Buying a drone-in-a-box is the simplest decision in a remote operation. Getting useful data off the site, on schedule and with no crew standing next to it, is where the real work starts. This guide sets out what a standalone dock leaves you to build yourself and how a Sphere Hub covers it, then shows which of the two Hubs suits your site.
Buying the box is the easy part. Getting compliant, repeatable data off a remote site with no crew is where the work sits: the approvals to fly BVLOS, licensed pilots kept current, continuous power, connectivity that does not fail on one carrier, a control centre, and a pipeline that gets the data to your team. A standalone dock leaves all of that to you. A Sphere Hub arrives with it built in.
A dock you buy yourself and a Sphere Hub can fly the same aircraft. The difference is everything around the flight, and who owns it. On its own, a drone-in-a-box is a charging station with a drone inside. Turning that into a compliant, repeatable BVLOS operation is the part that takes the time. Here is where the two paths split:
Once you have decided on a managed Hub over a bare dock, the next choice is which Hub. Both run the same drones, payloads and Curo software, so the difference is the site.
HubX is portable and self-powered for locations with no fixed infrastructure. It runs on solar and battery with up to 30 kWh of storage and no mains dependency, tows on a light vehicle, and is built for rugged or unprepared ground. At 1,600 kg it is made to be relocated as the work moves.
HubT runs on the power already at your site, drawing 240V AC mains with 5 kWh of battery backup so a grid outage does not take it offline. It comes in two variants: a skid that a forklift places on flat, prepared ground, and a trailer that tows on a light vehicle for rugged or unprepared ground. At 900 to 950 kg it is the lighter unit for prepared or semi-permanent sites.
The guide includes the full side-by-side spec comparison across connectivity, edge compute, supported hardware, automation and compliance, and shows which sites suit each Hub and how to run both across one fleet.
Whichever platform you choose, five things stay constant. Sphere is Australia's only vertically integrated unmanned aviation platform: hardware, software, remote operations and field delivery built and run in-house, so there are no handoffs between vendors. You get infrastructure, not just an application, with Sphere as a partner across the full program.
The technology is sovereign and proprietary: Australian-designed HubX and HubT hardware plus the Curo software suite (CuroRPA for governance and compliance, CuroROC for live remote operations, and CuroInsights for data and analytics), working as one stack with control over quality, deployment and data residency. Operations are managed by a CASA- and BARS-certified Remote Operations Centre, backed by Sphere's ReOC, BVLOS approval, and Australia's largest Broad Area BVLOS operator status. And it is proven at scale, with 35+ Hubs and 4,000+ BVLOS-supported flights in the field today.
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