Live data from Hacker News

DJI Mavic 3 Pro

dji.com

11–20 of 169 posts

Re: DJI Mavic 3 Pro

#11
post #6

Awesome new cameras, but how do you land these things safely on a sailboat? It's always tricky and scary.

I've done it on a motorboat and that's freaky enough.

At least with my DJI the "home point" is the trick. As the boat moves you move, but the home point is/was fixed at a GPS location, not a radio location.

So you have to stay on top of updating the home point (which requires menu digging) or the drone eventually freaks out and tries to fly away back to where the boat's route started, which could be a great way to lose the drone.

In the end for me the DJI's level of software nanny plus sketchy china issues have kind of sealed the deal that next time I won't buy a DJI. There are a lot of places that I can legally fly in a responsible manner that DJI's nanny software basically stops or makes extremely inconvenient. On top of places where a low altitude flight would be allowed and they completely block it, their "unlock" process in other warning type areas has been so buggy I've had many times I can't fly even though it's legal because their system isn't working right.

Being able to completely disable RTH (maybe you can?) and or make the home point auto-update to the transmitter location instead of a fixed GPS location would be a lot better.

Re: DJI Mavic 3 Pro

#13
post #6

Awesome new cameras, but how do you land these things safely on a sailboat? It's always tricky and scary.

They really should allow auto updating of the Home location, however if you’re moving while landing getting that right is probably quite difficult.

You can update the home point and have been able to for a long time. And this is zero concern if you're good at manual landing. I've never really ever used their RTH feature the entire time I've been flying, my experience goes back to well before R/C aircraft had any RTH or landing assist.

It's more that you just have to remember to update the home point, and if you don't the drone will suddenly fly off far way out to open water, and if you're not playing it safe you could then run out of battery before you can fly back.

This stuff is annoying, but anyone being responsible and making sure they budget plenty of reserve power ends up being fine.

Re: DJI Mavic 3 Pro

#17
post #14
post #7

"Your Favorite Chinese multi-sensor distributed spying platform".

Why would a drone have any internet access? It may want it, but should not need it, nor given it.

It needs it to make sure it follows any local flight restrictions, like no-fly zones.

Re: DJI Mavic 3 Pro

#18
post #4

This and their latest Inspire 3 are truly a feat of engineering

If only such a statement could be made about their horrible mobile apps needed to fly these drones.

This is because software development still doesn't and has never qualified as capital-E Engineering. If "software engineering" were held to any of the same kind of rigor and responsibility that applies to mechanical, civil, aerospace or nearly any other "Engineering" discipline, we might not be in the technological & sociopolitical hellscape we are in right now.

Re: DJI Mavic 3 Pro

#20
post #7

"Your Favorite Chinese multi-sensor distributed spying platform".

I doubt they care much about you taking some videos on holiday! Probably don’t use it to fly over military sites and there is zero risk.

I worry that some of the worlds great companies get caught in the power wars of the US and China. Both countries working together has been so good for the world - nobody will be as prosperous without the other - but who cares as long as the powerful people in the US and China get to maintain or increase their power.

Post reply on HN