"I can't stop laughing" says DJI leaker when he sees the latest product – but the reality is very serious…

For some time now, DJI leakers have hinted at a robot vacuum – and now it seems that pallets of them are leaving the factory. It's called the DJI Romo, a LiDAR-equipped bot that can wander your home and collect dust.

Of course, it'll collect more than that; according to conspiracy theorists, it'll collect data on your home as well!

It might be a joke, but that's a theory that even DJI leaker Jasper Ellens – the source of so much information about DJI-related developments – alludes to in his X/tweet "do you trust @DJIGlobal enough to let them scan your entire home? I think I am going to pass on this one."

Fascinating. Perhaps it's a joke based on the upcoming American ban of DJI? Or perhaps he believes it, too? I've certainly seen accusations of data collection (without any evidence to support them yet) play a part in the ban on DJI currently making its way through the American legal system.

Is this why we're seeing the dominant camera drone company have to look elsewhere? Or, perhaps, it is simply because the tech it's perfecting also makes a lot of sense elsewhere.

One thing is for sure – DJI's home market of China is a growing economy with a population of 1.4 billion. And, while China is still second to the USA in terms of total wealth, the median family income is growing much faster.

Useful wealth that is actually spent is more evenly distributed (as in, the money most people have rather than the millionaires and billionaires) – meaning, in reality, there are far more potential customers for DJI in China.

In other words, if the USA bans drones from DJI, as currently seems likely, the company can replace the income by expanding into new markets at home, feel confident that there is growth, and the only real losers are Americans who wanted the best drones.

Drone enthusiasts like me, don't love the idea of vacuums rather than drones being the devices that draw the best designers and engineers at DJI, of course. So there may be a knock-on effect for the rest of the world, too.

But perhaps this is an expansion – maybe DJI is just getting more staff? In which case, everywhere (except America) wins because the choice increases.

As a writer and an enthusiast, I've followed DJI since it was a very small company creating 'brains' for self-build drones with a lot of influence not just from Chinese founder Frank Wang but Colin Guinn.

Guinn's somewhat acrimonious departure was settled out of court. Guinn later went on to form his own drone company, which failed, and he now sells toy guns (and has appeared on a reality TV show – what is it with American business people?).

Before that, though, early-era DJI sold a device called the Naza, to which you could fit to your own drone as you built it, and connect to the motors and sensors (perhaps, if you were feeling extravagant, even a GPS system).

It didn't take long for DJI to take the 'all-in-one' philosophy further, first with a drone (the Phantom). Even that, however, needed a GoPro for the first generation – though that was soon rectified and the rest is history.

So, is a robot vacuum as funny as Jasper Ellens says it is? Probably not. As a drone fan I am bound to find it a bit sad that DJI seems a step further away from roots that I share in a hobby community, but in reality, in under two decades, a massive consumer electronics success is bound to look further afield.

It is much more worrying that the company seems to be thinking without American customers in mind any more. Well, if America wants to close itself off from the world of commerce, that is a choice… that is a choice it does not get to be a part of!

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