DJI Fly will drain ipad battery

Maxxpsoft · Dec 26, 2019

mark resolved for now

Xmas day and showing my MM to dad and uncle. Shut down the MM and RC but forgot to shutdown my ipad mini 4. I usually do shutdown everything so will blame it on the holidays.

Picked up ipad today to check battery and it was at 0%. Plugged in charger and hoped and waited awhile and finally seen it was charging. When it got to 15% I opened it up and I saw the DJI Fly was open still. Ok will have to remember to shut it down.

what was that app doing to drain battery so bad? It was at connect aircraft screen.

miker570 · Dec 26, 2019

Did you leave the iPad connected to the RC overnight? If so, I don’t think the DJI fly app was draining the battery, more likely the iPad was charging your RC via the OTG cable until the iPad battery was drained.

The USB OTG specs say that the devices negotiate which cable end must supply power/charge to the other. Just like a USB thumb drive plugged into a computer, the computer must supply power to the USB drive to work.

Search on wiki if you want to understand the USB/OTG technical specs.

USB On-The-Go - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The USB/OTG power negotiation may result in draining the phone/tablet battery as it supplies charge to the RC.

You might try a different OTG cable or be sure to unplug the cable from your iPad when you power everything off.

Maxxpsoft · Dec 26, 2019

miker570 said:
Did you leave the iPad connected to the RC overnight?

Nope everything was unplugged cause I put MM and RC in their case and the ipad fits perfectly in the top portion of PGYTECH case.

miker570 · Dec 26, 2019

Yes I see now your battery usage shows 100% DJI Fly. What screen in the fly app was opened all night? I always leave the app running in the background and mine shows only 17% in the last 24 hours.

Maxxpsoft · Dec 26, 2019

miker570 said:
Yes I see now your battery usage shows 100% DJI Fly. What screen in the fly app was opened all night? I always leave the app running in the background and mine shows only 17% in the last 24 hours.

[ Connect Aircraft ] screen I think. Didn't open the Fly just shut it down when I saw it was open and battery drained. Don't have sync flight data turned on. In privacy do you have the top 4 things turned on?

miker570 · Dec 26, 2019

Maxxpsoft said:
[ Connect Aircraft ] screen I think. Didn't open the Fly just shut it down when I saw it was open and battery drained. Don't have sync flight data turned on. In privacy do you have the top 4 things turned on?

Yes in DJI Fly app profile privacy I have the top 4 options on.
In iOS setting I have the defaults, and location privacy set to while using the app. I noticed that the DJI Fly app does not have an option for Background Refresh, which allows the app to continue running in the background. I’m not sure what the default is when there is no option provided.

Which iPad model and iOS/iPadOS are you using?

raymacke · Dec 26, 2019

In IOS is there a way to selectively shut down apps. This is my first IOS device and not sure of the procedure.

miker570 · Dec 26, 2019

To close an app double press the home button and a list of open apps will appear. To close an app touch the app and swipe up.

raymacke · Dec 27, 2019

Thanks!

Maxxpsoft · Dec 27, 2019

miker570 said:
Yes in DJI Fly app profile privacy I have the top 4 options on.
In iOS setting I have the defaults, and location privacy set to while using the app. I noticed that the DJI Fly app does not have an option for Background Refresh, which allows the app to continue running in the background. I’m not sure what the default is when there is no option provided.

Which iPad model and iOS/iPadOS are you using?

ipad 4 mini/13.3

Should have tested first but I remember one dji app way back doing same thing so did a knee jerk before I tested myself which I usually do. That is why I switched to IOS way back = less trouble with dji

Started FLY up and went to camera screen. Closed cover and I heard it close screen and sleep. Went to work and 12 hours later and it is at 95% so guess I had to have left cover ajar. Unless that last flap closes with mag switch ipad stays open

I'll mark resolved for now

Scottalmas · Jan 2, 2020

I am beginning to think the Fly app has some sort of battery drain issue (at least with iPads). This is the third ti,e I have noticed this phenomenon.

I started flight with my iPad Mini Gen 2 at 75% charged. After about 20 minutes of flying the iPad was dead. I put it on a charger and did some stuff around the house. About 2 hours later I came back and my iPad was at 93%. I flew for another 5 minutes or so and noticed the iPad was at 78%. I shut everything down, closed out of all apps and watched the battery continue to drop. With minutes I was at 74% doing absolutely nothing.

I completely powered off the iPad and restarted. The iPad now reads 100% charged. Notably, I have had no other battery issues with the iPad other than when using DJI Fly.

I then flew my Mavic Air with DJI Go4 for 8 minutes and saw only a 3% drop. Thoughts?

Maxxpsoft · Jan 2, 2020

Scottalmas said:
I am beginning to think the Fly app has some sort of battery drain issue (at least with iPads). This is the third ti,e I have noticed this phenomenon.

Could go into Settings/Battery and look at what I showed on my first post last 24 hours to verify. Not much difference in ipads from yours to mine Mini 2 vs Mini 4

Everything I own phone, ipad I shut down all things to start auto or better yet uninstall like Siri and google maps. My PC there is no Cortana here. Just don't care for life draining apps running in background.

Scottalmas · Jan 2, 2020

How strange is this? No battery data is available for the time of my battery drain incident. I wonder if the battery isn’t really drained but instead the Fly app causes the iPad to lose track of its real battery level. This had happens 3 times and only ever when using the Fly app.