Autopilot Beta Test

[TrumperyDust]

Jim at AutoFlight,

I did not Beta test but followed this thread closely in anticipation of purchasing. Good job by the way! will there be any kind of video tutorial posted any time soon? Is Flight School the "Operating Manual" for this app?
Thanks

 

[Hangar]

will there be any kind of video tutorial posted any time soon?

We will be posting video tutorials soon, so make sure to subscribe to our youtube channel.

 

[TrumperyDust]

We will be posting video tutorials soon, so make sure to subscribe to our youtube channel.

Done! And relaying news to some fellow inspire owners who knew absolutely nothing about this! Boy are they psyched!!!

 

[Dean Bloomfield]

I've been away for 2 weeks so a bit behind the updates, but am trying to catch up

First of all congrats on all your hard work getting this through Beta, which had the expected teething problems which you reacted so quickly on, your support has been nothing but 1st class, which by the way goes a long way to creating a loyal customer base.

We now finally have a great product we've all wanted for the past 9 months

I do have a question on the Follow me but I'll ask in another post....

 

[mdomeny]

kept my promise:bought the app... will be using it and will be giving feedback keep it up guys
costumer for life

 

[Dean Bloomfield]

So the follow me, I need some better clarification on this feature, I did look in flight school but theres nothing on there about what I need to know (as far as I could see)

I want to follow a MX rider (or any 3rd person), can he/she potentially wear an Apple watch and the i1 follows that and I control the camera and see the on my ipad mini2 what the camera is seeing?

 

[David Pelly]

Purchased and spreading the word. Thanks for all your hard work

 

[UAV Man]

All purchased installed and advertised to friends... PM for my bank details for the commission due

Now I just need to get back to my Inspire 1 to give it a go.. PS great timing as I'll be all over the UK next few days filming.

 

[mark134]

Which Facebook group are you referring to?

The Inspire Users group page


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[pahl]

Hi there,

I´ve been testing the beta and i bought yesterday the app even before the update was released! ;-)

You guys did an awesome job and an awesome communication with all us, congrats for that!!


That being said, i have some doubts about the latest beta version and the latest DJI firmware, that i would like to share.

I installed the new DJI firmware (1.4.0.10) and went to give a try yesterday.

I tried (DJI) waypoint route and POI, and i found my inspire behaving really bad!!! All the transition movements are not smooth at all and the inspire is really unstable on air. Specially you change parameters on air, like the speed. Have anybody experienced that?

Then i switched to Autopilot beta 34 and tried Orbit (like DJIs POI) and i could feel that the algorithms are not the same, the flight is really smooth compared to POI and i felt more secure.

However, some parameter changes created a behavior similar to when operating DJIs intelligent modes. Per example with Follow, i engaged Follow (following the device-iphone 6) and every time i moved (or stopped) the inspire started (or stopped) the movement very rough way (with angles close to 45º).

It looked like new DJI firmware change some flight parameters that are affecting the SDK (i am no programmer, so i´m just guessing).

Did anybody experience this?

For reference, the devices i used are:

Inspire 1 - FW 1.4.0.10 (i used autopilot before with FW_V01.02.02.09 & FW_V01.04.00.01)
Autopilot - beta 34
iPad mini 2 - iOS 8.4.1
iPhone 6 - iOS 9 beta 5 (i´ve been using it with autopilot several weeks and had no problems before)

 

[Dean Bloomfield]

Pahl - Funny you should say that I did test the DJI software yesterday and found the orbit POI were good didnt change too much mid flight apart from orbit, I changed the speed from 3mph to 6mph and changed the altitude a few times and seemed fine tbh.

However when I tested home lock I thought exactly that, it came VERY close to flipping, never experienced that before, its something I have used before with no issue, but yesterday was very different and not a pilot error etc etc what people say when bad things happen or nearly happen!

 

[pahl]

Pahl - Funny you should say that I did test the DJI software yesterday and found the orbit POI were good didnt change too much mid flight apart from orbit, I changed the speed from 3mph to 6mph and changed the altitude a few times and seemed fine tbh.

However when I tested home lock I thought exactly that, it came VERY close to flipping, never experienced that before, its something I have used before with no issue, but yesterday was very different and not a pilot error etc etc what people say when bad things happen or nearly happen!

Yes Dan it was strange... I couldn't film it as i was alone but i was not normal behavior at all...

Also, i noticed another issue with the latest firmware: when the inspire changes the arms up, it moves up 1meter or 1.5 meters, and when it moves back to land position it looses altitude another 1 - 2 meters.... That never happened before
[And before upgrading to 1.4.0.10 i upgraded to 1.3.0.00 and did several test flights (down to 5% to calibrate my 4 batteries) and never happened]

But this issue is maybe more suitable for a "Firmware 1.4.0.10" thread, not here.

In fact, im very satisfied with Autopilot, the guys did an awesome job and i feel them as a very reliable and professional team, very active and opened to communicate wit their users.

(Basically, almost the opposite to DJI, that "insist" on stay far from their customers, with opaque communication and falling behind on every milestone)

(BTW, where is the official documentation for all the new updates, including Intelligent Flight Modes!!!!?? Upgrading the Manual PDF is THAT hard?? I open the Inspire Manual on the new "fancy" DJI Go app and it still shows the old app interface in the DJI Pilot app section.... ) :-/

 

[pahl]

Also... since i got started already...

(And hoping you guys don't feel this too off topic)

Please help me understand what happened here...

1.- DJI releases beta firmware so all 3rd party developers can create their apps
2.- DJI promises to deliver "groundstation" capabilities to inspire 1
3.- DJI is "late" on delivering and all 3rd party developers have their apps getting almost ready (say: Autopilot, Drone Deploy, Maps Made Easy, etc...)
4.- DJI releases 1.3.0.00 with SDK to the public (and doesn't have ready yet their Intelligent Flght modes)
5.- Oh! wait, 1.3.0.00 has an old SDK version in it (compared to the SDK on the beta FW version), so Autopilot (and other apps) don't really work with it.
6.- DJI releases their app (with Intelligent Flight Modes) and FW 1.4.0.10 the same day and, this time, the SDK in the FW is suitable for 3rd party developers.

To me, this looks like DJI was delaying all 3rd party apps so DJI was not "the last" on this race (that already lost)...

I really hope im wrong. I love the inspire. It is an amazing tool. It could be an even more amazing tool. And DJI is a company that changed the world with its products.
BUT
they have a lot to improve in some areas.
And awesome 3rd party developers (like Autopilot team here) should have all the backup and freedom to create. Because they are really good in providing us the tools we want in our drones.

[If a moderator thinks this is off topic, please feel free to delete o move the post]
[Sorry about my english, is not my mother tongue]

 

[mdomeny]

like i said, dji was letting the 3rd party do the hard job for them to see where and what is needed and wanted... just sit back and watch what will come in near future apart from new drones and other nonsense no one needs... where is the handheld gimbal??? another thing like the ground station... copy or let other make it under your hand and see what and with what they are making it...

 

[Arsh]

I was hoping to take part in the beta but there wasn't enough room. Now that 1.4 is released, why would someone buy the Autopilot app? I don't want to be disrespectful I'm genuinely curious. Besides follow me, what would be the differences?

 

[UAV Man]

I was hoping to take part in the beta but there wasn't enough room. Now that 1.4 is released, why would someone buy the Autopilot app? I don't want to be disrespectful I'm genuinely curious. Besides follow me, what would be the differences?

Because the DJi one sort's sucks dude. The features are pretty limited you need to have a look at the range available with the Autopilot APP. Serious worth every penny.

 

[mdomeny]

let's name a few points, shall we?
- costumer service and communication is top -dji ehm, does not really talk to us... do they...
- autopilot here listend to us and it was made according to what we said /asked for - dji??
- quality - speaks for its self... - dji?? (regarding app)
- smoothness of movements and app stability and bugs fixes speed. autopilot was like lightspeed - dji???
- constant feedback from autopilot with sneak peaks... - dji??
there is a ton that distinguishes autopilot from dji regarding this matter not to speak about the other 3rd party guys... autopilot is what it is because of us here and their effort to do something that is outstanding others and that is what makes a good company. like dji did... they got this far and are byond their capabilities to now as in costumer service and things we are complaining about... dji kind of exploded into the world and could not keep up with the speed they grew...
my 2 cents

 

[pahl]

I was hoping to take part in the beta but there wasn't enough room. Now that 1.4 is released, why would someone buy the Autopilot app? I don't want to be disrespectful I'm genuinely curious. Besides follow me, what would be the differences?

Arsh, i´ve been beta testing Autopilot and other inspire apps (as Drone Deploy, for photogrammetry). As i stated before, the flight algorithms of Autopilot doesn't seem the same as the ones used by DJI (i´m not a developer, please someone with more info on this?) SO as a user/pilot i can tell that the inspire behavior is different and more stable with Autopilot.

This makes me thing about DJI being so late on delivering this flight modes and finally delivering a "half baked" version of them. I´ve just read another posts where people speaks about the same issues with the flights not being smooth at all.

After all this time with Autopilot app and with them here in the forums i think they are more capable of creating and delivering a reliable software.

After all, if some of us crash our inspire, we know what comes next.... An awful and long customer support process... I prefer to use the most reliable software available from the most active developer. (i have no relation with autopilot team at all, but i´ve already bought the app and i recommend it if you want that flight modes for your inspire/phantom)

 

[pahl]

There´s something called "Lean Startup" method. Very interesting method for companies to develop a business model for a product/sevice.
One of the pillars is about the customer relation/communication and how to adapt to them. It has been proven VERY effective. DJI should learn from that (even if they're not a status anymore).

 

[UAV Man]

There´s something called "Lean Startup" method. Very interesting method for companies to develop a business model for a product/sevice.
One of the pillars is about the customer relation/communication and how to adapt to them. It has been proven VERY effective. DJI should learn from that (even if they're not a status anymore).

'Lean Startup' sound like my kind of girls on a night out!!