Litchi Beta for Mavic Air 2, Use Extreme Caution

Pappy · Dec 31, 2020

I was testing the settings for the Litchi Beta now that it supports Mavic Air 2. The one setting to not f*** around with is the "Vision Positioning System". I turned it OFF and when I pulled the left stick down it went straight down with NO braking. I was able to stop it about a foot from the ground. It gets better. If you leave this setting OFF when you exit the Litchi app, come back the next day and use the Fly app, you'll notice erratic hovering for a good 3-5m variance and is very difficult to fly. When I did the normal hand landing, the MA2 just plopped in my hand (no gentle landing). I switched back to the Litchi Beta app to check the "Vision Positioning System" setting and it was STILL OFF. So settings that Litchi gives you access to, but are not available in the Fly app, will retain the setting.

Are there any other warnings for new LItchi users that the community should be aware of?

elborak · Dec 31, 2020

Definitely appreciate the warning, but the "Extreme Caution" title is a bit alarmist. You deliberately turned off an important safety feature, then observed that it did indeed no longer have that safeguard. It may be true that Litchi gives you a bit more rope, but it's still up to the pilot to not hang himself.

Tufargon · Dec 31, 2020

Appreciate the info. I'd hate to find out the hard way. Thumbswayup

EyesWideShut · Dec 31, 2020

Pappy said:
I was testing the settings for the Litchi Beta now that it supports Mavic Air 2. The one setting to not f*** around with is the "Vision Positioning System". I turned it OFF and when I pulled the left stick down it went straight down with NO braking. I was able to stop it about a foot from the ground. It gets better. If you leave this setting OFF when you exit the Litchi app, come back the next day and use the Fly app, you'll notice erratic hovering for a good 3-5m variance and is very difficult to fly. When I did the normal hand landing, the MA2 just plopped in my hand (no gentle landing). I switched back to the Litchi Beta app to check the "Vision Positioning System" setting and it was STILL OFF. So settings that Litchi gives you access to, but are not available in the Fly app, will retain the setting.

Are there any other warnings for new LItchi users that the community should be aware of?

I had a similar experience a few months back with a previous beta version for the mini and posted my experience with erratic positioning while in the Fly app and having to go back into Litchi to turn off a few settings.

Back then there were two separate settings in Litchi you could turn off. One for Visual Positioning (for position accuracy) and the other turned off the Proximity sensor so your descent to land was controlled just by the stick, not by how close to the ground you were.

Guess Litchi has now combined the two functions and we better be aware switching from 3rd party app to the Fly app.

drone_video · Jan 1, 2021

Pappy said:
I was testing the settings for the Litchi Beta now that it supports Mavic Air 2. The one setting to not f*** around with is the "Vision Positioning System". I turned it OFF and when I pulled the left stick down it went straight down with NO braking. I was able to stop it about a foot from the ground. It gets better. If you leave this setting OFF when you exit the Litchi app, come back the next day and use the Fly app, you'll notice erratic hovering for a good 3-5m variance and is very difficult to fly. When I did the normal hand landing, the MA2 just plopped in my hand (no gentle landing). I switched back to the Litchi Beta app to check the "Vision Positioning System" setting and it was STILL OFF. So settings that Litchi gives you access to, but are not available in the Fly app, will retain the setting.

Are there any other warnings for new LItchi users that the community should be aware of?

Do you have the change log of what’s new in the beta version you were using ? When I looked at the change logs I can only see the ones up to nov 29 and no mention of mini 2 support. I was wondering if it supports way points and tracking.

DHLA · Jan 2, 2021

i think the reason is iOS vs. Android. I understand the Android beta is released, but iOS waiting for the next version of the DJI SDK because the iOS SDK was buggy... if I had more time to fly, i'd be looking at picking up an android phone just for this, now.

drone_video said:
Do you have the change log of what’s new in the beta version you were using ? When I looked at the change logs I can only see the ones up to nov 29 and no mention of mini 2 support. I was wondering if it supports way points and tracking.

Tufargon · Jan 2, 2021

drone_video said:
Do you have the change log of what’s new in the beta version you were using ? When I looked at the change logs I can only see the ones up to nov 29 and no mention of mini 2 support. I was wondering if it supports way points and tracking.

Probably because the SDK hasn't been released for the Mini 2 yet. That could be months out like it was for the MA2.