Phone, tablet for controller question

Questions & Answers
1

Hi all,

When using a tablet/phone as a screen for your controller - firstly does it have to be “cellular”? Im guessing it does for GPS purposes for the return home feature. If it has to be cellular, does it also need a sim inserted for data use? Or would an old phone without the sim do?
I have a Google Nexus 6p that is doing nothing at the moment, so this could be used. I have 2017 ipad, but this isnt cellular. I have a 12.9" ipad pro that is cellular, but its waaaaayy too big to use as a controller screen.

What are other people using?

Cheers again in advance

PS - my new Mavic arrives on Monday :):grinning:

2

The only reason to have cellular is for live maps, although you can cache them. Obviously GPS is very useful fo return to home an dynamic home point.

I’m still using my iPhone 7, have an iPad Pro 10.5 but feel that is also too but. On my next phone upgrade I might get the iPhone plus…

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3

I always fly in airplane mode - you don’t really want anything interrupting your GO4 app :+1:

So no, as per @Jcborden post, there’s no need for cellular unless you want either live satmaps or if you’re moving your RTH point.

The RTH point is set by the drone, at the point if take off. So unless you’re moving (car, bike, boat, etc) the RTH would never need to change so you don’t need a phone with GPS.

I used an iPad Mini 2 for ages before I got a CrystalSky monitor.

Don’t knock the 12" Pro, I know a few people who fly with them :slight_smile:

Check out MavMount for some highly recommended alternative mounting options :+1:

You can get adaptors for all sorts of screen sizes there!

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4

I might be using it on a bike now and again - but thats way off into the future. I need to get it, set it up and get it flying first! Once im more comfortable, i’ll read up on using it for biking.

Cheers again for the advice, much appreciated.

5

…have you ordered anything from MavMount? Did you get hammered for import duty etc?

6

Yeah, it was a gamble… I got stung.

Other people have said that the guy at mavmount now marks down the value on exports for this very reason. PolarPro do the same thing too :+1:

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7

Ok - managed to fly without a hitch for 15 mins. Used my sons iPad, seemed to work ok.
I took a couple of quick pics and a short vid. Again, both looked a bit grainy and crap. There were also flashes of green interference in a couple of parts of the videoing. Is this a hardware or software issue?Anyone know?

I’m going to play around with the settings again at the weekend and see if i change the right variables so that my pictures and video dont look as if they were taken with an iPhone 3GS and a balloon!

As always, any advice welcome :slight_smile:

8

Hey Fran,

Fire up a new thread for the camera settings (although I think you may have a thread on this already?) as that’ll be a separate issue from the controller probs you’ve been having.

Good news :+1:

So does that mean previous issues were a cable fault? Or a device fault?

If you could share that part of the video with us? Or perhaps post a screen shot from the video?

9

I think the previous issues are hardware related. The Android platform has so many variations in hardware in comparison with the singular iOS devices, so it would seem. I wouldve thought it wouldve been optimised for the flagship Google devices primarily.

So - the next question is! Crystalsky or iPad? Pros/Cons