Litchi stops mission if connection breaks even briefly, any solutions?

[abluab]

I've encountered an annoying problem while flying autonomously with Litchi, with Dji Mini 2. The drone is near like 50-100m but signal breaks briefly if I happen to turn around or something (I'm skiing (not downhill, just easily on swamps etc) and carrying controller in a belly-pocket). Sometimes even when the controller is pretty much pointing towards the drone, Litchi reports connection loss briefly, but the connection re-establishes quickly, in 1-2 seconds or so. The break in connection, even that brief, causes Litchi to completely stop an autonomous function. Why on earth it does not continue, as the connection re-establishes very quickly? This is such a pain in the ***, because I always need to stop, access my remote, switch to map, select POI, and only then select START to re-start! (orbit mission here for example, not even simpler way to re-start but going thru all that) I need to take my gloves off to use my phone and it's very annoying (it's very cold here) as the mission should comprehensively continue! I get it if the connection is lost for longer period of time, the mission would be cancelled, but why not continue if the break is very brief. Is there any solutions here? I don't know if cold weather makes my connection more poor than normally, but anyways this is what I'm dealing with here.

 

[slup]

Hi there & welcome to the forum

That's how it is for all drones that haven't the mission uploaded & stored in the drone (mainly drones using the DJI Fly app with some exceptions if DJI native WP missions is implemented)... maybe buy an older 2:nd hand drone that uses the DJI GO4 app instead, my Air 1 can continue totally without RC connection... a bit short flight time though.

 

[abluab]

Yes I perfectly know that with Mini 2 it's done with virtual stick movements, and therefore the autonomous flight modes don't function without connection. What I don't understand is, why doesn't Litchi continue the mission as soon as the connection is re-established after such a brief break, but instead you always have to manually restart the mission, including the fact that to (re-)start the orbit function you need to access so many levels of browsing the app. It would so much make sense you could choose an option "auto-continue autonomous flying" or something, that would completely remove this issue. Is this not an issue to more people? I see people driving cars and Mini 2 with Litchi following them great etc. Does their connection not break despite traveling inside a car? Still my connection keeps briefly breaking even tho I'm outside and my drone is nearby. After watching many reviews etc about Litchi, no one has mentioned the problem of missions stopping and not continuing automatically. Do their connection just function so much better they don't encounter this problem. Is there something wrong with my drone/controller, I'm wondering..

 

[slup]

..why doesn't Litchi continue the mission as soon as the connection is re-established after such a brief break

Think it's better if you try this question out directly with Litchi.

...Is this not an issue to more people? I see people driving cars and Mini 2 with Litchi following them great etc. Does their connection not break despite traveling inside a car?

Well.. one reason could be that you're in Finland & your transmission is working under CE mode, which is much weaker power wise than FCC mode which a lot of other countries have. For this reason I have my Air 1 hacked into FCC even though I'm in Sweden.

 

[RodPad]

Welcome to the Forum!

This a follow me type of mission?

I see now you already posted on Litchi and getting answers.

Rod ..

 

[OldGuy]

I've encountered an annoying problem while flying autonomously with Litchi, with Dji Mini 2. The drone is near like 50-100m but signal breaks briefly if I happen to turn around or something (I'm skiing (not downhill, just easily on swamps etc) and carrying controller in a belly-pocket). Sometimes even when the controller is pretty much pointing towards the drone, Litchi reports connection loss briefly, but the connection re-establishes quickly, in 1-2 seconds or so. The break in connection, even that brief, causes Litchi to completely stop an autonomous function. Why on earth it does not continue, as the connection re-establishes very quickly? This is such a pain in the ***, because I always need to stop, access my remote, switch to map, select POI, and only then select START to re-start! (orbit mission here for example, not even simpler way to re-start but going thru all that) I need to take my gloves off to use my phone and it's very annoying (it's very cold here) as the mission should comprehensively continue! I get it if the connection is lost for longer period of time, the mission would be cancelled, but why not continue if the break is very brief. Is there any solutions here? I don't know if cold weather makes my connection more poor than normally, but anyways this is what I'm dealing with here.

Is there another way of carrying the remote so that your body does not absorb/block the signal? In the old days I often lost the signal when moving around and my body got in the way.
These days I fly with an Alientech signal booster on my DJI Mini 3 remote so very rarely lose connection to the drone under almost all circumstances.

 

[KB9Radio]

Yes I perfectly know that with Mini 2 it's done with virtual stick movements, and therefore the autonomous flight modes don't function without connection. What I don't understand is, why doesn't Litchi continue the mission as soon as the connection is re-established after such a brief break, but instead you always have to manually restart the mission, including the fact that to (re-)start the orbit function you need to access so many levels of browsing the app. It would so much make sense you could choose an option "auto-continue autonomous flying" or something, that would completely remove this issue. Is this not an issue to more people? I see people driving cars and Mini 2 with Litchi following them great etc. Does their connection not break despite traveling inside a car? Still my connection keeps briefly breaking even tho I'm outside and my drone is nearby. After watching many reviews etc about Litchi, no one has mentioned the problem of missions stopping and not continuing automatically. Do their connection just function so much better they don't encounter this problem. Is there something wrong with my drone/controller, I'm wondering..

What would it continue to do even in a short signal loss? If it continued straight ahead and it was supposed to turn left right when the signal was lost, it would fly straight into what was in front of it. I realize if you're flying high enough a rough flight path might not be a problem, but what about when it is a problem. Then someone would screaming at them on the phone that it was their fault. The safe action on signal loss (even for a moment) is to stop and end the mission. If it doesn't have the mission loaded into memory, any movement after signal loss would be simply a guess. Litchi won't be responsible for a guess.

Pickup a Mavic 2 Pro or Zoom, they will continue the mission to the end regardless of connection status to the controller. Any drone that uses the GO4 app will work like that I believe.

 

[abluab]

What would it continue to do even in a short signal loss? If it continued straight ahead and it was supposed to turn left right when the signal was lost, it would fly straight into what was in front of it. I realize if you're flying high enough a rough flight path might not be a problem, but what about when it is a problem. Then someone would screaming at them on the phone that it was their fault. The safe action on signal loss (even for a moment) is to stop and end the mission. If it doesn't have the mission loaded into memory, any movement after signal loss would be simply a guess. Litchi won't be responsible for a guess.

Pickup a Mavic 2 Pro or Zoom, they will continue the mission to the end regardless of connection status to the controller. Any drone that uses the GO4 app will work like that I believe.

No no, I don't mean for the drone to continue mission when the signal is lost, but when the signal re-establishes. The signal breaks only for a second in my case, and otherwise signal level is good. (drone is quite near me) The mission could carry onwards as soon as the connection re-establishes after the very brief break, but no, you absolutely have to manually restart it, which requires accessing the controller, the phone screen, menu, buttons, etc. I'd much rather keep my gloves on as it's -30'C XD

And also, I might be filming myself doing something, and would then need to interrupt only to restart the mission,

 

[abluab]

Is there another way of carrying the remote so that your body does not absorb/block the signal? In the old days I often lost the signal when moving around and my body got in the way.
These days I fly with an Alientech signal booster on my DJI Mini 3 remote so very rarely lose connection to the drone under almost all circumstances.

Well, not much, as I want to easily access the RC so it's really conveniously there. Should I carry it on my hat maybe for better signal?

Doesn't the fact the signal is easily broken by turning around or so, make running Litchi missions very unreliable, concidering the fact there's no auto-continue even after a short signal break? A simple auto-continue option would solve the issue. Or at least let me simply re-activate the stopped mission from a custom button on controller, without having to access all sorts of UI on the screen. EDIT: My bad, it seems there IS pause/resume to be bound on custom button. This helps alot in my case, but would still miss an auto-continue as described.

 

[abluab]

And even worse; if you're shooting a 360 panorama, signal break halts that operation too! You have to start all over, you can't resume the function, even tho the signal is back in a second and could carry on :/

 

[GFields]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried any of the tracking features in the fly app? Or, have you tried using "Follow" in litchi?

 

[abluab]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried any of the tracking features in the fly app? Or, have you tried using "Follow" in litchi?

Yeah I've used both, why?

 

[abluab]

It seems the custom button on controller does help to (re)start the mission, as not having to access Litchi from phone screen. Still, auto-continue after signal re-establishment, would be a great option to have.