I managed to get out for a couple of short flights this morning. My car told me it was 0 Degrees but AirData tells me it felt like -2.6. My hands agreed with AirData.
Today as with yesterdays flight I had a very unnerving experience where, without apparent warning, the viewer on the app froze momentarily. In all instances I immediately got line of sight on the Mini and loitered. After a moment the viewer caught up and returned to normal operation.
I have reviewed my Airdata logs for this morning and nothing untoward shows up. Battery was fine, Signal was fine, there were two “High Wind” warnings that resulted in me lowering height and heading for the landing spot.
On my first few flights I had none of this and I am left wondering what is causing this. Like yesterday its cold here and the wind is a little higher than the Mavic Mini likes. There may be a correlation with the Wind warnings on the app because this seems to have occurred around that time. It could have been the cold, but was that the cold affecting the Mini or the cold affecting the Phone I am using (Google Pixel 3A). Again, none of the logs point to anything but a normal flight.
I continue to have this nagging feeling that the DJI Fly App just doesn’t like Android devices and am beginning to start looking at second hand iPad Minis on Fleabay.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar and what are your thoughts on switching to an Apple device (I really don’t want to have to back to the Apple). Are any of the Apple devices listed in their (DJI) compatibility list just bullet proof options?
The only similar experience I’ve had was the first time I tried to switch the controller<–>phone cable that came with my Mavic 2 (don’t know about the mini) out for a short one I had lying about. Worked fine when I first took off, but after about five minutes of flight the display locked up and then I lost picture. Fortunately still had control so brought it to land. Happened a couple of times before I realised it was the cable. If you’ve another (good quality) cable, maybe give it a go?
I think it could quite possibly be a GoFly and/or Android issue. Since going into the SMART arena DJI don’t have a particularly stellar record when it comes to Android.
That’s good to know,as stated, I really don’t want to go back to an Apple device, I much prefer Android. So if we are ruling out Android as the cause do you have any thoughts on what might have been the cause of what I have been experiencing?
I chiefly use an Android device (Sony Phones) and have not had many issues that i have not been able to resolve.
I also use an Ipad Air, again no issues, apart from manky cable links.
My old Sony Tablet is the only thing I cannot use for the Mavic Mini, as Go Fly is not supported on that particular model (not that i have even flown it…yet!..)
Although MM can fly (apparently as I don’t have one) at below -2C that is on the borderline of DJI advice I think. In any case I would suspect cold be the issue for the glitch. Anything with a battery doesn’t do well in cold conditions and they work much less efficiently.
In cold you should keep your batteries warm before use and when you start hover for say a minute or so to get the battery warmed up. You will likely get less flight time than you are used to.
Not everyone will get the same experiences so comments like “I have not had any trouble” are not all that helpful here. I would suspect that your glitch was due to phone connection as a result of cold. I have read a number of posts going way back re problems with phones, tablets not behaving perfectly in cold weather. They are increasingly thin these days and if your fingers are cold think about your devices! Not everyone’s phone/tablet combination will behave the same in cold.
Wind was very unlikely cause of connection issue. Not sure I would be flying a MM in strong gusts. I would be more concerned about that rather than a minor glitch that rectified itself almost immediately.
You can also get such glitches if your antennae are not pointing correctly. I had a scare a while back in much warmer conditions with an ultra-reliable smart controller when it flew overhead and I had the antennae incorrectly positioned momentarily. Sunny day, clear sky but lost visual site and seabirds masquerading as drones made it impossible to see the drone and controller screen lost. Fortunately came back home but a lot of lessons learned. I even once took off without the smart controller antennae extended! It actually flies good until it doesn’t. Lesson learned again.
As the CAA registration test points out and asks you about, a major problem in cold weather is lack of control because of cold hands etc… I have a very thin pair of finger-tip-less gloves used by the shooting fraternity (not me, I don’t kill stuff) which I wear inside a pair of PGYTECH photographers/drone flyers gloves with foldable tips and put a gel handwarmer inside the thin gloves. Enables flying for wrinklies who feel cold even on a warm day. Hopefully we will get some warmer weather soon!
I am pretty certain you have zero to worry about and my money would be on the phone being a tad cold and not liking it for a second. Even phones shiver.
Excellent, thank you @johnbirt. I have now had some time to review the AirData logs and the video shot during these events and nothing is out of order. I am coming down on the temperature as well. My hands were very cold and the Pixel 3A is also pretty thin. The wind had dropped considerably over what I was flying in yesterday (at the same spot) but still, the wind warnings suggested I was on the edge of what the Mini can safely handle.
I have flown a couple of times prior to this where the temperature was around 7 Degrees and experienced no such issue.
I think you’ll find the problem was the low temperature.
Most displays, especially LCD (which is the Mavic controllers screen type) are terribly slow to refresh when cold.
Have you experienced same with your car displays on a cold morning? I have, it’s just a physical thing with the display technology, nothing to worry about as all comes right when it is warmer
Cheers
Steve
