Newbies - please properly prepare your phones before flying

[Motley]

Some people smoke a pack of cigarettes every day and never get cancer either. The Wi-Fi and the RC can have conflicting frequencies. Obviously in your case this is not true. So enjoy your wifi and flying at the same time. Others are having problems and don't know why. Turning off their wifi often rectifies the problem.

I am not hear to start an argument, all I am saying is that the wifi signals are present regardless of whether or not your device is connected. When I am flying near my house I do not shut down my wifi for my home computers and ask all the neighbors to do the same so that I can get a good signal. There are distinct bands that the controller RC works off of and those are different than the wifi bands so there should be no or very little interference between the two. If you switch the aircraft to wifi mode then that is another story but even then as long as you can connect to the wifi network that the Mavic provides then there should be no issues, just like there are no issues with me connecting to my home wifi while my neighbor connects to their home wifi. I have 3 different wifi networks (2 - 2.4 Ghz and 1 5Ghz) at my house and they all operate together without issues.

 

[Andrew F]

I am not hear to start an argument, all I am saying is that the wifi signals are present regardless of whether or not your device is connected. When I am flying near my house I do not shut down my wifi for my home computers and ask all the neighbors to do the same so that I can get a good signal. There are distinct bands that the controller RC works off of and those are different than the wifi bands so there should be no or very little interference between the two. If you switch the aircraft to wifi mode then that is another story but even then as long as you can connect to the wifi network that the Mavic provides then there should be no issues, just like there are no issues with me connecting to my home wifi while my neighbor connects to their home wifi. I have 3 different wifi networks (2 - 2.4 Ghz and 1 5Ghz) at my house and they all operate together without issues.

But clearly you can understand the difference between a wifi signal an inch away (your phone to your controller) and all those other wifi signals, right? That's the interference I'm talking about. It's a logarithmic relationship . . . I never said anything about other wifi sources. Just the one that is an inch away.

 

[stratos]

You are right, I have received calls while flying.. mate its scary. Luckly I have been close while I had the calls, else would be worried if this interrupt the app operation,
I hav also been thinking of buying a cheap iphone 6 plus. As long as the screen works I dont care about the the aestetics.

 

[Motley]

Well again I think the general public and DJI have tested this enough to know if it would cause interference. If DJI for one second was concerned about your wifi signal on your phone/tablet causing an issue they would either specify in the manual that you have to disable wireless networks on your device (basically set airplane mode) or they would not make you use a phone as the device and would just add their own screen. I suspect that the people that had the issues you speak of really ended up being some other issue. I have started up my Mavic and had flawless signal and then started it up in the same location and had some oddities with signal quality but I chalk that up to other environmental factors or glitches in the controller/Mavic.

I have no issues if everyone wants to follow the advice of turning off wifi or setting airplane mode as it would certainly help avoid the other situations you mention with regards to incoming calls/other apps/etc but that is not a concern for me since I use a tablet so calls are not a concern and the tablet is pretty much dedicated to using with the Mavic.

 

[longrange]

Why turn off wifi? I use a iPad mini 2 hotspotted to my phone. With no wifi I would have no maps

Hotspot your iPad and let the maps load. When the area u r flying in is all loaded on the iPad turn off your hotspot. The map will stay. Also make sure you have cache maps in background turned on in settings.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

 

[Desertdude]

Not everyone and every hardware combination seems to have the same problems, but when starting out, you may wish to do the following. I do. So many "little problems" can be avoided by following a few simple steps on your phone / tablet before flying:

1. Disable and remove from memory all apps
2. Launch Go app and view area you're going to be flying in with maps to download detailed data if you want to
3. Put into airplane mode to avoid emails, texts, or phone calls and other "pushed" data that can cause your phone to switch apps
4. Or AT LEAST turn off Wifi (unless of course you are flying in Wifi mode which I don't recommend)

Your phone's Wifi can cause a lot of interference between the drone and your controller and other apps (especially it seems to me graphic heavy apps) can interfere with the Go app.

Then enjoy interference free flights! (Hopefully)

Putting the phone in airplane mode, doesn't that affect the mapping sortware?

 

[Giaruso]

Not everyone and every hardware combination seems to have the same problems, but when starting out, you may wish to do the following. I do. So many "little problems" can be avoided by following a few simple steps on your phone / tablet before flying:

1. Disable and remove from memory all apps
2. Launch Go app and view area you're going to be flying in with maps to download detailed data if you want to
3. Put into airplane mode to avoid emails, texts, or phone calls and other "pushed" data that can cause your phone to switch apps
4. Or AT LEAST turn off Wifi (unless of course you are flying in Wifi mode which I don't recommend)

Your phone's Wifi can cause a lot of interference between the drone and your controller and other apps (especially it seems to me graphic heavy apps) can interfere with the Go app.

Then enjoy interference free flights! (Hopefully)

Great advice. Thank you. Perhaps I could add a couple other items: 5. Set sound on high. 6. Set brightness on high.

 

[andynormancx]

There are distinct bands that the controller RC works off of and those are different than the wifi bands so there should be no or very little interference between the two.

This is not true. Wifi uses channels across the whole 2.4GHz allocation (if you look at a diagram of the wifi channels you'll see they overlap from one end of the 2.4GHz band to the other). As does Bluetooth, microwaves and lots of other unlicensed radio use.

Things like the Mavic manage to co-exist with these other uses by constantly changing frequency. The whole time you are using it, it is jumping from one frequency to another within the 2.4GHz band. If it hits interference from wifi (or anything else) on one frequency then it doesn't matter as a fraction of a second later it has switched to another frequency.

That is until you get into an area where the 2.4GHz band is just too busy, then you'll start to get loss of signal and the Mavic/controller are failing to find frequencies where there is no interference from other users.

 

[andynormancx]

Though to be perfectly accurate I'm not sure if the Mavic uses the frequency hopping I described or one of the other approaches like Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum. But the details of that don't change the fact that it is using the same 2.4GHz frequencies that everything else is using.

 

[Boog0822]

This is not true. Wifi uses channels across the whole 2.4GHz allocation (if you look at a diagram of the wifi channels you'll see they overlap from one end of the 2.4GHz band to the other). As does Bluetooth, microwaves and lots of other unlicensed radio use.

Things like the Mavic manage to co-exist with these other uses by constantly changing frequency. The whole time you are using it, it is jumping from one frequency to another within the 2.4GHz band. If it hits interference from wifi (or anything else) on one frequency then it doesn't matter as a fraction of a second later it has switched to another frequency.

That is until you get into an area where the 2.4GHz band is just too busy, then you'll start to get loss of signal and the Mavic/controller are failing to find frequencies where there is no interference from other users.

What is Ocusync and how does it affect this?

Sent from my SM-N920P using MavicPilots mobile app

 

[dmanisgnarly]

I don't see the big deal. I receive calls regularly while flying as well as business texts...all on an old Samsung Note 4. I fly regularly with just the remote as well... to each their own.

Sent from my SM-N910V using MavicPilots mobile app

 

[DirkJT]

Numbers 1 and 4 on that list is really important, I have experienced problems with this

 

[andynormancx]

What is Ocusync and how does it affect this?

I don't think anyone outside of DJI knows a great deal about Ocusync and how it differs to Lightbridge etc. We do know at least that it is using the 2.4GHz band and therefore has to share the space with wifi and everything else there.

 

[MoOriginal]

Yes.

Yes. Samsung S7 Edge. I even got a message on Go 4 that my phone's wifi was causing interference. But it seems to not be a problem for IPhone 7s according to some folks herein.

This thread has come at timely moment for me
I have a s7
I leave everything on - and then when I start flying - the rc shows good signal

However after a while - on the rc i get the signal strength bar - flashing slowly.

Is the flashing to show a weak signal or interference?

 

[grizzard]

Think the Mavic manual states that you should not fly in an area with more than 3 Mavics in flight. That tells me something about the possible potential for interference.

 

[Fredo]

I had some "compass error" when trying to start in wifi mode with my phone very close to the Mavic when initialising the plane.
I had to put my phone 3 meters away and do a compass calibration to eliminate the problem.
Happened twice.
So, Yes, i confirm that wifi can create conflict. So, yes, i also recommend to turn off your wifi or switch to plane mode (what i do) if wifi or network is not needed.
Good flights guys !

 

[SkeeterHarris]

Reading this and by the way I do t have my Mavic yet so pure speculation here. Not jumping into the WiFI comment but can see notifications and phone calls being a real issue. Why not just put the phone in Do Not Disturb mode? That would kill all push notifications and would cause all phone calls to jump directly to VM would it not.


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[schroeder1959]

Not everyone and every hardware combination seems to have the same problems, but when starting out, you may wish to do the following. I do. So many "little problems" can be avoided by following a few simple steps on your phone / tablet before flying:

1. Disable and remove from memory all apps
2. Launch Go app and view area you're going to be flying in with maps to download detailed data if you want to
3. Put into airplane mode to avoid emails, texts, or phone calls and other "pushed" data that can cause your phone to switch apps
4. Or AT LEAST turn off Wifi (unless of course you are flying in Wifi mode which I don't recommend)

Your phone's Wifi can cause a lot of interference between the drone and your controller and other apps (especially it seems to me graphic heavy apps) can interfere with the Go app.

Then enjoy interference free flights! (Hopefully)

Hello, I'm a P3P member, and I just ordered my MP, so I am new to this forum. Could you please share your pre-flight check list? I would appreciate it very much!
Thank you!
Mike


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[msinger]

Could you please share your pre-flight check list?

There really isn't one checklist that is best for everyone. You might find something that'll work for you in these search results.

 

[Dale]

I am new to Mavic as I just received it yesterday, but on my APM based drones I would turn of wifi partly because of suspected interference, but mostly because if I was doing "follow me" or some other mode that depended on knowing where the controller was, Wifi would sometimes confuse the android location. I saw times where it would jump me from the middle of a park, to the street in front of a house with wifi as Android augments location with wifi. When I enter airplane mode this issue goes away. Yes you do have to cache maps, but most apps support that. I do also agree that less interference is always better.