App disconnect but RC remained

[Pebbleheed]

I went for a fly this morning out in the countryside. I used the DJI Go app with my Mavic Pro. All was fine and I enjoyed it.


I got home and had some battery left so I took the drone to my garden. I have a decent sized garden so I can safely test fly there so I decided to try Litchi as I’d just purchased that.


The Mavic took off happily. It flew around the garden. Then litchi gave me a low battery warning. That was fine, it was low.


As I was in my garden I continued to fly for a short while. Low altitude. The next message I get is that the battery was under 20%.


After the last message litchi then said ‘warning, disconnected’ and dropped its connection to the Mavic. I had no video or app features at all.


The controller still worked fine and I was able to keep control of the Mavic and land it without issue, however the disconnect worried me. If that had been out in the countryside earlier I’d have been in trouble due to the disgraces etc involved.


I’ve only ever used the official app until this test flight and I’ve never seen it disconnect. I’m using it on an iPhone 6s with the OTG cable. There was no interference and the RC remained connected without issue.


Is this a litchi fault or is there some sort of feature on the Mavic to turn off the app when the battery is low to conserve battery and get home safely?

 

[BossBob]

Just to say that you only need the remote control to fly the Mavic. Any of the apps running on any device are just extras to what is a very stable drone even when it is flown using the RC by itself or following an app or mobile device failure.

 

[Pebbleheed]

Yeah I know. But for someone who’s relatively new to this it’s a great aid to flying. Escpecially when the drone is far away it makes it easier to fly back to me.

I’m worried that litchi isn’t safe so I was asking on here for advice.

 

[Pebbleheed]

Litchi support weren’t much use sadly. Seemed more interested in pointing blame elsewhere rather than looking at what happened.

I managed to prove it was an app issue and not a drone issue as the RC and drone stayed connected.

Anyway, I’ve managed to pursuade Apple to refund the purchase price of the app.

I won’t be using it again. This app doesn’t seem right to me and support is poor. And when flying with an expensive drone it’s not worth risking.

 

[Mike4884]

Litchi developers are more competant then dji devs the litchi app is more reliable with most drones vs dji go 4 ....in fact most people prefer litchi to go 4. The only reason to stick with go 4 is for the newer flight modes and pano's....u just having a disconnect could be anything, interference, cable etc....the same thing that happened to u happened to me with newest fw on mavic pro and this was on go4. It disconnected but still had remote....dont be discouraged thousands of people use litchi. They use the same sdk as dji go 4..and give the dev some time to answer .

 

[FuzLogix]

If the app closes/crashes and the Mavic is out of sight, simply hold the Return to Home button until it beeps. It will come back to you and land no problem, even without the app.

 

[bsimon]

I've had this happen with the Go4 app before. I had to do a RTH on the controller since I couldn't see the Mavic behind some trees. Very annoying, but could have been much worst under the circumstances.