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.
- 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.
- DJI would not deny that it is connected to Xtra when I asked the company point-blank, declining to comment even though it should be easy to deny.
- Also, I bought the dang thing myself and compared it directly to my own Osmo Pocket 3.
Image: FCC.gov / juxtaposed by The Verge
Image: FCC.gov / juxtaposed by The Verge
Just to make sure I’m expressing myself clearly, this is not some cheap off-brand Chinese clone designed to undercut a popular product. It appears to be the same product in almost every palpable way. I use a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 to help film my Today I’m Toying With videos every week, and the “Xtra Muse” functions identically. They have the same modes and same image quality, display the same messages, connect to the same accessories.
When I rotate the screen to power it on and off, both cameras take the exact same amount of time to fold and unfold their motorized gimbals the exact same way. Both screens make the exact same click as they open, and the cameras make the same exact same click as they rotate closed. They both track my face identically around a room. They even heat up the same way, in the same places, after a few minutes of recording.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
When I plugged in my OP3 extended battery grip, it recognized the accessory and even told me how much battery it had left. The Xtra Muse also works with DJI’s magnetic lens attachments and fits perfectly in the Osmo Pocket 3’s hardshell carrying sleeve:
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
The one exception to accessory compatibility is microphones: the DJI Mic 2 and Mic Mini. Though they can wirelessly connect to an Osmo Pocket 3, the Xtra Muse’s settings menu is conspicuously missing that option.
But even that might only be a matter of time, because a deep dive through Xtra’s app strongly suggests that the company will soon carry DJI’s mics, its new Osmo 360 and tiny Osmo Nano, and even its Osmo Mobile line of phone gimbals. Iturbe showed me references to all of them in the code, and public records suggest Xtra has already trademarked two codenames for upcoming DJI rips: DJI’s Osmo Nano will apparently be the Xtra Atto, and DJI’s Osmo 360 should be the Xtra Sphra.
Xtra claims to be “a dynamic and independent start-up company registered in Delaware (DE), United States,” but that word “registered” seems to be doing a lot of work. Xtra’s mailing address is that of a business that specializes in cheaply forming companies in Delaware, and Iturbe shows me multiple references in Xtra’s code to Chinese data servers and APIs.
Kevin Finisterre, a security researcher who’s dug into DJI many times previously, believes that like DJI, Xtra’s app is using China’s Bangcle / SecNeo tool in an attempt to obfuscate its code.
Xtra is far from the first company suspected of being a DJI shell company or loophole provider, but it is the first we’ve found that exclusively sells consumer-grade camera gear instead of drones, and the first where we’ve inspected the product and code ourselves.
In July, we told you about SkyRover, which appears to sell a DJI Mini 4 Pro, and there’s also Cogito, Anzu Robotics, Knowact, Skyhigh, Lyno, Talos, Wavego, and more — Iturbe keeps a running list of these companies under suspicion at his GitHub, where he’s just recently added Fikaxo, Spatial Hover, and Jovistar.
We asked DJI about Jovistar too, a company whose website isn’t even complete yet but which appears set to sell DJI’s latest and greatest mini drone, the DJI Mini 5 Pro. That drone is one of several that DJI decided not to sell in the US under its own brand after US customs began blocking shipments of its drones.
DJI would not confirm or deny having a relationship with Jovistar to The Verge, calling our email “speculation.” Xtra did not respond to our emails at all.
Most of the suspected DJI shell companies had specialized in business and industrial-grade drones, not consumer ones, but that’s changing as we get closer to a US ban on all future DJI products this December. These companies can spin up fast when the products already exist! Public records show Xtra formed in March 2025, filed for trademarks in May and July, obtained FCC certifications in July and early August, and began selling its first cameras on Amazon in late September.
But it may soon become far harder for DJI to do the same under its own name. Unless “an appropriate national security agency” publicly declares that DJI’s products do not “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States” by this December — just two months from now — all of its future products with radios will be blocked from FCC certification. That would effectively ban all US imports.
“We’re watching the first ‘public’ attempt at bypassing bans,” Iturbe warns. “This might offer a blueprint for other companies to follow if DJI can successfully pull it off.”
