Litchi App - Pros & Cons

TCRay · Feb 9, 2018

I am new to the drone world. I just received my Mavic Pro Platinum. I have read some reviews of the Litchi app, some good and some not so good.

Question for you who are experienced and have time with Litchi:
Why would you use it instead of the DJI GO4 (i.e. pros)?
What problems have you seen with the Litchi app (i.e. cons)?

Have any who used the Litchi app gone back to the DJI app? If so, why?
Is there a steeper learning curve with Litchi?
Any loss of connectivity or app crash with Litchi?

It is a rather expensive app and I don't want to spend the money if I won't get much more benefit than the DJI app gives.

(Note - I did read a couple of other threads on this forum and the main feature seems to be mission planning and waypoint creation. I am trying to justify if these are worth the cost of Litchi. Maybe they are.)

Thank you all for any help you can give a newbie!

Robert Mitchell · Feb 9, 2018

As you already alluded, Litchi's strength is in it's, before-flight waypoint management. Go4 has little to none of that.

It is also similar to go4, in everyday, flight and camera interface, therefore it makes a good backup to go4. It does however, lack some of the more refined, autonomous intelligent flight modes of go4.

Only you can decide if those functions are worth your money.

ksmusa · Feb 9, 2018

I would suggest that you read some of the reviews on this forum as well as the Phantom forum regarding the Litchi app. They are very informative and should be able to answer many of your questions. I think that Litchi is very good and I use it quite often specifically for its ability to preprogram way points. One of the advantages I love about this app is you can program relatively large series of way points and worry less about losing your signal to the drone as it will always return to you when it has completed its pre-programmed route.

Just my opinion of course

namirda · Feb 9, 2018

If I were you I would get used to flying with DJI app first. You will have to use it for some functions anyway and so you should take the time to get to know it well. Only then will you know if you need something else in addition.

In general the DJI app is the only one which handles the various 'selfie' flight modes well because it can perform the necessary image processing functions onboard the drone where the API used by all other apps requires a round trip to the mobile device. This causes an unacceptable lag in the Litchi and other apps which is never going to be easy to fix.

Litchi's real strength lies in its autonomous mission capability. I don't know why DJI don't offer this - perhaps because it is potentially dangerous if misused and therefore might land them in warranty discussions! However if you take your time in mission preparation before you go out to fly then you should have no problems.

Before you think of buying Litchi, take a look at their mission hub here Mission Hub - Litchi It is free to create an account and then you can prepare your missions even if you don't have a drone or the Litchi app.

Then take a look at this thread Virtual Litchi Mission

Virtual Litchi Mission (VLM) is free PC software which allows you to fly your Litchi mission virtually in Google Earth. You can then get a good idea of Litchi's benefits and limitations before you spend a penny.

The latest version of VLM is attached

seowashdc · Jun 12, 2018

For me, the pros & cons of the Litchi app:

Great for creating missions before flying - I love how it works!
Connects really fast to my Android phone - it's almost instantaneous

What I don't like is that if I want to use the DJI go 4, even if I turn off the Litchi app, it automatically roars back to life when I'm trying to connect to the DJI app.

I still need to use the DJI app for updates, since Litchi isn't connected to DJI for firmware updates, etc.

How nice it would be if DJI would just turn on the draw function for the Mavic. I wouldn't bother with Litchi in that case.

----------------------------------------------UPDATE------------------------------------------------------

I just figured out why the Litchi app was hijacking the place of the DJI Go 4 app. Has to do with selecting the right USB connectivity option on my Samsung S6 Android. Go figure.

gp4tom · Jul 4, 2019

I recently tried the Litchi App and everthing worked fine using it with my Mavic Air Drone. First sign of issues was the RTH function And the precision take off. When activating the RTH the drone would just land where ever it happen to be. Same problem when using the DJI Go 4 App.
This is the reply I got from DJI Tech:

In regards to this, we would like to verify if this is with regards to your concern about your Mavic Air not returning to home? If yes, you mentioned on your previous emails that you're using a Litchi App to operate the aircraft. Please be informed that Litchi App is a third party software and not developed by DJI.

Any issues or damages that caused by a third party software will void the warranty of the aircraft.

So question is, would using the Litchi App to fly the Mavic Air cause the RTH function to become unusable.?

Karl D · Jul 4, 2019

gp4tom said:
I recently tried the Litchi App and everthing worked fine using it with my Mavic Air Drone. First sign of issues was the RTH function And the precision take off. When activating the RTH the drone would just land where ever it happen to be. Same problem when using the DJI Go 4 App.
This is the reply I got from DJI Tech:

So question is, would using the Litchi App to fly the Mavic Air cause the RTH function to become unusable.?

unlikely. how far was the craft when you initiated RTH? if your within a certain range (thinks its 20m) then it would just land.