Having been in that position deep in remote South Island of New Zealand, I emphatically agree with you. I never want that horror feeling in my gut again. I like your easy presentations.
OMFG, this is the single best tip that I have gotten. I get my mavic 3 classic to follow me down creeks and small rivers. As you could imagine, I don't want it going home after a 20 minute flight, run low on battery, and try to land on the water. Thank you so much. I'm subscribed now. ❤
The best feature for an app that has menu diving issues is a custom menu that lets you put anything you want in it. 2 taps to get anything. When you want to get to the home point page, just drop down the custom menu and tap the "return to home" and you will be there Instantly. I used to create software in another life. Excellent video. Thanks.
Thanks for watching Perry. Yeah, that's an excellent idea! I may have to use that in a future video when I complain about the DJI Fly app UI/UX deficiencies. Cheers!
5:44 YES you CAN use 'Find my drone' when disconnected. Especially in this case when your drone was allready landing and close to the ground when you lost connection, so the recorded last position of the drone would be as accurate as could be.
You are correct. I think I was conflating a past experience where the disconnect happened with the drone in flight at altitude (flyaway). With too much distance between between the remote and potential landing site Find My Drone was useless. In this situation, for sure, I could have used it to direct me to the landing site sooner. I don't think there was ultimately much distance between "last known" and where it actually touched down. Thanks for pointing that out. Cheers!
@@SteveCoutts Thank you for the tip! Yes I agree, you should be able to find your drone again via the last known located gps signal? My mavic air 2 sadly dropped in the ocean and I had to find it again to activate my care refresh service. I rowed out in my dinghy, looked at the screen of my phone, via the “find my drone” function, and anchored at the spot where my actual position matched the last recorded drone position. I dove in and found the drone right at the position within 1 m in a depth of 2 meters, not visible from the surface.
@@SteveCoutts haha I had to, to get a new one via the “care refresh” - wait till the end where it dives in 😱😱🐟🐟😂 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lpkjZSo-Fcc.html
Yes a very helpful tip. Also if your on a bike or a boat the auto return to home is based on battery and Distance so you may feel you have lots of battery but the drone wants to go home many miles back anyway so NOW reset your home TO YOUR LOCATION ASAP.
Thanks Phil and super good point you raise. I wish DJI would some kind of dynamic home point option or at the very least warn you to update your Home Point when the controller moves from the launch location. Happy, safe flying!
I wish I would have watched this before I took the my drone out on the bay, 6200' away from the home point when the automatic RTH activated... made it to the swim platform with 3% battery remaining. Thanks Steve.
Outstanding. Many thanks for this video. On the basis of our previous exchanges, I have bought a Mini 2 and am now getting some flight time up. You might remember that my main use-case will be as a pilotage aid when sailing, and so the ability to update RTH to the RC's location (and not the original launch point) is a super major plus..! Again, thanks.
Thanks for watching! I do remember Robert. I don't often remember all the names and RU-vid handles but I typically remember the conversation. Mini 2 is a great choice I think and updating the home point will definitely be handy for your use-case. Happy flying, cheers!
Thanks for watching! Yeah definitely the Update Home Point option needs to be more readily available. I would even prefer a software feature that warned you when the controller and the home point were not within 5 metres of each other. Cheers!
@@SteveCoutts that would be a bacon saver, coupled with a pop-up asking if you want to update. Make it an option to suppress the message for the more savvy operators that have a specific need to not update it.
Oh my gosh! Reading 2kms away from a moving boat gave me butterflies in my stomach. Not much room for error in a situation like that! Glad the video was helpful. Happy, safe flying!
Oh no, so sorry to hear that! A dynamic Home Point option would be awesome but even something as simple as a prompt warning you that the Home Point and Controller are not at the same location *before* a RTH begins would be a huge improvement.
Steve if you think that’s bad I had my nightmare RTH with my Mavic 3 one mile out over the ocean and maximum altitude up! Just like you did, I changed my position during flight and thought I’d update the home point just to try the feature. I had moved just several yards away but uphill. I thought that it would be updating for my new position but Unknowingly it updated the home point for where the drone was. Yikes! Fortunately I decided to execute RTH with a bit more battery life than usual. When I pressed the RTH button all I heard was “landing.” Fortunately, like you I didn’t panic and managed to coax it back despite numerous attempts by the drone to force land. If I had only allowed the drone to execute automatic RTH (which I usually do) rather than calling it back myself I would have lost my drone in the deep blue sea! Thanks for your video and all the best
Hi Joseph. Oh boy, my stomach just turned reading your story. I can totally feel the emotion and stress of that scenario. Not so forgiving over water so I am very glad to hear you were able to get it back safely. Happy, safe flying!
You teach us to update Home Position. Good. But there's more to remember like updating Return Home Altitude. Flying in the free air the altitude was set to 120 meters, 400 feet. Then, when flying in a max 50 meter, 150 feet, area the battery guard kicked in and triggered the RTH, and the drone raised to 120 meters before I understood and reacted... No aircraft was in danger as the mountains close to are even higher.
The video wasn't meant to be a full tutorial on RTH. Its purpose was to shed some light on a lesser known aspect of RTH in the hopes of saving some folks from making the same mistake I did. Cheers!
@@SteveCoutts Approved. Flying during different conditions, different modes, it's easy to forget changing the RTH altitude. I did that mistake today and made sure I could return home manually, cutting off the flight before an automatic RTH kicked in.
I just found you Steve, so glad I did. Great Videos so far. I have the Air 2 S and just getting the new RC controller... I will be looking for new videos from now on. great job.. Robert
I totally agreee in that the home point reset should be more quickly accessable and not buried like you say, when panic can set in, it just seems to me to it be a natural addition to screen next to the take off and landing icon ~ Many thanks and enjoyed your vid and insight for an improvment, from a newbi with a newly purchased mini 3 drone.
You are welcome, thanks for watching. Oh man, I was ever so happy to have recovered it. I was so lucky that it touched down safely and I was able to find it. Cheers from Trail, BC!
Thanks Ricardo. That's a pretty good habit to establish. I cut battery way too close a few times over the winter and as you saw, got myself in a bit of trouble. I think maybe I've learned my lesson - haha! Cheers!
@@SteveCoutts is there a way to have your drone return to remote, instead of return to home? Like if I'm on a boat moving can I have my drone automatically return to it's remote instead of having to constantly update the home point (which won't be accurate if you are moving kind of fast)?
@@wcsdiaries Yes! Go in to Settings, Safety and select Update Home Point. From there you can choose the drone, the remote or just scroll around on the map and choose any location you want. Unfortunately, it's a one time deal. If, like you mention as an example, you are on a moving boat, you would have to continuously update the home point to the remote's location to keep it up to date. It does NOT dynamically update, which is kind of dumb in my opinion. I would love to see DJI implement a dynamic home feature whereby it always came back to the remote. Or, at least prompt the user when RTH is triggered with a message "Your Location at the Home Point is not the same. Would you like to update it?". Cheers!
I almost lost my Mavic mini on a boating trip... The boat wasn't anchored so we were drifting with the wind and water currents in a huge bay while fishing... The battery was low-ish (30%) and I was in the process of flying it back to the "home position". The video feed starting cutting in and out as I got closer to the home position and that made me very worried. I lost sight of the drone in the sun and with no idea where it was. I got lucky and turned the drone in the direction we were drifting and the video came back and I spotted the boat. The worst part about this was the owner of the boat (my brother) didn't care that I was about to lose a 300$ drone because they were fishing. I was about to crank up the boat and drive it with or without the fishing lines out. Now I know how to update the homepoint. And a lesson learned on my part is not to trust my bro with my drone while flying it off of his boat.
Oh man, my heart was beating faster reading your story. At least over land if it goes sideways there is a chance of recovery. Over the water, not so much. Happy to hear a happy ending and a couple of lessons learned - haha! Cheers!
New DJI mini 2 accessory. 1) Snowshoes... 2) 10 inch cake carrier with handle. You're right though... It should be much easier to update your homepoint. Especially as you're in "flight or fight mode." (no pun intended) The update home point should almost be a button that you press on the remote.
Haha! That's not a bad idea at all. At the very least it needs to be more convenient or even a software warning when you hit RTH when your position and home position are more than 100m away or something.
I just had just lost my drone by this very thing doing a test drive from driving my car.. It tried to go 4miles out of the way back home, landed in the milddle of the soybean field LOL I just came across this and this was a huge duh moment for me too LOL! I am glad I was not the only one who forgot to do the home point
Were you able to recover your drone? I feel like DJI should include a safety mechanism whereby if you manually activate an RTH and the home position is not your current location, it should prompt you for confirmation. A simple thing to do programatically that could potentially save someone from a bad outcome. Cheers!
@@SteveCoutts yes I did recover it LOL and I so agree, the update should just go to the controller automatically... I had walk 30 min through a soybean field but whats bad is that their light beacon and beeps don't work if the battery is dead..
I almost lost my spark because I didn’t know you had to wait for enough satellites before it updated. If I had no been watching when it turned to go and turned the wrong direction I probably would have. This one is kind of important , these tips I mean. Peace!
You read my mind about having it in the upper status bar drop down, I’ve wanted it there forever. Steve, an idea for a helpful video might be to test out all three of the update homepoint choices and see if there’s any issues. Like does the drone go exactly to where it should or might there be some issues with gps margin of error etc. You’d be the first channel to test that function out that I’ve seen.
Yeah, status bar seems like the logical choice to me, looking at you DJI... That would make an interesting video. I may play around with it and see if there's something there. Oddly enough, I had been testing the "update home point" stuff for almost a month for this video and just in the last two days I had two very strange issues. The first was I could NOT cancel a RTH by touching "cancel" on the screen" or hitting the flight pause button. Since my Spark days I have NEVER encountered such a thing. Second, just two days ago update home point wasn't actually updating the home point. It would go through the motions and say it was updated but it wouldn't change. It resulted in a pretty tense low battery moment - haha! I couldn't repeat either behaviour since on either my phone or my wife's. Weird stuff. Cheers!
I don’t want it in the menu as well. But it would have been nice if you pop up the map from the bottom you could change the home point from there. Another issue with the current way of changing the home point. You can’t do it on a satellite map. In the normal map you can’t see buildings, trees or other obstacles. It is a pity when the drone try’s to safe it self and ends up in a tree......
You're right. This shouldn't be buried in the menus. And you shouldn't have to constantly update it. You should be able to make the controller the return to home point and leave it at that, JUST LIKE THE MAVIC PRO!!!!! This seems like a major oversight. I wonder what DJI's thinking was when they designed the software this way on the Mini 4 Pro.
Totally, right?! I really don't get why it's not there. You've inspired me to post a query in the DJI Forums to see if I can get a response from DJI and/or get some folks pushing them for a feature update. Cheers!
@@SteveCoutts bdw did you tried your drone flying at night or in low light , for me it causes quiet a drift and yesterday it just collided to wall while drifting.. not sure if u experienced this as well.. i bought this recently a week back...
i did the exact same mistake yesterday and i found my mini 3 pro crashed with broken parts,luckily i had dji refresh so i used it to get a new replacement but i will now never forget to update home point if i am in same situation ever again!!
Great Video! I'm a brand new pilot. You forgot to mention how stressful it is when your drone doesn't return to your home point... :) I paid for that lesson ..lol.
Thanks! Haha! You're so right, totally stressful!! Perhaps I made it seem that I found it a little too easy. I went about a kilometre or so the wrong way first, in knee deep snow on the pipeline clearing before taking the correct route. I generally knew where it was but not precisely. I was VERY lucky it was sitting perfectly on top of the snow too. Five feet to the left and it would have been in the trees, likely never to be found again. Cheers!
Thanks Steve! So the advice is just like that for computers : " If you don't want to lose it - SAVE IT!" ...And in droneish, " If you don't want to lose it - RESET RTH! :)
Hi Steve, what a very useful tip. 👍 Many times during my walking recordings I have landed my drone at the new place where I was at that time to change my RTH. It's nice that I now know that this can also be done during the flight. Perhaps I should learn more about the drone manual. 😉 🎥🎬👌👍🙏
Would be nice if there was an option to set the return to home to be wherever the controller is at all times. This way the home point would constantly update it self automatically as the controller moved about and essentially your drone would always come home to your current position.
QUESTION: Starting at 2:02 you showed the track along with flight data. Can you please share how you were able to superimpose the track on Google maps along with the data such as battery level at different points.Might make for an interesting and educational video.....Thanks for all the amazing valuable content you post. This RTH video has saved my drone on at least a couple of occasions!
Hey, thanks for watching and the kind words. I really do appreciate it. That nice overlay was produced on AirData.com, I just had to upload the log file for that particular flight and it does the rest. You can use it for free up to 100 active flights. Cheers!
Very useful video. One question that I have not tested yet: if you choose the controller as the RTH point, will the point remain dynamic? That is, as the controller moves, does the home point follow it? This could be very important if you were on a boat!
Thanks. No, it does not remain dynamic. Setting or updating the home point is a one time thing. If you set it to the controller and subsequently move, the home point will not follow, you will need to keep updating it. Kind of dumb really. At the very least I think there should be some kind of "dynamic home point" feature. Thanks for watching, cheers!
@@SteveCoutts yes, it would be a very valuable update for DJI to implement a dynamic home point. It already knows where the controller is, seems simple. Then again, I don’t have to write the code!
@@forestweston5055 This dynamic feature was available on the original Mavic Air 1, always enabled it to guarantee the drone would arrive back to me. Really need this from a Mini2 update...
Thanks Ken! I made one error in that I could have used Find My Drone even though the drone was out of battery. Find My Drone still had the "last known" position. I was conflating an old experience with this one. Regardless, I knew where it was thankfully. Cheers!
@@SteveCoutts the beeping that it does isn't very loud, I guess it's just implemented by buzzing the motors rather than a dedicated piezoelectric buzzer, which would be helpful for the less acoustically acute-😉
Awesome information I’m new to flying this drone and I’m still nervous about trying RTH so far I’ve only flown low to get used to controls and flown it straight up and down to 300’ for aerial shots and videos.
Understanding how RTH works is essential when you are ready to start flying your drone further away. I believe you only have to be 20m away to manually trigger a RTH so I would suggest reading about it in the manual and then playing with it in controlled conditions to get to know it well. You may not ever need it or use it but if and when you do, knowing how it works can literally save your drone. Happy, safe flying! Cheers!
Thanks for posting this video I don't have very many videos at my channel but the one you want to check out if you get a chance is the only one that has a screen record and that Elation over getting a nearly lost drone that you referred to you will hear that at the end of that video it ends up being an impromptu find my drone tutorial actually and it's cool because as I'm running around looking for it the little radar imagery is moving and pointing with me I didn't even realize it at the time but something I might do for a tutorial for other people down the road showing how that map could be very effective with radio Direction and so forth take it easy
Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment. I took a look at your video and left a comment. Wow, scary situation. Find My Drone is a great tool and I'm sure it has saved plenty of drones. Happy, safe flying!
Hi Steve - at 7:04 you show a screenshot of the airdata website that appears to be replaying your flight in real time. I have the free airdata service, but can't find that function anywhere. Is it part of the paid plan for airdata?
Hi Jay. It's part of the free service. Select a flight and while on "GENERAL" choose "Notifications" across the top and you will see an option for "HD Flight Player". That is what I used. Cheers!
The other day, i had a very scary experience... I was flying 2km away and 500m high, to get a footage of a castle in switzerland that is on a top of a mountain. I had to walk around while flying to get to an open space and get better signal, but then I wanted to update my home point to my new location. When opening the map to select the new home point, I had the drone's position right, but not the controller's one... I wanted to close the window but I accidently confirm the new home point's location to be near the drone... 😔 Suddenly, i had no clue how to come back and I knew the drone wouldn't come back in his own anymore. I've decided to use what left of my battery to manually come back and look for my actual location on camera. I've low down my altitude to save up battery (less wind), but I started to experience stutters and lost the signal briefly a couple of time... Probably because of the houses and structures that made interference at lower altitude. I've finally managed to find my location, mostly by following the blue track of my flight map, that was now all over the place, and got it back with 14% battery, with an homepoint 2km from me oO Very very scary! Be carefull when updating your home point 😉
Wow! That is a scary moment for sure, especially at that distance and altitude. It is so great you got it back! Two things to remember. One, you can update your home point at any time, even during a RTH. Two, the home point can be updated as many times as you want to any location, the remote or the aircraft. Happy flying!
good advice, many thanks. When I flew the Mavic 2 Pro it had a dynamic RTH function that this was always where you were with the controller. it would be good to see this in the mini 2
Thanks. Did the dynamic home point work for all modes? On my Spark, the dynamic home point only worked for Gesture mode or Active track. And yeah, I agree, dynamic home point would be awesome addition to the Mini 2.
@@SteveCoutts Hi Steve, I had is set as a default on the M2P and believe it worked in the normal and tripod modes, which were the ones I used most on client shoots. I never really needed to test it as the construction sites I work on were all open and I could see the drone all the time - Nick
you should be able to just turn it off like the Mavic pro 2 settings, I always turn this off when using it on a moving boat. Haven't got time to continually change the home point which is more ever changing anyways. also the bottom landing sensors, need to be able to turn off these as well
If you are on a boat sailing in the sea, do not get too far from your drone because if you lose signal and the screen goes dark things change. It is almost certain that you will lose the drone unless you go back to where the drone was and resume signal and fix the HP, But if the Mobile gets dark due to sun and hot things get more difficult. greetings
That's great advice! I had a few comments about flying from a boat and frankly it scares the heck out of me. There is no room for error. Quite a while back DJI had a "dynamic home point" option whereby the Home Point would keep updating to the remote's location during the flight. I believe it was only available for the Mavic Pro and only for the DJI Go 4 software. It's such a great safety feature I would love to know why DJI got rid of it. Safe flying!
yes, three steps (once I put my reading glasses on).. wouldn't it be much better, simpler and quicker if we could just click a button on the controller - for example the C1 button or the best of all - the H button on the front. !!!
Absolutely! It definitely needs to be a more prominent design than hiding it in the menus. Even a prompt at RTH time to warn you that the "Home Point and your current position are not the same, do you want to update it?" would be a vast improvement. Happy, safe flying!
Hi Steve. I just bought myself a used Mavic Mini and and am hooked! I'll move to the Mini 2 someday and get certified for flying heavier drones too. I think I've started a new (and potentially expensive ) habit. But I usually buy 2nd hand stuff and I see there are many good, used options out there. I am amazed at the stability and ease-of-use of this drone. The Mini 1 has surpassed all my expectations. I've even posted a video of the local beach and it was filmed with less that 4 hours TOTAL at the controls. I've Subscribed!! Greetings from a fellow British Columbian on Vancouver Island!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! The Mini 1 is an amazing little drone for sure! The smart folks, like yourself, pick up some very good deals on lightly used stuff while others are always chasing the latest and greatest. I bet there is so much good stuff to shoot on the island, not than I'm complaining living in the West Kootenay region. We're both lucky to live in such a beautiful province. Cheers and happy, safe flying!
@@SteveCoutts Agreed. There are some good deals on drones if you shop around. What I could film this week are the daffodils up about 8 inches and all that green grass, hahaha I always like to rib friends and family in Canada's snow country about that. I guess the west Kootenays will follow along soon. One problem I've had so far with the drone is a battery failure. The day I was flying at the beach (in a later clip) the drone lost power at about 25% and landed swiftly from about 80 feet. It recorded it on the app as a crash, but it landed on its belly. Worse, a wave came in and got to the drone before I did!!!. I grabbed it out of about 1 foot of sea water, took out the battery and SD card then ran to a fresh water creek and dunked the whole thing several times. At home and hour later, I doused everything with rubbing alcohol and after it drip-dried, I warmed the entire drone wit a hair dryer for about 30 mins. The next afternoon, it flew again, but that battery was done. The gimbal has been acting up since and it even disassembled it carefully to clean all the pivot points. On a few more flights, the gimbal has freed up then reported a gimbal stuck error. It's hit and miss whether it will survive to film normally again. The video transmission is spotless but the gimbal keeps sending the message periodically.
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Hello there, Thank you for the very useful tips. Do you know what could be the reason of the situation that the drone updates home point during the flight by itself? It happened to me and it was quite stressful since I wasn’t aware about this manual update feature.
I'm assuming you're flying a DJI Mini 2 but this done apply to other DJI drones as well. The Home Point is the first location where the drone received a strong enough GPS signal to establish its position. If you don't wait for that to happen and just take off flying, it is possible to have the Home Point set to a location other than where you launched the drone. That is why it is best practice to wait until the Home Point has been set before beginning your flight. When the Home point is established a message will appear in Flight Status as well as an audible prompt. Cheers!
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@@SteveCoutts I am using Air 2 drone and I waited it to find > 10 gps and heard home point notification before takeoff. At some point during the flight, home point was updated by drone itself. It was the case actually
@ That is very strange. If it was just a one off occurrence, my assumption would be some sort of bug. The Air 2 has been out for quite a long time now so you would think most of the bugs would be long since fixed. If you're concerned, you may try posting a query in the DJI Forum (forum.dji.com) to see if other Air 2 pilots can shed any light on it. Good luck!
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@@SteveCoutts thank you very much for your responses. I will post it to DJI support as well.
Both the drone and controller have built in GPS so they do not need to rely on the phone. Map data requires a data connection or it can be downloaded in advance on wi-fi. Cheers!
The default behaviour of Return to Home (RTH), regardless of how it is triggered, is to return to the last recorded home point and then beginning the landing process. During landing if an obstacle or unsuitable surface is detected, landing is interrupted and a screen prompt will appear indicating such. If this is not happening with your drone, it's probably best to contact DJI Support. Cheers!
Hey Steve, Great video, thanks. Upon pressing the RTH button on my new Mini 2, it ascended to my set height but instead of turning and facing back towards the home point, it flies backwards towards the HP. Any idea why this happens?
Thanks for watching! I know there are failsafe RTH conditions where the drone will return backwards but off the top of my head I do not know of triggered conditions which would invoke the same behaviour. I may have to investigate because I don't even recall observing that. I am guessing it may do backwards based on distance or battery life. Honestly, it really doesn't matter (other than getting a shot) because the M2 doesn't have any collision detection. So really as long as it gets back to you all is good, right? Happy, safe flying! Cheers! 😀
Hi Steve , is there any flicker in mavic mini 2 footage ? you know in dji mavic pro it was a problem and in post production need to use some plugins for fixing , thanks
That's an interesting question and it's something I have not tested. Probably best to look at the RTH section in the user manual to see if it answers that. There are a lot of "if this then that" type scenarios for RTH. My suspicion though is that if it's a hard limit due to local regulations, RTH won't violate it. Cheers!
