Issues with lost connection in close proximity

[heo3480]

My Mavic Mini lost connection last week during a morning flight at a hotel where I was staying and forced itself into autolanding over open water. At the same time I started seeing sensor errors properly caused by a rapid drop in GPS satellites. My mini was purchased in EU, but I was flying in the US so broadcasting power should be better (App informed me that the connection has to changed based on location)

This thread is a heads up checking if others are seeing similar issues? This is not to bash the Mini for the record, and I hope I'm having a faulty unit.

I screen recorded the whole thing in the video below, so you can see what I saw when it happened. And there are already indications this might have been linked to the location and the hotel wifi, but I did try it on another location later, and I kept losing connection at 150-300m, so not as bad as the first experience.

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[Starz]

Flight logs will possibly provide your answer.
My guess? I will lean towards way to much interference from all those buildings loaded with people using a bit of WiFi.
I‘ll watch this to see what is determined.
Hopefully a resolution will be found.
The one I have hasn’t had any issues.

 

[old man mavic]

it could be the fact that it is an EU spec MM the power of the controllers radio transmission output is significantly lower than in the US, that power is not going to change just because you are flying it in the US the specs for the two are different,and with regards to flying over water ,it does say that reflective surfaces can affect the sensors

 

[DanMan32]

The only problem is that the ACs response to disconnect wouldn't have made it back to the app to be recorded.

EDIT: After watching the video, OP did not get a complete signal loss as his post suggested, only an intermittent signal. In that case logs will be useful.

 

[Danr-62]

I watched the video waiting for the view the Advanced section of the transmission page of the app, while the bird was up but safe, while there at that location. Should have provided some information in regard to what band was in use at the time, and how strong/weak the surrounding channels looked.

Yea previous comment, area looked like it was probably a nightmare for all things wifi.

 

[DanMan32]

Obviously the system does change something about the transmission since it prompts about that, whether that's only which band to use (2.4, 5.8 or both) or if it also adjusts power too is unknown. The radio settings in the app could give a clue about that. If it was locked in 2.4 band because of being a CE model (FCC model only allows 5.8 band), there's only 3 useful channels there that don't overlap with adjacent ones: 1, 6 and 11.

The reason it landed on RTH triggered by signal loss is because RTH occured close to homepoint. This is documented in the manual.
With all the buildings around, I'm sure the WiFi bands are crowded there. However since it reported what it was doing, you didn't have a total signal loss, only intermittent.

RTH requires a good GPS signal. Without GPS, the MM can use vision positioning but this will be unreliable over water and higher elevations. I would not fly over water in those conditions.

Remember, MM is very new. There will be growing pains with it so fly accordingly until it's proven itself to you firsthand.

 

[Thomas B]

Also, if like other Mavics, visual positioning is non functional above about 20-30 feet above ground or objects below.

 

[DanMan32]

I watched the video waiting for the view the Advanced section of the transmission page of the app, while the bird was up but safe, while there at that location. Should have provided some information in regard to what band was in use at the time, and how strong/weak the surrounding channels looked.

Yea previous comment, area looked like it was probably a nightmare for all things wifi.

Even Occusync could have issues since its in the same bands. It just uses the channels differently than WiFi. Still, OS has to play nice with others using the channels, particularly when the transmitters would be putting out more power than other typical uses for the bands.

 

[Danr-62]

Even Occusync could have issues since its in the same bands. It just uses the channels differently than WiFi. Still, OS has to play nice with others using the channels, particularly when the transmitters would be putting out more power than other typical uses for the bands.

Fix the problem no, was looking for it to get some kind of an idea of the environment it was operating in. It's view of the signals surrounding it and what it was doing to work within same.

An EU model flying in the US to the mix.

No one thinks of everything in an event like that though, sure the OP would have if thought about it at the time too.