Drone detection for events, venues and sites

Festivals, stadiums, construction sites, prisons, critical infrastructure: security teams need to know when a drone shows up, and where its pilot is. DroneScout does that for every drone that broadcasts Remote ID — on a phone, from day one.

Free to download. Optional Silver, Gold and Platinum subscriptions. · Last updated: 2026-10-10

Find the drone — and the pilot

Most new drones broadcast Remote ID: their position, height, speed, serial number and, in the US and the EU, where the pilot is standing. DroneScout receives those broadcasts and shows every drone on a live map. Tap one to see its track and its pilot or take-off location — usually the quickest way to resolve an incident is to walk over and talk to the pilot, or to send the police there.

That's free, on any phone. Step by step: Detect your first drone.

Honest about what it covers

DroneScout is a Remote ID receiver, not a counter-drone system:

• It sees drones that broadcast Remote ID: most new drones in the US, and in the EU and the UK drones with a C1 class label or higher. See Remote ID rules per region.
• It doesn't see older drones without Remote ID, many drones under 250 g, home-built drones without a module, or a drone whose broadcast is switched off.
• It can't stop or take over a drone. In most countries only authorities may interfere with a drone or its radio link.

For high-threat sites, professional counter-drone systems add radar, radio-frequency analysis and cameras — at a cost of tens of thousands of euros and with specialist operators. For most events and sites, seeing every Remote ID drone and its pilot covers the drones you're actually likely to meet: pilots who don't know the rules, or don't think they apply.

Set it up for a site

1. Add DroneScout Bridge. A phone alone misses many drones — an iPhone sees no DJI drones at all. Bridge receives every Remote ID transport, passes them on to the phone over Bluetooth and extends the range to about 2 km. Place it high, with a clear view. See Use DroneScout Bridge.
2. Switch on background alerts (Silver, Gold or Platinum): a notification the moment a new drone comes into range, with the screen off. See Keep scanning in the background.
3. Put your own drones in a group (Gold or Platinum): your own camera and inspection drones get their own colour and no alerts, so only unknown drones raise the alarm. See Group drones.
4. Use a satellite map, or offline maps for sites with poor coverage (Gold or Platinum). See Map layers and Offline maps.

Share detections with the control room

With Platinum, DroneScout pushes every detection onwards, so it reaches the people who need it:

• to your own server, as JSON in an HTTP POST, to feed your own dashboard or security system;
• to CalTopo, where drones appear live on the shared map your team already uses. See CalTopo;
• to the Drone Radar network.

Several phones with a Bridge each, placed around a large site, can all report to the same server. Detections stay on the phone unless you switch on a destination yourself.

Keep a record

• Flight history (Silver, Gold or Platinum) stores every drone seen, with its track, serial number and operator ID, on the phone.
• Labels and notes (Gold or Platinum): name a drone — "Press drone, accredited" — and keep notes on it. See Label drones and add notes.
• Export a flight track to GPX, or every raw message to CSV, also in the free version — useful for an incident report.

Need more?

For a version of DroneScout with your own logo, integration with your systems or a larger deployment, contact [email protected].