PowerFLARM is not “quite different” from FLARM, they operate very similarly. This is how misinformation starts—importantly PowerFLARM units fully interoperate with legacy FLARM units using different geographically appropriate frequency bands. They run very similar internal code, etc.

Internally PowerFLARM is more modern than legacy units, but older FLARM products were even capable of operating on ISM frequencies. Not as optimized for that as USA PowerFLARM units are, and legacy units were never FCC approved and so never legal to sell in the USA. USA FCC approval can be a real hurdle for RF products manufacturers. And not something anybody should be operating here. FLARM may well have geo blocked the ISM bands in them by now, I don’t know and don’t care. FLARM to their credit spent lots of effort to design PowerFLARM to pass FCC approval and spent money to get that approval so we could utilize FLARM technology in the USA. That initial delay in getting PowerFLARM released in the USA was Flarm jumping through burning hoops to get that FCC approval.