Modify old phone for drone flying.

Wibbletree · Dec 28, 2023

Hi there, bought my old man a Mini 2 for Christmas, they have phones that will run the software but he also has a much older low spec phone. I've successfully installed the DJI fly app and have 'debloated (removed factory apps) in order to get more performance out of the phone.

This phone will just be used as a screen, it does not need to be used as a phone, but my question is does the Dji app need certain services on a phone? Would it still work if I removed google services, or is the app reliant on those services to use the map?

Any help would be great, thanks

quaddamage · Dec 28, 2023

is ARM64 - will work without such strict debloat.
is arm32 aka armeabi - will not work either way.

if you somehow still need the answer:
Which country is the drone coming from? Are Google services popular there?

Wibbletree · Dec 28, 2023

quaddamage said:
is ARM64 - will work without such strict debloat.
is arm32 aka armeabi - will not work either way.

if you somehow still need the answer:
Which country is the drone coming from? Are Google services popular there?

The app runs fine, just need to know if the app is tied to google services and maps for its map/geolocation data or it's included in the app. I could just test it but it's quite a lot of work to uninstall everything via ADB so I rather know beforehand lol

quaddamage · Dec 28, 2023

Wibbletree said:
I could just test it but it's quite a lot of work to uninstall everything via ADB so I rather know beforehand lol

You can also stop the services via ADB, and test then.

Yorkshire_Pud · Dec 29, 2023

None of my screens are phones as such, meaning they are phones with no SIM card in them, they work just fine.
The only problems I can forsee are
1) if he wants maps for the area he will be flying in he will have to down load them prior to the flight whilst he has a wifi connectiom.
2) If the app logs itself out then he will have to use wifi or a real phone, as a wifi hot spot, to log in again otherwise his flying will be greatly restricted.

Wibbletree · Dec 29, 2023

Yorkshire_Pud said:
None of my screens are phones as such, meaning they are phones with no SIM card in them, they work just fine.
The only problems I can forsee are
1) if he wants maps for the area he will be flying in he will have to down load them prior to the flight whilst he has a wifi connectiom.
2) If the app logs itself out then he will have to use wifi or a real phone, as a wifi hot spot, to log in again otherwise his flying will be greatly restricted.

Good points, my biggest worry is that the DJI app has google maps shown in the bottom left corner. I suspect that the app needs the google framework in order to do this. They've just got the drone so I'm not too worried about flight restrictions just yet, I consider them training wheels lol.

The phone is an old Black view, which is under spec (2gb quad core) but now I've debloated the phone down to 8 installed apps and all the Chinese rubbish is removed, its running like a champ.