Feeling Abandoned by DJI? I do!

[Tashmoo]

The only way the Mavic two pro could improve obstacle avoidance is by adding an additional sensor on each side of the drone which it does not have

Which they are probably saving for the Mavic 3.

 

[Ralph thompson]

they did just do a firmware update to the Mavic two pro with some pretty good features they extended the range which by the way really did extend the range. There’s no better dronethan the Mavic two pro still I feel in my opinion anyway in that price range,. But I do agree their service kind of suck I have had my smart controller now for about six weeks in for repair

Interested, what was the problem with the Smart Controller? I had to return mine last year for two reasons, 1 - go 4 app kept crashing and 2- The home pt disappeared when using satellite map view. DJI tested the old one & replaced it with a new one. No change, I still have the same problems. Frustrating but still like the convenience of the SC.

 

[dirkclod]

Bit cheeky for a mod imo,
he did say.....
You guys might have different views and I'm always happy to read what other think.

Your opinion I saw another rant thread.
Maybe being the 4th member here and reading all the
time i can tell one when it is started.This one was
about the 3th one this week.
Thanks for your observation though .
..Bit cheeky..huh ?‍

 

[WDKZoom]

I feel the same way and even though the Mavic 2 Zoom is harder to fly than my Mavic Pro, one would think that a Company that tries to emulate Apple would have much better Software and Customer service!

I am just curious, what do you mean by harder to fly the zoom versus the pro?

WDK

 

[Reginald E Johnson]

I am just curious, what do you mean by harder to fly the zoom versus the pro?

WDK

It has more Sensors on the Zoom than the Pro! I tried to fly thru my Backyard and I had to put the Zoom in Sport Mode because it was sensing the Tree over head and the Fence on the side of it! My Mavic Pro only senses from the front and the bottom!

 

[Camino Ken]

Interesting how you equate safer flying with harder to fly.

 

[vindibona1]

Something that we need to recognize is the psycho-cultural differences of companies that are not based in the west. In some ways, those of us in the US, dealing with companies here expect a different, more consumer centered approach to things. The approach to business in Asian countries is entirely different and their policies often do not make sense to the westerner.

Let's be honest, with limited exceptions, there is DJI, followed by a host of cheap Chinese wanabe drones. And for the most part DJI knows they're pretty much the only game in town for the serious enthusiast and entry level commercial pilot.... at least for now.

 

[Platinum 4 ever]

Something that we need to recognize is the psycho-cultural differences of companies that are not based in the west. In some ways, those of us in the US, dealing with companies here expect a different, more consumer centered approach to things. The approach to business in Asian countries is entirely different and their policies often do not make sense to the westerner.

Let's be honest, with limited exceptions, there is DJI, followed by a host of cheap Chinese wanabe drones. And for the most part DJI knows they're pretty much the only game in town for the serious enthusiast and entry level commercial pilot.... at least for now.

You might be on to something. Good point.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Something that we need to recognize is the psycho-cultural differences of companies that are not based in the west. In some ways, those of us in the US, dealing with companies here expect a different, more consumer centered approach to things. The approach to business in Asian countries is entirely different and their policies often do not make sense to the westerner.

Let's be honest, with limited exceptions, there is DJI, followed by a host of cheap Chinese wanabe drones. And for the most part DJI knows they're pretty much the only game in town for the serious enthusiast and entry level commercial pilot.... at least for now.

I don't think DJI have in any way sat on their laurels or offered a non-consumer focused approach (aside from atrocious support but that's most certainly not limited to Asian companies), they've had little actual competition for years and could easily have taken advantage of that to deliberately stagnate the technology or cripple older devices but they haven't unlike western companies like Intel, Nvidia and Apple who have done either or both over the last few years . They've continually improved their drones and the Mavic 2 series is probably one of the best examples of that since the original Mavic Pro had decimated the Karma, its only real rival yet rather than just keep going with that design they pushed on to offer the M2 series with a physical zoom or a 1in sensor. Even two years later there's not much in the way of competition readily available for sale here in the UK.

The complaints the OP makes are nothing to do with business strategy and everything to do with the hardware and technology. The Mavic 2 Pro isn't a general purpose system like PCs are and uses more customised hardware to achieve high performance and which maintaining high power efficiency which is crucial to a device like a drone. As someone pointed out early to gain better obstacle avoidance performance the Mavic 2 Pro would need additional sensors and it would likely need additional internal hardware to rapidly process that information to allow the drone the ability to move faster to deal with the obstacles better. The Mavic Air 2 which I'm assuming is the cheaper model the OP refers to uses a newer stacked sensor design and takes advantage of a much faster readout while the Mavic 2 Pro uses an older BSI design. From memory Sony actually introduced the stacked sensor technology with in sensors in the RX100Mk4 and the RX10mk2 but I don't believe Sony sell this sensor and only use it for their own devices (same as the incredible FF version found in the A9 series) so DJI couldn't add those features to the M2P.

Another point to bear in mind is that the drone market is a long way from fully saturated so dji are not reliant on selling new drones to existing drone owners as they have plenty of new potential customers. The mobile phone market on the other hand is very heavily saturated so manufacturers have to try and get existing phone owners to regularly upgrade. If the Mavic 2 series could have a major upgrade through software it would like make a lot of sense financially to dji since they'd be able to extend the lifetime of the drone bringing in new buyers without having all the costs of a new new drone.

I'm not claiming dji are perfect but I think it's wrong to claim that they they're are not improving products and it's part of an Asian business approach. I'm impressed how much they have advanced drones despite the little competition especially coming from an IT background where the desktop cpu market was pretty much dead for a long time due to Intel having no competition until amd's new Ryzen series turned the market upside down. I desperately hope they can do the same to the graphics card market which Nvidia have had to themselves for far too long leaving us with hugely expensive cards with disappointing performance improvements.

 

[Dakarenduro]

So you spend a lot of money on your DJI drone £1550 in the UK and one of the most expensive consumer drones on the market, DJI Mavic 2 Pro. Then DJI launch a bunch of cheaper drones and competitors release drones with much better features e.g. the Skydio with it's amazing optical avoidance DJI, well they're content to launch other, cheaper drones sometimes with better features and seem to abandon the owners of the Mavic 2 Pro which DJI could improve with some firmware updates.

Not trying to bash the OP but to me this is like any other consumer product... I go and buy a car, next year a new model comes out with a better feature set. I don't blame the manufacturer for abandoning me. I enjoy what I have knowing it will be outdated (in a sense) within 6 months and there will always be something newer and possibly better down the road.

 

[Reginald E Johnson]

Interesting how you equate safer flying with harder to fly.

It’s something that I used to do easily on my Mavic Pro now I have to fly in Sport Mode on the Mavic Pro 2! And this is a VLOS flight less than 10 feet from me!

 

[Dakarenduro]

It’s something that I used to do easily on my Mavic Pro now I have to fly in Sport Mode on the Mavic Pro 2! And this is a VLOS flight less than 10 feet from me!

In that case any off the shelf drone with NO obstacle avoidance sensors would be easiest to fly.

Having more avoidance sensors does make it a safer aircraft. Just because you have to disable them to get in closer to objects doesn't mean it is easier or harder to fly. My opinion.

Thankfully you aren't using an Evo drone. From the reviews I've read, those sensors halt flight at almost 15 meters away from an object!!

 

[WDKZoom]

It has more Sensors on the Zoom than the Pro! I tried to fly thru my Backyard and I had to put the Zoom in Sport Mode because it was sensing the Tree over head and the Fence on the side of it! My Mavic Pro only senses from the front and the bottom!

Ok......thanks.

WDK