Mavic Air follow me while decreasing altitude (start at the top of the mountain, finish at the base)

ovisopa · Jul 23, 2018

Hello to all Air owners!

A few days ago I started a new thread but I think in the wrong section, so I got no answers from Air owners unfortunately

I understood that Mavic Air will not fly bellow the homepoint while in active track mode (follow me), does anyone knows if there is another DJI small drone that is able to do this? kind of stupid it doesn't do it with so many sensors onboard.

While in Active track (after it started following me) do I have any control of the altitude ? Can I lower the altitude manually , to fly bellow the takeoff point ? Let's say it followed me on a 400m trail down the mountain, and the new elevation is 100m lower, it would be great if I could from time to time, lower the altitude by moving the throttle stick down, is this possible ?

Also from reviews it seems the Air doesn't have the Follow me mode, that Mavic Pro has, and also Spark has it , not even in the latest update? You guys still don't have that mode? To me it seems more reliable to have this mode, to follow the gps coordinates of the remote/smart phone.

Thank you in advance for any replies!

scotte · Jul 23, 2018

I'm trying to remember - I played around with active track one day. If I'm not mistaken I had control of altitude and the right stick rotated around the target.

tcope · Jul 23, 2018

ovisopa said:
I understood that Mavic Air will not fly bellow the homepoint while in active track mode (follow me), does anyone knows if there is another DJI small drone that is able to do this? kind of stupid it doesn't do it with so many sensors onboard.

What I can tell you is that in Active Track mode the Air will maintain it's altitude (both acceding and descending) using the ultrasonic sensors on the bottom. So this will only work when it is 30' or less above the ground. Unfortunate I did not think to test this below the homepoint. I'm not sure that it won't go below the homepoint.

ovisopa said:
Can I lower the altitude manually , to fly bellow the takeoff point ? Let's say it followed me on a 400m trail down the mountain, and the new elevation is 100m lower, it would be great if I could from time to time, lower the altitude by moving the throttle stick down, is this possible ?

Yes, you can fly it as normal. There are several different Active Track Modes that may change the way the Air flies but you can always control it with the sticks. As mentioned above, I've not tested this below the homepoint.

ovisopa said:
Also from reviews it seems the Air doesn't have the Follow me mode, that Mavic Pro has, and also Spark has it , not even in the latest update? You guys still don't have that mode? To me it seems more reliable to have this mode, to follow the gps coordinates of the remote/smart phone.

Follow Me mode was terrible. While Active Track is not that good either, Follow Me was even worse. It was dependent on your display devices GPS, which was iffy, but it just did not work very well. I suspect with Active Track, that Follow Me mode never really worked and the issues with various display devices that this is why DJI dropped it.

DJI's Active Track mode is not really that great either. IMHO, this mode is what every drone will need to have in the near future. One of the problems is the amount of processing power required. 3D mapping and visual detection takes a TON of CPU power. There are newer drones that do this very well... but they also run about 10x the cost. It is easy enough to jam sensors into a drone but to process all of that data is the difficult part. I suspect DJI has made big advances in this area but just have not released it into new drones as they would be competing with themselves.

ovisopa · Jul 23, 2018

scotte said:
I'm trying to remember - I played around with active track one day. If I'm not mistaken I had control of altitude and the right stick rotated around the target.

This is what I'm expecting to be able to control while in ACTIVE TRACK mode (throttle stick fort altitude, right stick to rotate around subject), but it would be great to have the altitude automatically lowering if the subject is also moving at a lower altitude.

tcope said:
What I can tell you is that in Active Track mode the Air will maintain it's altitude (both acceding and descending) using the ultrasonic sensors on the bottom. So this will only work when it is 30' or less above the ground. Unfortunate I did not think to test this below the homepoint. I'm not sure that it won't go below the homepoint.

Yes, you can fly it as normal. There are several different Active Track Modes that may change the way the Air flies but you can always control it with the sticks. As mentioned above, I've not tested this below the homepoint.

The follow me video I think could be better if the movement was faster or on a larger area. But was there an FOLLOW ME mode on the MAVIC AIR too ? Follow me using GPS , while walking, I'm not expecting also to be too good, but while walking I'm sure the Active track does a good job, the problem is when we ride and for a short period of time there's a bush or a tree between me and the drone, active track will surely lose me, what will happen next? This takes me again o another question I have for you Air owners, does it have DYNAMIC HOME POINT ? Or the homepoint can only be changed manually ?
If I ride for 5 minutes and than a tree will be between me and the AIR, will the drone go back where we started? Or it will go back where it seen me for the last time ?

I'm planing to get my next drone, for holly-days travel and for my enduro rides only, I keep the Inspire 1 for business purpose and I definitely want a smaller one for fun, while riding the enduro bike I very often reach on the top of the mountain, and the landscape is sometimes incredible, I'm so happy that I can ride my bike for just one hour (from 400m altitude) and reach the clear top of the mountains (1100 - 1600m), and now I also want to have a better view, other than my gopro's view that is almost always with me.

Also I would want the drone to follow me while snowboarding , in this case the it's even more mandatory to have the drone follow you bellow the HOME POINT, while riding down the mountain the drone should descend a lot under it's homepoint. Anyone knows for sure if this happens ? Or if it can manually be set (from remote's sticks) to fly at a lower altitude while following me using ACTIVE TRACK ? Do you guys know other drone at the same price range that can do this automatically ?

tcope · Jul 23, 2018

ovisopa said:
The follow me video I think could be better if the movement was faster or on a larger area.

It does not get much better as it polls the display devices GPS coordinates just every so often. I would probably work better if the controller were moving in a straight line at a content speed. But then Follow Me mode is of little value.

ovisopa said:
But was there an FOLLOW ME mode on the MAVIC AIR too ?

Not that I recall. I think DJI knew it did not work well and it was better to develop Active Track (being a different technology).

ovisopa said:
This takes me again o another question I have for you Air owners, does it have DYNAMIC HOME POINT ? Or the homepoint can only be changed manually ?
If I ride for 5 minutes and than a tree will be between me and the AIR, will the drone go back where we started? Or it will go back where it seen me for the last time ?

If/When the Mavic looses the subject it will usually hover for a moment but then it will respond to the RTH setting. This is where I think DJI dropped the ball in their software. If RTH is set to RTH, as it usually is, the Mavic will then attempt to fly back to the homepoint. That could be miles away. You should be changing the RTH setting to Hover when using Active Track.

Dynamic Mode is pointless. It is basically Hover with added problems. Dynamic Mode differs from Hover in one way... the Mavic will fly up to 15' back on its track and attempt to land. Why not simply select Hover and it will stay in place, giving you a chance to regain control, and it will land if no connection.

ovisopa said:
Also I would want the drone to follow me while snowboarding , in this case the it's even more mandatory to have the drone follow you bellow the HOME POINT, while riding down the mountain the drone should descend a lot under it's homepoint.

While anything is possible... it ain't gonna happen. Given the terrain and the tracking issues you are going to spend 99% of your time trying to get the Mavic to track you and 1% filming. You might do better but I'm just being realistic. Also, most ski resorts don't allow drones.

ovisopa said:
Anyone knows for sure if this happens ? Or if it can manually be set (from remote's sticks) to fly at a lower altitude while following me using ACTIVE TRACK ? Do you guys know other drone at the same price range that can do this automatically ?

It will descend but only if it is 30' or lower to the ground already. Also, at anything faster then a fast walk, it becomes more and more iffy. It _is_ pretty good at tracking and acceding and deceasing while tracking a good object at a walk or fast walking speed.

ovisopa · Jul 24, 2018

tcope, thank you for detailed reply

tcope said:
It does not get much better as it polls the display devices GPS coordinates just every so often. I would probably work better if the controller were moving in a straight line at a content speed. But then Follow Me mode is of little value.

I'm always recording an GPS track where I ride with my dirtbike, and the track is quite consistent when you look in google earth at multiple tracks at once, in a clear area, all the tracks are one over the other, the same coordonates ware recorded, so GPS should be good enough, only under the trees I have a few meters difference between the tracks, but anyway, I won't let the drone automatically follow me under the trees, I will use the automatic modes only in clear areas.

tcope said:
If/When the Mavic looses the subject it will usually hover for a moment but then it will respond to the RTH setting. This is where I think DJI dropped the ball in their software. If RTH is set to RTH, as it usually is, the Mavic will then attempt to fly back to the homepoint. That could be miles away. You should be changing the RTH setting to Hover when using Active Track.

Dynamic Mode is pointless. It is basically Hover with added problems. Dynamic Mode differs from Hover in one way... the Mavic will fly up to 15' back on its track and attempt to land. Why not simply select Hover and it will stay in place, giving you a chance to regain control, and it will land if no connection.

If it can be set to HOVER, this is great, because I'm not expecting total loss of communication, I never losed the communication between the Inspire and the remote, but I did had problems with the video stream losing connection. So, if Mavic AIR, can be set to just HOVER when losing track in ACTIVE TRACK mode, that is great, I anyway don't ride alone, one of the riders, probably me, will be behind the drone, if I'll see the drone is stopping I'll probably stop and restart the ACTIVE TRACK process, or pack it in the backpack.

tcope said:
While anything is possible... it ain't gonna happen. Given the terrain and the tracking issues you are going to spend 99% of your time trying to get the Mavic to track you and 1% filming. You might do better but I'm just being realistic. Also, most ski resorts don't allow drones.

I usually like to freeride with my snowboard, I'm going to ski resorts but don't use the ski slopes everyone uses, I'm searching for powder places to go down the mountain, where there are not to many people around to mess the ACTIVE TRACKING, something like this video, done with a GoPro Karma, but I think Karma is an discontinued product .. and is also much much bigger than the AIR, but the karma it seems it follows the rider and changes the altitude also .. check this video, to me the FOLLOW ME mode works great, if I was there I would just have the drone a little closer to me, and at a little lower altitude

tcope said:
It will descend but only if it is 30' or lower to the ground already. Also, at anything faster then a fast walk, it becomes more and more iffy. It _is_ pretty good at tracking and acceding and deceasing while tracking a good object at a walk or fast walking speed.

30' is around 9 meters, right ? that is enough, and probably I will try to fly it lower than that but if it doesn't follow me under the altitude of the homepoint is the main concern, if it will stay at the homepoint altitude , the tracked subject will be smaller and smaller, until it will be to small to track.

Also I need to make a kind of custom made "open case" to mount the controller and the phone on my backpack .. this is a must, as I don't know yet how I would carry the controller and the phone while ACTIVE TRACKING.

ovisopa · Jul 24, 2018

@tcope please, next time you fly your mavic air, can you make a test with active track, going down the road , to see if it will fly bellow the homepoints altitude? And if it not go automatically under homepoint's altitude, can you please try the throttle stick, to see if it will go under homepoint altitude if there is an manual command done by the pilot

Thank you.

PS. Is really Mavic Air able to Active track without a smartphone connected to the remote? By gestures. I was sure the tracking is done on the smartphone, but if this is true, than the trac king is done by Mavic's CPU, not on the smartphone side, as I knew.

tcope · Jul 24, 2018

ovisopa said:
I'm always recording an GPS track where I ride with my dirtbike, and the track is quite consistent when you look in google earth at multiple tracks at once, in a clear area, all the tracks are one over the other, the same coordonates ware recorded, so GPS should be good enough, only under the trees I have a few meters difference between the tracks, but anyway, I won't let the drone automatically follow me under the trees, I will use the automatic modes only in clear areas.

The issue is not the GPS coordinates, it is sending those coordinates to the drone and the drone reacting to them. It is just too slow. The faster the object being followed, the worse it will be. You think by the name that the drone will "follow" the object. It does not really do this. At intervals it points a straight line to the objects new location. It then starts to fly in that one direction. If it polls the position of the object before it gets to that point, it changes direction again... before it gets to where the object was.

ovisopa said:
So, if Mavic AIR, can be set to just HOVER when losing track in ACTIVE TRACK mode, that is great, I anyway don't ride alone, one of the riders, probably me, will be behind the drone, if I'll see the drone is stopping I'll probably stop and restart the ACTIVE TRACK process, or pack it in the backpack.

It will hover. I attempted to follow myself on a bike a few times. It just never worked out for me. It would loose track of me visually and I'd need to stop and set it all up again. I spent about 15 minutes and got it to work for about 20 seconds in all. I've seen video of other people using it to follow their bike riding and it seemed to work much better for them. So YMMV.

ovisopa said:
I usually like to freeride with my snowboard, I'm going to ski resorts but don't use the ski slopes everyone uses, I'm searching for powder places to go down the mountain, where there are not to many people around to mess the ACTIVE TRACKING, something like this video, done with a GoPro Karma, but I think Karma is an discontinued product .. and is also much much bigger than the AIR, but the karma it seems it follows the rider and changes the altitude also .. check this video, to me the FOLLOW ME mode works great, if I was there I would just have the drone a little closer to me, and at a little lower altitude...

As I understand, this is a "leash mode", meaning that it is following the GPS coordinates from the Karma's controller. Active Track is not like this. Leash mode is more like Follow Me. Follow Me would word the same... from that height. If you only want to see a dot on the big hill, it would work. I would guess that the Karma is 200' away from the person. The shot is so big, even if the Karma did not move, the person would still be in that shot. In the case of Follow Me and Active Track, that distance will get further and further the father you went downhill.

ovisopa · Jul 25, 2018

tcope said:
The issue is not the GPS coordinates, it is sending those coordinates to the drone and the drone reacting to them. It is just too slow. The faster the object being followed, the worse it will be. You think by the name that the drone will "follow" the object. It does not really do this. At intervals it points a straight line to the objects new location.

Do you really think the issue is sending the coordinates to MA? I don't think this could be an issue as the remote already sends in a digital way the video stream and the controllers input, also all the other settings that we change regarding the camera or the drone, and the settings apply instantaneously, when you change a setting in the camera you see the result right away. I believe it's related to the ability to controll / predict the location accuracy, as there are hundreds of smartphones that could be used as the controller, not knowing what's the gps accuracy can lead to "follow" the wrong coordinates. Anyway, I don't know why they don't combine the active track with gps, when Active Track is losing the subject, it should than follow the gps coordinates.

tcope said:
As I understand, this is a "leash mode", meaning that it is following the GPS coordinates from the Karma's controller. Active Track is not like this. Leash mode is more like Follow Me. Follow Me would word the same... from that height. If you only want to see a dot on the big hill, it would work. I would guess that the Karma is 200' away from the person. The shot is so big, even if the Karma did not move, the person would still be in that shot. In the case of Follow Me and Active Track, that distance will get further and further the father you went downhill.

I also mention that the drone in the video I posted was a little to far away, but it seems the drone is following the controller quite well, the controller has it's own gps, maybe a very good one.

The Gopro Karma is quite large for what I want, the best drone I seen so far (mid 2018) is definitely the Skydio R1, there is no other commercial product at this price range to do what Skydio does, but that is 3 times the price of Mavic Air, and I'm not willing to spend that much for holidays and enduro trips videos, and also is quite large, and can't be fold

I think I will buy the Mavic Air this week, hopefully it will work better than yours, I also would try the Litchi app , and there is another app that supports Mavic Air and also follow me mode, to see if I have better luck. Will see. Will post back when I have the drone

Thank you so far.

ovisopa · Aug 6, 2018

Just a short reply after flying with MA about 3 flights, over the water

I like it so far, the image quality is awesome, I only tried once to use ACTIVE TRACK while we used a 4 person pedal boat (slow speed) it tracked great until I tried to make a circle around us while moving, it did a little more than half of the circle, starting from our back to the left, it followed us perfectly when it was in front of us, but when it moved to our right we ware quite close to the drone so it lost us, it didn't "compensate enough" for the fact that we moved forward while it was circling around.

Air Beetle · Aug 6, 2018

I think Litchi does follow you downhill but I haven't looked at it for awhile. I think snowboarding is a perfect use of it with high contrast against the snow but I snowboard way too fast to have it keep up. Motocross is way too fast too. You will have to shoot multiple angles and then edit it all into a movie old school style.

ovisopa · Aug 30, 2018

A few videos with my tests so far, at the beginning I tried using Active Track, but that can only be used on "clean" landscape successfully, going up/down or having a lot of trees/objects in the background will most likely make the drone stop / it will lose the followed subject (I still don't understand why they don't combine active track with GPS, at least for the moments when visually tracking fails it should follow the GPS coordinate to reach the subject.)

Obstacle collision works great, so far

I already purchased Litchi but to my surprise they still don't offer the FOLLOW ME option on iOS, only on android devices (I don't have one) .. so I could not try Litchi's Follow me option yet.

A few days ago I purchased Autopilot by Hangar, and I still test it but because I only have only one battery it's quite a limited test, I don't want to test it as walking or riding on straight road, I want to make real test with up's and down's as that's how my enduro rides are.
Autopilot will not "lose" you (I did about 30 - 40 minutes of Follow Me with Mavic Air and Autopilot by Hangar) but because of a stupid behaviour (in my opinion) it will fly quite far away, and you need to stop so it will catch you up. The behaviour I'm talking about is the changing altitude, this is stopping the Mavic from forward flight, or slow it quite a lot, just to increase altitude, than it flies forward again, than stop and increase altitude .. and so on, because all the stops it mades while I'm going uphill it will be further and further away from me , even if on settings I set it up to be at 10 meter distance, 7 minute altitude with 5m tolerance for altitude and distance.

Responsiveness. I did try to change it but only tried 1 second instead of Instant. I want to try with a much higher value, like 10 seconds. But this I don't think has anything to do with altitude changes, and the way Autopilot controls the altitude.

In the next days / weeks I will do more tests, right now I want to test the Autopilot app more, to see if I can make it fly more smoothly. I also contacted Hangar, last night, I'm curious what they suggest, if there is anything to change to have it ascend while flying forward, instead of stopping forward motion, ascending, continue forward motion.

Mavic Air / DJI Go 4 / Active track / Test #1 - Following a Dirt Bike
- Slow speed
- Trace and Profile test
- Flat terrain

Mavic Air / DJI Go 4 / Active track / Test #2 - Following a Dirt Bike uphill
- Still slow speed (max 30km/h)
- Uphill terrain

Mavic Air / DJI Go 4 / Active track / Test #3 - Following a Dirt Bike
- Higher speed at the end of the video (44km/h)
- Flat terrain
- Obstacle detection worked, collision avoided

PS. Always increase the Speed slider to the maximum in the DJI Go 4, so it can keep track of the subject, when riding at maximum 50km/h ... if you ride faster than that it will loose quite quickly (the subject will be smaller and smaller)

Mavic Air / Autopilot by Hangar / Follow me / Test #4 - Following a Dirt Bike uphill and downhill
- default settings
- bearing reference COURSE
- bearing angle BEHIND
- altitude 8m (6 or 8m .. I always try to have it as close as I can to me)
- distance ~15m (I don't remember exactly)
- risking a lot at 3:00 , just a few seconds before I got of the track because it appeared the drone was at the same height with the powerlines, I went a little lower hoping the drone will over pass, as it seemed it was quite high

Mavic Air / Autopilot by Hangar / Follow me / Test #5 - Following a Dirt Bike uphill and downhill
- default settings
- bearing reference COURSE
- bearing angle RIGHT

InvisibleName · Aug 30, 2018

Strikes me as madness flying in an auto mode, or any other mode for that matter, near and through power lines

ovisopa · Aug 30, 2018

It was an remote area, I couldn't harm anyone, and neither I could create any damage to anything! I don't know why so much madness?

PS. I'm building and flying drones since 2010, started with an tricopter, than a H quad, than an hexacopter which I used professionally for more than 3 years, than I gave it away to a friend's daughter that loves like crazy those drones. I than made a bigger hexacopter to carry a Sony Nex7 but in the same time I purchased an brand new Inspire 1 which I still have and use. I always was very careful when flying in populated areas and don't risk at all, I only flown indoor when the place was empty (I did fly inside alot, in empty churches), refused a few events because I didn't want to fly indoor with people around. Mavic Air was purchased recently only for this type of videos, nothing professionally, I just want to have some aerial shots with my enduro rides, ofcourse I will have it with me when going to visit places with my family, but I mostly got it for my enduro rides. I know I risk it when going near the power lines, but that was what I wanted, all those videos ware just tests, for each video I posted above, I went in the remote area just to make the test video, to see how it flies with the new settings, with the new apps, than come back home....

InvisibleName · Aug 30, 2018

No, I meant risking your drone not the public. I can see you’re in open land. Mind, I wouldn’t want the bill if you did cause damage to the power lines!

tcope · Aug 30, 2018

ovisopa said:
I already purchased Litchi but to my surprise they still don't offer the FOLLOW ME option on iOS, only on android devices (I don't have one) .. so I could not try Litchi's Follow me option yet.

A few days ago I purchased Autopilot by Hangar, and I still test it but because I only have only one battery it's quite a limited test, I don't want to test it as walking or riding on straight road, I want to make real test with up's and down's as that's how my enduro rides are.

I have Litchi, don't have Autopilot and never used either for visual tracking. There was a company, name escapes me, that created visual tracking for the P3 even before DJI had it. It worked _very_ well... even better then Active Track does not for DJI.

Personally, I think visual tracking is something that will be (is) a main feature of drones. I also think DJI has done a very poor job in this area. While it works on some cases and work "okay", it is still not good enough to really function as it needs to.

ovisopa · Aug 30, 2018

I would combine Visual Tracking with GPS for backup, I think this could work great if they will use the GPS coordinates of the phone/remote, when tracking doesn't work because of some obstacles between the subject and the aircraft, and I don't mean obstacle that could have the drone crash in , just objects that could hide for a few seconds the subject.

I think a GPS follow system is much better for my needs, but so far Autopilot does some weird things, today I didn't had time to test the RESPONSIVENESS option yet, but this option as I understand from the minimal documentation, only applies to forward / backward / left / right movements, the altitude change is dealt by other parameters, and my main problem is with the altitude change behaviour, when the aircraft is changing it's altitude, it stops the forward movement

and this is why the drone will be farther and farther away from the subject, it needs to pause the forward flying to change the altitude, why not have the altitude change while flying forward ?

4.4 Movement Parameters
Responsiveness
The shortest amount of time that Autopilot is allowed to completely reverse the power output on a given axis. For example, if 1 second is selected, the aircraft will not shift from 100% forward pitch to 100% backward pitch in less than 1 second. Higher values will favor smoother motion changes while lower values will favor precise aircraft positioning.

Altitude Priority
The maximum allowable difference between the current aircraft altitude and the target altitude. If the difference is exceeded either positively or negatively, Autopilot will ascend or descend to close the gap before performing any other operations such as lateral movement, and a visual warning will also be displayed on the Flight Dashboard. If the Aircraft is in motion when Altitude Priority is activated, you may see the aircraft stop abruptly. Autopilot must assume that danger is imminent and, therefore, it prefers powered braking over smooth flight.

The text above is a part of Autopilot documentation, I could not find an option to disable ALTITUDE PRIORITY. I think I will open a new thread regarding Autopilot only, in the dedicated category of this forum. I got no word yet from Autopilot, after I sent them yesterday an message, I'm expecting some kind of support from apps that we need to purchase to use them, and it wasn't a cheap one, hopefully they will reply and offer some sollutions.

Wish you a nice evening to all, maybe tomorrow I'll have some time to go out and test again the responsiveness option, I'm really curious to see the behaviour of the drone with that option changed from INSTANT to 10 seconds.

webvan · Aug 31, 2018

Congrats on your efforts, having a drone follow you is generally an incredibly frustrating experience ! Tried it with the Bebop 2, the Spark, a headache unless you're doing simple stuff like walking or riding your bike slowly ;-)

You were asking about altitude changes and Parrot do have that covered by using the barometer sensor of compatible phones (all recent iPhones have one) that can detect tiny altitude changes, just like the barometer inside the drones. The Bebop was pretty big but the new Anafi is tiny and powerful. Too bad it doesn't offer pano or sphere shots though for now...

ovisopa · Aug 31, 2018

My old iPhone 5S doesn't have a barometer, but my problem is not regarding low accuracy of the altitude provided by the phone, but instead the way the app controls the altitude change.

On DJI GO 4 using active track, it did a very poor job while climbing the hill on the dirt bike, it's also so sensitive on the selected subject, that I had problems many times, after I put the backpack on my back, it already lost me, I didn't even started to move and it lost me. But on flat terrain, with the slider for the SPEED, set to the maximum, it did a good job following me on my dirt bike, at a 45km/h speed.

Autopilot by Hangar, does seem to keep up with me because it always has my GPS location, but I hate the way it handles altitude changes, I don't understand why they do it that way, why they stop the forward movement to rise the altitude, why not making it in the same time? This is why the drones is so far behind me , after a minute or two, because it had to stop so many times to increase/decrease altitude. I will try to set the ALTITUDE PRIORITY to a higher value, like 25 meters, but I think the Autopilot will not change the altitude of the drone unless the subject moved to a 25 meters higher/lower altitude. I hope I am wrong, but when i'll have time, I will ride again at that hill climb, as that is a good place to test the altitude changes.

About Litchi, unfortunately I don't have a good Android phone, and sincerely I don't want to buy another app (or the same app twice), just to test it if it works as it should. I still hope they will include the FOLLOW ME option on iOS too. On their official Facebook group I got not official reply regarding the missing FOLLOW ME mode on iOS.

tcope · Aug 31, 2018

ovisopa said:
On DJI GO 4 using active track, it did a very poor job while climbing the hill on the dirt bike, it's also so sensitive on the selected subject, that I had problems many times, after I put the backpack on my back, it already lost me, I didn't even started to move and it lost me. But on flat terrain, with the slider for the SPEED, set to the maximum, it did a good job following me on my dirt bike, at a 45km/h speed.

I've done a lot of testing using Active Track on the Go app. Not so much using Litchi (it has been so long since I used Litchi that I did not know it even had anything like that). Perhaps I'll do some more testing using Litchi. I have a video I need to get out on Active Track, perhaps I could make a part 2 and show Litchi.

I've always said, I don't think DJI has done a good job with Active Track and I see it as being very important in in the future (as well as now). Keep in mind, while the Mavic will adjust it's altitude, this only happens under the guidance of the ultrasonic sensors. So the Mavic will only change altitude if it's 30' and lower. If you start higher up, there _might_ be a delay as the ultrasonic's start working. i'm not 100% sure about this.