OverWatch is a tube-launched, fully autonomous AI drone for first responders, law enforcement, defense units and critical-infrastructure security. Press one button on the launch tube and the drone is airborne in under 10 seconds, hovers on its own, identifies people with its onboard AI and streams live video to your phone, to the agency’s dispatch or command center, and to authorized users on the FirstNet network. No pilot, no joystick, no app to install.
Three parts: the drone (under 400 g, stored ready-to-launch in its own canister), the Launch Tube base station (charger, video server and LTE/FirstNet modem in one housing) and the DefendEye Cloud (live video sharing, alerts, recordings and fleet management). The standard kit ships with two drones, one launch tube, a hardened waterproof case and one year of cloud service.
Police, fire, EMS and search-and-rescue teams; border, coast guard and military units; and security teams protecting perimeters, plants, schools and places of worship. Our vision is a drone in the trunk of every first-response vehicle and a launch tube in every small unit’s standard gear.
Those drones were designed as aerial photography drones. They take over two minutes to unpack, assemble, connect, calibrate and take off, and they need a trained pilot who can do nothing else while flying. OverWatch launches in under 30 seconds from packed / off position and flies itself, so the officer keeps working while the drone watches. Its AI spots people from above, a task humans are poor at: OverWatch identifies a human 10x faster and more accurately than the human eye.
DefendEye designs and manufactures autonomous aerial-intelligence systems. The company operates from two locations: Kraków, Poland, and DefendEye USA Inc.’s production facility in Hallandale Beach, Florida that builds drones and assemble printed circuit boards in-house.
Under 10 seconds from pressing the button to airborne, with the drone already at a stable hover. There is nothing to unpack, assemble, pair or calibrate, and it does not wait for a GPS fix.
Up to 30 minutes per drone. The kit includes two drones, so when the first lands you drop the second canister into the tube and launch again while the first recharges.
About a quarter of a mile from the launch tube. Through the DefendEye Cloud, viewers and remote operators can be anywhere in the world; the quarter-mile figure is the range of the drone’s link to its tube.
Each drone weighs under 400 grams (14 oz), about the weight of a can of soda. It is small enough to sit in a trunk, on a belt clip or inside a vehicle canister, and light enough to be treated as an attritable asset.
Yes. OverWatch carries a Sony STARVIS low-light camera and a 10-watt infrared spotlight, giving 1080p video in total darkness (0 lux) and clear identification of a subject up to 150 ft (50 m) away. The infrared light is invisible to the naked eye, so the drone can watch covertly with its exterior LEDs switched off. It sees through windows and tinted windshields and lights up reflective clothing, placards and gear, which thermal cameras cannot do. It does not see body heat.
Yes. The drone is rated IP55 and flies in rain, snow and winds up to 30 mph. The launch tube’s built-in battery keeps the drone charged and warm, so it launches instantly.
An HD Sony Stravis (Starlight) camera with an infrared illuminator that works as a true night-vision camera. When there is enough light, you see in full color, and when its absolutely pitch black, the camera switches to Infrared. (Black and white)
No. OverWatch navigates with optical-flow sensors and uses GPS only as a secondary layer. It launches without waiting for satellites and keeps flying in GPS-denied or jammed environments, under bridges and among tall buildings.
On launch the drone climbs to a preset point above the tube and holds there on its own; we call this the Virtual Tether. In typical use it hovers 100 ft over a cruiser for a traffic stop and 200 ft over a crash scene, and you can move it by touching the screen.
Yes. Each drone is rechargeable. You can charge it with the included charging puck over USB-C, or leave it in the launch tube, which recharges the drone sitting in it from its own internal battery. Recharge time depends on the USB power source and typically takes between 90 minutes and 3 hours.
Yes. Launch, climb, hover, holding position, avoiding a flat battery (it lands itself when the battery runs low) and landing are all automatic. The operator directs the drone by touching the video on a phone (“touch and fly there”) and presses Land when done; nobody flies it stick-and-rudder. Closing the red arm lever on the launch tube also makes the drone land itself. The operator stays in command and can land the drone at any moment.
People, day and night. An onboard 2-TOPS neural processor detects, boxes and tracks humans in the video in under 10 milliseconds, on the drone itself rather than in the cloud. Detection is an aid to the operator, not a guarantee: performance varies with lighting, weather, distance and the scene.
No. The launch tube has a built-in web server that turns the drone’s video into an HTML5 stream, so any phone, tablet or laptop browser becomes the control screen. Nothing to download, no account to set up, no controller to pair.
It shares what the drone sees with everyone who needs it. The moment a drone launches, the cloud sends an alert and streams live, encrypted video to dispatch, the command center and any authorized viewer on a phone, tablet, vehicle computer or desktop. It stores recordings you can search with AI, tracks your fleet (which tubes need service, which batteries are low), pushes remote firmware updates and, on the BVLOS tier, lets dispatch take full control of the drone instead of the officer on scene.
No, and OverWatch does not need it. The drone launches straight up from the tube, so the operator only has to make sure there are no obstacles such as trees or wires above the launch location. Once the drone reaches its hover altitude the operator can move it around, but it is not designed to fly far away or between objects; its job is to give overwatch and situational awareness above an incident. When the operator presses Land, or the battery runs low and the drone lands itself, it first flies back to hover above the launch location, then descends slowly and lands very close to it.
Yes, with the Follow-Me Tactical GPS Beacon, which will be released soon. Clip the rugged, rechargeable beacon to a K9, an officer or a moving asset and the drone tracks it automatically at up to 20 mph. Availability and pricing to be announced.
Yes. The launch tube accepts triggers from external systems, such as perimeter motion sensors, gunshot detectors, glass-break sensors and alarm panels, and launches the drone on its own. Fence-mounted heated tubes protect perimeters this way, and school and place-of-worship deployments use gunshot triggers.
The cloud gives you shareable live links and email subscriptions today, so any command center can watch on a monitor with no integration work. Because the DefendEye Cloud runs in a standard web browser, it can be embedded natively in Axon, Motorola, Genetec, CAD and similar platforms. DefendEye also offers APIs for deeper integration.
Over the air through the DefendEye Cloud; the console shows an Update Firmware button for each tube and drone. Updates are started manually, never automatically, so a drone is never updated in the middle of an incident. Updates are included in the cloud subscription.
The drone sends its video to the launch tube over a local 5.8 GHz radio link. The tube’s built-in FirstNet LTE modem bridges that feed over FirstNet to the DefendEye Cloud, and the cloud streams it to every authorized viewer. Because the tube, not a handheld controller, carries the connection, the drone is free of a pilot’s radio-range limits and the feed is shared the moment the drone lifts off.
Yes. The launch tube ships with an AT&T/FirstNet-trusted, high-power tactical LTE modem with extended antennas. The drone video rides on the same priority network as the rest of the agency’s devices.
The tube can be ordered with Ethernet, a 4G/5G modem or a built-in Starlink Mini satellite terminal for mountains, offshore and disaster zones with no cell service. Local control from a phone standing next to the tube needs no internet at all.
Technically, yes. On the BVLOS cloud tier, dispatch or a command center can launch, control, watch, record and land the drone from anywhere, and the local officer keeps physical cover instead of flying. The standard one-year cloud subscription included in the kit covers live video sharing but not remote control; BVLOS control is a separate tier.
Legally, in the United States, flying beyond the pilot’s visual line of sight needs FAA authorization: a Part 107.31 waiver, the FAA’s Tactical BVLOS waiver for public-safety agencies, or a public-aircraft COA that permits it.
Typical call: Accident, first eyes on scene, drone is deployed by the first Officer to arrive, the drone can instant relay video of the scene back to the dispatch and other Officers / Incident Commanders and once the drone is launched, the Officer can then attend to anyone hurt, call for back-up / ambulance, redirect traffic, or do whatever is necessary. In a SWAT situation or if the Sheriff’s office is attempting to deliver a Warrant for Arrest, before the Officer approaches the door, a drone can be launched and positioned to hover over the area in the back of the building, giving eyes on the back doors and another launched immediately after and positioned to hover over the front area, showing the office and the front door.
The same way: launch first, then get to work while the drone watches. Crash scenes (find ejected victims in the brush; dispatch sees the wreck and rolls heavy rescue without a radio request); water, flood and ice rescue (the drone hovers over the victim as a beacon while the rescuer swims); missing children and elderly (reflective strips on sneakers, backpacks and medical bracelets glow under IR); mass-casualty triage counts; structure fires (a top-down look at roof and backyard, flown below the smoke layer at night, hazmat (read the UN placard from 300 ft upwind; the IR light is non-sparking); and wildfire perimeter and spot-fire mapping. (The drones camera only sees facing down)
Overwatch mounted on fences or roofs launch automatically when motion sensors trigger, the AI identifies human shapes and live video goes to patrols and the command center within seconds. For schools and places of worship, gunshot, glass-break or alarm triggers launch the drone before anyone reaches a phone. Refineries, ports, prisons, borders and utility sites are the target installations. In 2027 another option, the BoxDrone will be available which will add a permanent fixed-site option.
OverWatch gives armored crews and small units an instant “eyes in the sky, top-downl” view without exposing anyone or tying up a pilot. The canister can be mounted on a vehicle or launched by hand. It launches in seconds, detects and tracks people from above with night vision, and is cheap enough to be treated as attritable. Communications are encrypted and the platform is NDAA-compliant.
Our vision includes “every vessel”: the Starlink Mini option covers offshore connectivity, and coast-guard interdiction is one of the scenarios we illustrate.
OverWatch removes the piloting skill, not the legal requirement. In the United States, any non-recreational flight, including public safety, must be under either an FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate held by the pilot in command (PIC) or an agency Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) for public-aircraft operations. Many agencies certify a handful of remote pilots in command and let any officer press launch and watch the feed under that pilot’s authority.
Yes to both. At under 400g the drone is above the FAA’s 250g threshold, so each drone must be registered with the FAA and must broadcast Remote ID. OverWatch has built-in Standard Remote ID.
Yes. All DefendEye products are NDAA compliant. The flight controller, camera, GPS, ESC and communications boards are designed and assembled on our own SMT robotic line in Hallandale Beach, Florida, with no Chinese electronics.
Most of the system, including the drones and all the electronics, is made in the USA at our Hallandale Beach, Florida facility; the airframe, motors and battery pack currently come from our Kraków, Poland plant, and full US airframe production is planned for Q1 2027.
Minutes. The whole workflow is press Launch, touch the screen to move the drone, press Land; the drone handles everything else. Formal operator training is not part of the kit; one hour of remote onboarding is included.
The Launch base, the case and the accessories carry a 12-month manufacturer’s warranty against defects in materials and workmanship. The drones themselves are sold as-is with no warranty, because tactical flying is hard on hardware; Tactical Crash Coverage Insurance exists for exactly that reason.
Any operational crash or damage, no questions asked, for 12 months, with one full drone exchange per covered drone: send it back broken, shattered or in pieces and get a new one. It does not cover fly-aways or lost drones; the drone or its pieces must be returned, and at a minimum the flight-controller PCB must come back. It costs $500 per drone and must be ordered with the initial kit at time of purchase; it cannot be added later.
Additional: What will void the warranty:
Cloud support, DevOps and a named account manager come with every cloud subscription, delivered remotely. One hour of onboarding is included.
A resupply drone in its canister attaches straight down onto any existing DefendEye Launch Base; a resupply launch base adds a launch point to another vehicle or site. Both are stock items on the pricelist.
The drone’s battery is built in and is recharged by the Launch Base or the charging puck. Replacement drones and Launch Base are stocked as resupply items (see question 46).
Yes. The system’s communications are encrypted, and the cloud is fully encrypted and secure.
Recordings and account data live in the DefendEye Cloud, hosted on AWS. The agency owns its footage and must download it from the cloud after each flight: to comply with agency regulations, DefendEye does not keep flight video in the cloud beyond the flight date.
Video goes only to the DefendEye Cloud and the viewers you authorize; no video is ever recorded or stored on the drone or the Launch Base. There are no Chinese electronics in the system: the flight controller, camera, GPS and ESC boards are made on our own line in Florida. DefendEye runs a public vulnerability-disclosure program (see the Security page on defendeye.com) and has completed a penetration test with a third-party lab; the results can be shared under NDA.
Only people the agency authorizes. Each agency has its own cloud account listing its tubes and drones; it controls who gets a login, which viewers receive launch alerts and email subscriptions, and which live links are shared with mutual-aid units, hospitals or specialists for a given incident.
