Tracking drones with Drone Scanner at a parade

[Evmoius]

I was at a parade the other night and sure enough, there were a few drones up the air. I decided to try out Drone Scanner and see how exactly it works outside of tracking my own machines. Well, it works as intended. There was a Mavic Mini 3 about 50 feet in the air and a hundred feet away, and another that I couldn't identify quite a ways up and about a quarter mile from me. Both popped up at about the same time despite the differences in distance. The operator tracking was very accurate, the mini pilot was only about 20 feet from where I was standing and his tag was spot on. The other guy was flying from almost a half mile away.

What I find surprising was how long it took for them to appear in the app. It was several minutes from turning on to getting the list. Seems to me that this is really only useful if the drone is stationary. And of course, you have to even know it's there in the first place.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

I was at a parade the other night and sure enough, there were a few drones up the air. I decided to try out Drone Scanner and see how exactly it works outside of tracking my own machines. Well, it works as intended. There was a Mavic Mini 3 about 50 feet in the air and a hundred feet away, and another that I couldn't identify quite a ways up and about a quarter mile from me. Both popped up at about the same time despite the differences in distance. The operator tracking was very accurate, the mini pilot was only about 20 feet from where I was standing and his tag was spot on. The other guy was flying from almost a half mile away.

What I find surprising was how long it took for them to appear in the app. It was several minutes from turning on to getting the list. Seems to me that this is really only useful if the drone is stationary. And of course, you have to even know it's there in the first place.

I updated my M2P with the latest firmware, which I believe is supposed to provide a RID transmission. Is Drone Scanner on an iPhone supposed to pick that up? Because I've got nothing. But then, I only waited a minute or two. Nothing.

Got any advice?

 

[Evmoius]

I updated my M2P with the latest firmware, which I believe is supposed to provide a RID transmission. Is Drone Scanner on an iPhone supposed to pick that up? Because I've got nothing. But then, I only waited a minute or two. Nothing.

Got any advice?

It takes a surprisingly long time to register in the app. I only guestimated how long I waited because I was pretty distracted with keeping track of my kids and watching the floats go by. I would just launch and hover your drone and turn the app on. If it doesn't pick it up by the time you have to land then something isn't working properly.

 

[Richard R]

IPhones prohibit access to WIFI, so only Bluetooth will work and only if the Remote Id itself uses bluetooth.

 

[Evmoius]

IPhones prohibit access to WIFI, so only Bluetooth will work and only if the Remote Id itself uses bluetooth.

Wow, yep, according to the developer of drone scanner this is correct. That's a huge percentage of the population who basically can't track drones. I'm on Android so that explains a lot.

You could pickup a used Android for pretty cheap. It's not like you need a cell plan to use the wifi.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

It takes a surprisingly long time to register in the app. I only guestimated how long I waited because I was pretty distracted with keeping track of my kids and watching the floats go by. I would just launch and hover your drone and turn the app on. If it doesn't pick it up by the time you have to land then something isn't working properly.

Yeah, based on my research yesterday and other posts, my problem is I have an iPhone.
But that aside, if the latest firmware, GO4 app, etc is supposed to provide RID on my M2P, my issue is there’s no overt message anywhere I can find that it’s working… nothing on boot or settings or camera view in GO4. Yeah I can find the flight controller id, but no reference to RID.