Minimum height warning ?

[icesailr]

Has anyone wondered why a minimum height setting with a warning is not available like the max height setting that warns you when you reach that? I've had a few instances of almost splashing down when filming surfers and fast moving boats. A warning would seem easy to dupelicate the max height warning?

 

[mavic3usa]

The purpose of a max height setting is two fold: to stop your drone from exceeding the height in which you have predetermined to be as high as you want to fly or allowed to fly.....and, probably (i don't know this for sure) to keep your drone from flying off into space if there is a problem, a malfunction, and the drone disconnects and flies away. Theoretically it should not float away up into the heavens and past the airliners or whatever....anyway, it isn't there to prevent you from hitting something overhead. If you fly in restricted airspace and you are not supposed to exceed 200 feet AGL then you can enable the setting and should your lose track of your altitude or the drone moves very quickly before you can react, you can at least keep it from straying too far away into unwanted airspace. It's not supremely accurate so it could be off by a few feet or so but you get the point....keeps you from going up into the 300s where you don't belong. Obviously this is AGL so it's all relative.

Conversely, asking for a lower limit is asking for trouble since it appears you would like to keep the drone from hitting something hard beneath it like the ground or the water. Obviously this won't be accurate since the height about the ground is not constant and even if it were, the accuracy of the equipment just isn't there for this to be effective meaning if you are off by 6 inches, that could still be a disaster. After flying for a long period of time and your accuracy degraded, you could hit the ground even with the limit set. I don't believe you are asking for settings like 50 feet or 75 feet because that wouldn't be needed unless you were flying in an around where there is a canopy and you wouldn't want to go lower under any circumstances unless you were landing....or trying to avoid a collision which the lower limit might block you (i.e. unsafe). Without bottom sensors on the drone that can detect precisely how high off the ground you are, this isn't very effective in terms of "minimum height" if you are trying to prevent from hitting the ground.

But what does work is what you have in the FPV drone where you get within 8 feet of the ground and your lower sensors will light up and the indicator (in the goggles) countdown as you get closer to the ground. You can fly on the deck under a foot high as you continuous read the setting and I don't know this for sure but the sensors aid in keeping you off the deck while you are flying [forward]. Or, as in the Skydio, you set a floor e.g. 8 feet. So when the drone is flying automatically (not under your control) and dodging everything all around it, the drone is free to fly everywhere *except* lower than 8 feet to the ground. Now you can have your drone follow you thru traffic and it will stay above the moving cars (which are difficult to dodge) and it won't hit people (who are less than 8 feet tall). I suspect with Skydio out of business, DJI will slowly adopt all the cool consumer features they left behind....and there are quite a few. Sorry, can't speak to what is adopted in 3rd party apps.

Sorry for the long explanation.

 

[Dave Maine]

The DJI barometric altimeter is not accurate or repeatable enough for this to be practical.

 

[icesailr]

Thank you both. I hope it is OK to say I know all you've explained...except about the FPV warning system. I wasn't hoping for a failsafe....if I'd phrased it better, I was just asking for a Warning like the FPV has. That warning would not be something I'd Set and Forget , however it could possibly save a drone loss, or at least make flying low over water as mentioned less stressful. When shooting Surfers I'd still have to be well aware of Waves. ;-) Thanks again for your replies.

 

[mavic3usa]

Thank you both. I hope it is OK to say I know all you've explained...except about the FPV warning system. I wasn't hoping for a failsafe....if I'd phrased it better, I was just asking for a Warning like the FPV has. That warning would not be something I'd Set and Forget , however it could possibly save a drone loss, or at least make flying low over water as mentioned less stressful. When shooting Surfers I'd still have to be well aware of Waves. ;-) Thanks again for your replies.

No problem. Often DJI will adopt features from the FPV to the regular drones, the H Homepoint being one of them. Perhaps you get this low-altitude warning when using the regular drones with Goggles and MC2 in FPV mode, I haven't checked. But yes it's a very helpful feature because it's not always clear how far you are away from the ground if your camera is not tilted properly.

 

[RangerEd]

Has anyone wondered why a minimum height setting with a warning is not available like the max height setting that warns you when you reach that? I've had a few instances of almost splashing down when filming surfers and fast moving boats. A warning would seem easy to dupelicate the max height warning?

Not a bad idea. Send it to DJI as a suggestion.

 

[EyesWideShut]

Has anyone wondered why a minimum height setting with a warning is not available like the max height setting that warns you when you reach that? I've had a few instances of almost splashing down when filming surfers and fast moving boats. A warning would seem easy to dupelicate the max height warning?

You don't mention what model you're flying but I used to use with my Mini, a 3rd party app called Mavic "Maven". I really liked it, so many great features. If I remember correctly, one feature was "Geo-Fencing" where you could in addition to setting a custom polygon area on the displayed map to fence you in, you could add a minimum floor and maximum ceiling. Not sure what models and OS's it now supports but as I said it's a great app. Worth checking out.

 

[icesailr]

You don't mention what model you're flying but I used to use with my Mini, a 3rd party app called Mavic "Maven". I really liked it, so many great features. If I remember correctly, one feature was "Geo-Fencing" where you could in addition to setting a custom polygon area on the displayed map to fence you in, you could add a minimum floor and maximum ceiling. Not sure what models and OS's it now supports but as I said it's a great app. Worth checking out.

I have the Mavic 3 - Thanks for the tip, I'll look it up.

 

[icesailr]

You don't mention what model you're flying but I used to use with my Mini, a 3rd party app called Mavic "Maven". I really liked it, so many great features. If I remember correctly, one feature was "Geo-Fencing" where you could in addition to setting a custom polygon area on the displayed map to fence you in, you could add a minimum floor and maximum ceiling. Not sure what models and OS's it now supports but as I said it's a great app. Worth checking out.

It looks like it does not support Mavic 3, and he seems to have stopped posting in March ?

 

[MotoSavy]

I know the AVATA 2 will not fly into the ground easily, unless you are doing an extreme cinewhoop. I have flown mine many times at about 12-18 inches off the ground.

I have heard many state the reflectivity over water causes confusion with height sensors and often crashes. No, I have never attempted to fly my AVATA2 over water as low as over ground. And don't plan on trying.

Maybe other owners of the AVATA 2 can chime in and verify if it will fly as low above water as above ground. Or will it become a submarine?