At a moment when the drone industry is under intense scrutiny over foreign manufacturing and supply chain security (and the FCC has even banned future foreign-made drones), Seattle-based BRINC is flexing its American-made attribute. The company announced today the launch of its next-generation 911 response drone, Guardian, alongside a new Seattle factory that more than doubles its production footprint.
The news comes at a compelling time, as the FCC’s actions targeting foreign-made drone components have been pushing public safety agencies to reassess their fleets. BRINC, which has been making public safety drone technology since 2017, increasingly looks like a viable option.
“The FCC’s December action is just a late step in what has been a long process that agencies have been aware of for years,” said David Benowitz, BRINC’s VP of Strategy and Marketing Communications in an interview with The Drone Girl. “Most agencies have already started to make investments and plans to move over to compliant systems like ours. BRINC Guardian is an example that U.S.-made systems aren’t just feature-comparable to those made abroad — we are actually leading the industry when it comes to connectivity, integrated systems, and now camera performance.”
About BRINC’s Seattle growth
BRINC transitioned to sourcing all core components from U.S. and U.S.-allied nations back in 2023. That includes batteries, which BRINC says it assembles in-house specifically for supply chain resilience and reliability.
The new Seattle drone factory more than doubles BRINC’s previous production footprint. In 2025, the company ramped production capacity by 4x, and the new factory enables additional scale.
“With this new facility we have room to scale by another 10x, with additional space we can acquire for even more capacity,” Benowitz said.
BRINC job growth
BRINC’s workforce is scaling too. BRINC currently has more than 160 employees — up nearly 50% from the prior year — and is actively hiring for 36 open roles in positions including engineering, sales and production compliance. Benowitz said he expects the company to surpass 250 employees by the time it fully moves into the new space by end of year, with access to an additional roughly 140,000 square feet of surrounding space as growth continues.
The company has structured its office to be able to colocate engineering and manufacturing under one roof in Seattle for as long as possible.
“What has made BRINC successful is having a deep relationship between engineers designing systems and technicians building them,” Benowitz said. “While we see a day where that is no longer entirely feasible, having this today is a huge advantage that keeps BRINC fast, nimble, and focused on quality.”
About the new Guardian 911 drone
The other key news item today is the launch of BRINC’s Guardian drone, which represents a genuine step change from current Drone as First Responder systems largely due to its long range.
Guardian can respond to calls up to eight miles away — more than double the roughly three-mile range of current DFR systems, which are constrained by speed and connectivity limitations. That extra range matters enormously for how agencies design their coverage maps.
“Agencies have started to cover parts of their jurisdiction with drones, but not their entire jurisdictions,” Benowitz explained. “Much of this is due to the fact current systems often have to be co-located due to charging and range limits. Guardian can cover calls up to 8 miles away vs. the typical 3 miles today, so agencies will often plan their coverage maps to overlay existing and future systems — covering new areas with Guardian while ensuring overlapping coverage in the most critical areas.”
Some other key specs of the Guardian drone:
- 62 minute flight time
- IP55 weather resistance
- 4K video with 640x total zoom capable of providing a clear view from over 1,000 feet
- Dual HD thermal zoom cameras
- A 1,000-lumen spotlight
- A built-in laser rangefinder
- A speaker and siren three times louder than a police car.
Another thing: Guardian is the first drone of its kind with an integrated Starlink satellite panel — meaning it maintains a reliable data link even when cellular infrastructure is down or unavailable, which is precisely when emergency response is most critical.
Guardian Station
The most operationally significant piece of Guardian may be what happens when it lands. Current DFR systems require contact charging between missions — typically at least 25 minutes. That means most dock-based systems are genuinely operational for less than 12 hours a day; some competitors manage only eight hours due to slow charging and short flight times.
Guardian Station, the drone’s robotic charging nest, handles battery swapping automatically in about three minutes. Rather than just swapping batteries, it simultaneously loads the appropriate payload for the next mission.
“The same mechanism driving the battery swapping lifts the payload into place at the same time,” Benowitz said. “We’ve also designed the system to store up to 20 payloads at once, so users can complete 20 missions deploying payloads before they need to restock the Station.”
Those payloads include defibrillators, flotation devices, Narcan, EpiPens, and more. The system’s three-minute swap time translates to roughly 23 hours of daily operational availability, essentially doubling uptime compared to systems currently on the market.
“This is a massive change to how DFR works,” Benowitz said. “Current systems rely on contact charging. Generally this means DFR systems are truly only operational for less than 12 hours a day.
Is every fire and police department going to have one of these eventually?
That’s the direction things are heading, according to Benowitz — though the path is incremental.
“The value of Drone as First Responder is clear,” he said. “Agencies can get eyes on scene quickly and some agencies are able to clear up to two-thirds of their calls with drones. This allows them to focus first responders on the hottest calls, saving lives and improving community safety. We see a future where every public safety agency is deploying Drone as First Responder to safeguard their community.”
And the fact that it’s U.S. made should add to its appeal.
“I expect the shift toward American-made drones to continue, with the strongest momentum in segments where mission-specific capabilities and workflow integration matter most,” he said. “As production scales, U.S.-made drones will become increasingly competitive in more price-sensitive sectors, particularly as volume-driven cost breakpoints unlock further investment in core components.”
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