DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Diappointed in Mavic

Jim_bo

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2016
Messages
51
Reactions
27
Age
58
I've had my Mavic for a couple weeks now and I'm a bit disappointed. It is a great quad and its super easy to fly, but the main reason I purchased it was for use with mountain biking and its following capability.

Mavic has two follow modes: active track and follow me.

Active track works ok if you have no obstructions, shadows, descending elevations and you present a strong contrast with your surroundings. But this is not really practical for mountain biking. Problems:

1. Active track can be done in wifi mode, but only in a follow orientation. It doesn't do profile or other following modes. Wifi mode is really the only way to do active track as carrying the transmitter with the phone attached while riding is not practical.
2. When riding a mountain bike, you frequently turn. This presents differing profiles to the Mavic. Mavic frequently gets confused and looses you.
3. Mavic does not adjust altitude to match your elevation when you go downhill. So, the further you go downhill, the farther away you get from Mavic and the smaller you appear. The smaller you appear, the more likely Mavic will loose track of you.
4. Mavic doesn't track you very well when you make quick movements or drastic direction changes.
5. One of the coolest features of Mavic is terrain follow... but it does NOT work in conjunction with active track. WTF?

Bottom line is, active track is marginally reliable at best. Once it looses track, it is a PITA to stop the bike, take manual control and reacquire.

Follow me mode only works with the transmitter connected to a phone or gps device. It's impractical to carry the transmitter and a phone together while riding. Also, follow me mode sucks because it doesn't keep you in frame. It will follow your gps location from your phone, but you may be completely out of frame while it does so.

Summary, if you are getting Mavic for its many other features, you'll find that it is a spectacular aircraft. However, if you are getting it for its following capability... not so much.

Recommendations to DJI:

1. Make terrain follow and active track work together.
2. Update Mavic's flight algorithms to keep the subject in frame during follow me mode.
3. Provide a separate "leash" transmitter that can be purchased that makes Mavic perform like other follow me drones.
4. Allow wifi active track to track profile mode



Love the drone... just not for the reasons I bought it.
 
Currently....the way it functions is about as good as it gets with the technology they have it using. For it to function the way you want it, it will need a device that is attached to the moving object that is being tracked at all times. Using Blu-tooth could a solution?
 
I believe the Litchi or Autopilot app may just solve your problems. Those are more familiar with those apps may want to chime in.


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots
 
  • Like
Reactions: AllDubyas
I haven't tried it yet, but doesn't active track and terrain follow work together already. I'm pretty sure I saw a couple videos of people successfully using it together.
 
It's just the fact that the main reason he bought the drone was for a feature that has had its shortcomings discussed many times. Not just with the Mavic, but with the Phantom 4 as well. He should have looked at a Typhoon H with Intel Realsense for the feature he desires from a drone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: deltalimatango
Currently....the way it functions is about as good as it gets with the technology they have it using. For it to function the way you want it, it will need a device that is attached to the moving object that is being tracked at all times. Using Blu-tooth could a solution?
Follow me mode does attach a device to the moving object. However, it fails to keep the object in the camera frame.
 
I haven't tried it yet, but doesn't active track and terrain follow work together already. I'm pretty sure I saw a couple videos of people successfully using it together.
Sorry... Active track cannot be used with terrain follow.
 
  • Like
Reactions: M4RK
It's just the fact that the main reason he bought the drone was for a feature that has had its shortcomings discussed many times. Not just with the Mavic, but with the Phantom 4 as well. He should have looked at a Typhoon H with Intel Realsense for the feature he desires from a drone.
So how about we let him know in a way that isn't completely obnoxious?
 
It's just the fact that the main reason he bought the drone was for a feature that has had its shortcomings discussed many times. Not just with the Mavic, but with the Phantom 4 as well. He should have looked at a Typhoon H with Intel Realsense for the feature he desires from a drone.
Ok, cool, you know this but perhaps Jim_bo did not. Looking at when he joined 12 days is good enough excuse for me. Remember all the adverts for the Mavic? All they show is fantastic tracking features, I am sure thousands of others have purchased the Mavic simply based on the Media hype and many would not even know what a forum is. My point is that we should not judge or insult people when they are simply trying to get a view across, I for one think that the post was really informative and at no stage did he say that he hated the Mavic, in fact the opposite.
 
Ok, cool, you know this but perhaps Jim_bo did not. Looking at when he joined 12 days is good enough excuse for me. Remember all the adverts for the Mavic? All they show is fantastic tracking features, I am sure thousands of others have purchased the Mavic simply based on the Media hype and many would not even know what a forum is. My point is that we should not judge or insult people when they are simply trying to get a view across, I for one think that the post was really informative and at no stage did he say that he hated the Mavic, in fact the opposite.
Absolutely - I've had nothing but time to research the mavic for months... and he brought up things that I had NO CLUE about...
 
  • Like
Reactions: AllDubyas and M4RK
Don't be disappointed in the mavic. Be disappointed that you didn't do enough research to make sure it was the product for you. There are other options on the market that do what you were looking for. The mavic does exactly what dji has advertised it to do.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots
The research I did was dji's advertisement. I'd challenge you to find any dji source that discusses how easily active track loses its tracked object or that follow me mode fails to keep the object being followed in frame.

I started this thread to talk about dji and the mavic. If you want to criticize people personally, maybe you should stay your own thread.
 
It's just the fact that the main reason he bought the drone was for a feature that has had its shortcomings discussed many times. Not just with the Mavic, but with the Phantom 4 as well. He should have looked at a Typhoon H with Intel Realsense for the feature he desires from a drone.

I think I was clear that my intent was to have a following drone to take mountain biking. I can put the Mavic inside my camelbak. I'd love to see you put a Typhoon in a small backpack to take on a mountain bike.

The folding characteristic of the Mavic was the primary consideration. And that it does well.
 
Lets try to lighten up a bit in here. Some post have been removed as part of the cleanup.

To answer the OP, some Yuneec UAV's have an optional "Wizard" they can use that replaces the TX for this type of activity. Honestly, at the moment collision avoidance is not quite there for this type of activity to be flawless. You have to expect some shortfalls for what you are trying to do.
 
Never did I say anything was wrong with your post. It's just misleading. Nor did I insult you or your intelligence. It's not the mavic's fault that the technology isn't advanced as you assumed it to be. Of course advertisements are going to exaggerate features, that's what they're intended to do, which is why in very small print and in many disclosures it states 'results may vary.'

A quick YouTube search of DJI Active Track will show a video of a guy on a bike demonstrating that the drone will lose you on sharp turns or change of speed. Or a guy skiing down a slope and he gets so small that you can barely see him. I bought my Phantom 4 for its tracking ability for my M5 and that very search showed me what to expect from it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jayfly and rcheli9
According to this video comparing litchi and autopilot, if you go to about 3 minute mark the author describes how when using autopilot, the barometer in the tracked device, at least iOS devices, is used to automatically have the Mavic go up and down in altitude as the device being tracked moves up and down. In the description he's referring to Autopilot.


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots
 
I bought it for the same reason and tbh only in open hills in Scotland would I use it because there are generally trees everywhere else near tracks. What we will be doing is using it to film short clips and cut together when out on the bikes so the portability is there for that and you will have a more interesting video but... you will have to stop more often and mess about and you need friends with you so it will be used less often.

I too would love to have a drone that could follow and produce better results but I think we are a while off that level of software and sensors.
 
I bought it for the same reason and tbh only in open hills in Scotland would I use it because there are generally trees everywhere else near tracks. What we will be doing is using it to film short clips and cut together when out on the bikes so the portability is there for that and you will have a more interesting video but... you will have to stop more often and mess about and you need friends with you so it will be used less often.

I too would love to have a drone that could follow and produce better results but I think we are a while off that level of software and sensors.
I really don't think so. It seems dji put a lot of effort into the active track, which is marginal at best. But they seem to have neglected follow me mode. By including an algorithm that will keep the subject in frame and by providing a puck style transmitter (as an option), this could be easily achievable. That would make the mavic ideal. Unfortunately, dji choose not to invest in follow me mode. I guess they didn't want to compete with their active track.
 
  • Like
Reactions: K2D2 and Jayfly
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
130,600
Messages
1,554,285
Members
159,607
Latest member
Schmidteh121