phone model type?  It seems something goes wrong with the typec dongle. DJI tech support will help with that.

You can also try a typec to typec wire connect the bottom of pocket2 , see if that helps.

Hi there, we are sorry for the inconvenience. DJI provides five chances for users to try on DJI Pocket 2 without activating the device. You will need to activate it after the 5 chances have been used. Please rest assured that even if the five chances has be used, it will not brick Pocket 2. Please try to suggestion on 3# to see if it helps. Please also tell us your test result so that we can help you further.

After some consideration we have decided to not pursue the matter any further. The only iPhones in our company are secured (apps can only be installed from our own dedicated company server, Mimo is of course not part of the repository etc.) so we possibly could have gotten a used iPhone for 50 bucks or so, got an Apple-ID for it, installed over the normal app-store,… no. Just no. We have already wasted about 300.,- and at the very least three to four man hours on the device, so we will just cut our losses, besides that gut feeling what other surprises this absolute mess of an app might have had in store for us. The device itself has already been broken up to remove and secure the two battery cells that were inside, the rest is in the recycling bin with our other eletronic waste. I can only repeat, that this is a broken product, remove the requirement for activation via an app. If somebody buys something, this person is entitled to have its functionality, because this is what the person paid money for! Even an iPhone can be used for all its basic functions without any required activation, so what is this? Additional functionality, okay, you get something extra when you do something extra (register the device etc), but for plain use? I already paid good money for that! This is a bad joke at best.
Tomorrow, we will get a “traditional” gimbal, which will cost more than we paid for for the Pocket 2, but so be it. That gimbal is of course not from DJI, a company to which I will never give even another cent to in my life. The only good thing about this … well, we, the tech-department, did our job. We took the fall for others. Thanks to us, nobody else in our company will buy this stuff, and, given what I read “on the internets” … If you are on good terms with your management, urge them to stop this activation-requirement-nonsense. It chases off customers, and costs the company money. Have a good day!