I bought a Mavic Air recently, and have been generally pleased with the flight characteristics and performance of both the aircraft and the camera. However, I had not been getting the kind of range others were claiming, and frequently had intermittent video transmission problems. Two days ago I had a situation where the aircraft was only about 80 feet above and 40 feet away when the RC lost connection completely. The MA started to return to home, but that would mean descending through trees. Somehow I managed to cancel the return with numerous taps on the cancel "X" onscreen and hitting the pause button. A restart of the RC allowed me to regain control, avoid the trees and land. That experience shook my confidence in the MA, and I had to find a solution.
Looking through the posts here I found a few references to interference from mobile devices, and I put both my iPad Mini4 and the iPhone in my pocket into Airplane Mode before powering up for flight. Now the signal strength indicator shows a stable connection at full strength at much greater distances than I could have ever achieved without being in Airplane Mode.
This makes total sense -- especially in my situation. I have a MavMount iPad holder that fits in the RC phone mount clamps, and it holds my iPad Mini4 two inches above the upraised RC antennae. With all of the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular electromagnetic transmissions beaming at such close range to the antennae, it is a wonder the Mavic flew at all. Turning all that off cleared up all the electronic confusion, and now I'm getting the sort of range I was expecting.
The bottom line is: If the RC connection to your aircraft is Wi-Fi, be sure to always put your mobile devices in Airplane Mode!
Looking through the posts here I found a few references to interference from mobile devices, and I put both my iPad Mini4 and the iPhone in my pocket into Airplane Mode before powering up for flight. Now the signal strength indicator shows a stable connection at full strength at much greater distances than I could have ever achieved without being in Airplane Mode.
This makes total sense -- especially in my situation. I have a MavMount iPad holder that fits in the RC phone mount clamps, and it holds my iPad Mini4 two inches above the upraised RC antennae. With all of the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular electromagnetic transmissions beaming at such close range to the antennae, it is a wonder the Mavic flew at all. Turning all that off cleared up all the electronic confusion, and now I'm getting the sort of range I was expecting.
The bottom line is: If the RC connection to your aircraft is Wi-Fi, be sure to always put your mobile devices in Airplane Mode!
