Mavic Remote with iPhone

kcoleman805 · Mar 17, 2017

Two days ago I was flying my drone with my iPhone battery at 40%. I took off and started flying across this snowy meadow. After about two minutes of flying, I get the 20% battery notification and then 1 minute later I get the 10% batter notification and then another minute later the phone died with the drone 2,000 ft away from me. I had to use the RTH button to save my drone.

I then plugged my phone in to charge and when it booted up it still had 32% battery remaining on the phone. Has anyone else had this issue when flying with their Mavic using an iPhone, and is this a DJI issue or an Apple issue?

horizontal · Mar 17, 2017

I think it is more of an Apple issue but I am only going by what I experienced this winter. On cooler days my phone would nearly die and report less capacity. When it continued to have inconsistent readings I took it in and the techs said that is an indication of a bad battery. Upon replacing it there were no longer readings like that.

Another friend had the same thing happen. The caveat is that it was not while flying... just low readings in cooler temperatures. But I am betting it was only the phone, not the controller causing it.

plrogers1126 · Mar 17, 2017

Had a big problem with that exact issue on my iPhone 6. Tried my daughters iPhone 6s+ it did not have that trouble. I purchased an iPhone 7+ also no issue. My iPhone 6 was useless for flying

rossmoney · Mar 17, 2017

kcoleman805 said:
Two days ago I was flying my drone with my iPhone battery at 40%. I took off and started flying across this snowy meadow. After about two minutes of flying, I get the 20% battery notification and then 1 minute later I get the 10% batter notification and then another minute later the phone died with the drone 2,000 ft away from me. I had to use the RTH button to save my drone.

I then plugged my phone in to charge and when it booted up it still had 32% battery remaining on the phone. Has anyone else had this issue when flying with their Mavic using an iPhone, and is this a DJI issue or an Apple issue?

This app uses quite a bit of battery on the iPhone.
for example, I have a brand new iPhone 7 plus and about 45 minutes of flight time drained the battery to almost half from 100%

It all depends on which iPhone you have. The 6s has a known issue related to batteries shutting down before they are really dead.
Apple will replace your battery for free if you qualify for the program.
If you have an iPhone 6 or even 6 plus, then chances are the battery is just old and needs to be replaced (they tend to last about 2-ish years) and they're $79 to replace at an apple store.

Just to reiterate, this app drains TONS of battery. and it makes sense. it's caching video, it's streaming video, your brightness is usually all the way up, it's using your GPS location, it's interfacing with a remote... the list goes on.

I do wish the remote would charge the iPhone when it gets low though....

hope this helps!

plrogers1126 · Mar 17, 2017

There is a definite problem with SOME iPhones. It is not old batteries, weak batteries period. There is an issue that causes the phone to falsely report its out of juice and shut off. I can replicate this at will on several phones and cannot reproduce at all on specific others and all exhibit similar characteristics of life and capacity in all other situations. I'm so sick of people trying to dismiss this as simply old weak or underpowered batteries, it isn't!!!

rossmoney · Mar 17, 2017

plrogers1126 said:
There is a definite problem with SOME iPhones. It is not old batteries, weak batteries period. There is an issue that causes the phone to falsely report its out of juice and shut off. I can replicate this at will on several phones and cannot reproduce at all on specific others and all exhibit similar characteristics of life and capacity in all other situations. I'm so sick of people trying to dismiss this as simply old weak or underpowered batteries, it isn't!!!

Yowza! You must work at the Apple Store