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Phone GPS out by a meter

The drone's GPS accuracy is easily one meter or worse, and that's still way better than the GPS in your phone is likely to be. When I use a tracker app on my android phone I find it to be off by several meters.

That being said, the way to get accurate landings from your drone is to use a launch pad with a very distinct pattern on it. My Mavic Air 2 has two visual obstacle avoidance sensors on the bottom ... they act as "eyes" to provide both pattern and depth assessment just like yours would. Your plain table top is not a distinct enough object for best accuracy, although you could no doubt add a pattern to fix that. I have a 24 inch square dark red rubber mat that I use for a takeoff/landing pad, and it has two inch wide silver stripes from corner to corner to form an X pattern.

Just the other day I ran three RTH tests with my MA2. I launched from the pad, climbed to just over 20 feet elevation, hovered there for several seconds, and then flew off some distance away before initiating a manual RTH. With me being completely hands off on the sticks the rest of the flights, the three landings were within 3 inches, 5 inches, and 6 inches of the center of the X. There was even some wind involved. Don't tell anyone, but the 5 inch landing involved a flight 2,000 feet away up a steep mountainside with the result that the drone decided to fly back the entire distance at a height of 650 feet ... and landed all on its own (from 650 feet up) while I just watched. The drone video was really interesting in that the drone descended via GPS down to about 20 or 30 feet, and then there was an obvious lateral shift as the visual sensors on the bottom of the drone took over navigating. It's all really pretty impressive.
 
Welcome to the forum. We look forward to your participation and your view of the world.
 
Also have a Mavic Air ... if you're checking the precision take off alternative when you take off through the app you shouldn't expect more precision than those 3-5ft that already mentioned ... if the light is good & the take off spot clearly stands out from the surface around. And no hovering is needed when the Mavic have ascended either. It performs as expected.

This with the precision landing & use of RTH the whole way down to ground is something you think is crucial just now in the beginning ... as you possibly feels that you can relax a bit more. You will grow away from all this, start the motors by CSC command, ascend manually & fly out ... & manually fly home & land where ever you want.
hehehehe, right now definitely not! To scared it makes a run for the hills. But it is an amazing tool. My brother is a wedding photographer, and is keen to use footage from the drone in the wedding videos. (and I am keen to explore the little forest behind our house to see if there is any mushrooms worth foraging!)
 
@AnnaBang ,as others have suggested ,the RTH feature is very good and it is very easy just to press the button and let the drone do the rest ,there is nothing wrong with that approach to a point ,but as you have found out it will not bring it back to the exact home point every time ,
as you confidence builds try cancelling the RTH when the drone is a few feet above the home point ,and practice landing it yourself ,this is easier to achieve if you are behind the drone with it facing away from you ,then gently come down and using small stick movements center it over the table top ,come down till it stops at about 2ft ,and then when you are ready pull the throttle stick all the way straight down, and hold it there ,and the drone will say landing and descend gently to the deck,keep the stick down till the motors stop,it is very satisfying, to land the drone yourself ,while you are controlling it especially if it is windy ,it takes practice ,like all aspects of drone flying, but with time you will be able to relax and enjoy your flying ,dont get distracted while you are flying, as things can happen very fast,and then mistakes are made and accidents happen ,if people come up to you to try and talk ,just politely tell them that you are flying a drone, and you will speak to them when you are back on the ground
Very sage advice, much appreciated!
Currently I am just focusing on flying in straight lines, doing a gradient up or down while flying, turning, and have slowly started to circle around obstacles, eg trees in the yard. Luckily we have no buildings at the back of our property, and is avoiding getting too close to neighbors left and right of us.
 
Thank you, it really seems that you guys are all lovely! I really appreciate the assistance and welcome :)
 
The drone's GPS accuracy is easily one meter or worse, and that's still way better than the GPS in your phone is likely to be. When I use a tracker app on my android phone I find it to be off by several meters.

That being said, the way to get accurate landings from your drone is to use a launch pad with a very distinct pattern on it. My Mavic Air 2 has two visual obstacle avoidance sensors on the bottom ... they act as "eyes" to provide both pattern and depth assessment just like yours would. Your plain table top is not a distinct enough object for best accuracy, although you could no doubt add a pattern to fix that. I have a 24 inch square dark red rubber mat that I use for a takeoff/landing pad, and it has two inch wide silver stripes from corner to corner to form an X pattern.

Just the other day I ran three RTH tests with my MA2. I launched from the pad, climbed to just over 20 feet elevation, hovered there for several seconds, and then flew off some distance away before initiating a manual RTH. With me being completely hands off on the sticks the rest of the flights, the three landings were within 3 inches, 5 inches, and 6 inches of the center of the X. There was even some wind involved. Don't tell anyone, but the 5 inch landing involved a flight 2,000 feet away up a steep mountainside with the result that the drone decided to fly back the entire distance at a height of 650 feet ... and landed all on its own (from 650 feet up) while I just watched. The drone video was really interesting in that the drone descended via GPS down to about 20 or 30 feet, and then there was an obvious lateral shift as the visual sensors on the bottom of the drone took over navigating. It's all really pretty impressive.
Hectic!
I will provide the drone with a better landing strip - add some duct tape or some sort cross the the centre. Good advice :)
But this morning i had a near perfect landing on the landing pad. I think it was an inch or 2 out. (the drone also requested a compass reset, which I did)
 
Welcome to the forum, not much to add to all the good advice you are getting, just have fun with that thing!

Here is a pic of my landing pad.. just something bold for the bird to recognize. Just something to give you an idea what we are talking about.

IMG_4470.JPG
 
The way the DJI GPS is specified is with an accuracy of +- 16 feet 95%of the time. This is true for most consumer GPS UNITS. There are more precise versions which are much more expensive.

Generally it’s performance is a lot better, but you cannot count on it.
 
Hi there
I am a new pilot, and is currently practicing flying in our fairly large back yard. We use an old plastic table surface as a landing zone and I found that it always lands about 1 meter off the take-off spot. I have read a lot on the forum, and I do press the precision icon when I take off, the drone did ask me to calibrate it when we got it (fairly new 2nd hand original Mavic Air), and we have tried the hover after take-off, landing after take-off, etc.
After using another phone, the conclusion is that my phone's GPS might be off. And of course I cannot find a way to re-calibrate it (Samsung A51). I did download an app (GPS Status).
So, my question is this. Is this a good app, or is there a better one to use, to improve the GPS of my phone?
Mavic Air GPS isn't as advanced as other DJI Models, so it may be off. Samsung Phones are not known to have that great of GPS either. If you purchase a newer model of MavicAir, Mavic Air 2, and possibly an Apple Phone then this should work. I have used a samsung phone to and the GPS isn't very good.
 
Much Appreciated, thank you.
I am an old woman, never played with PS or any games that require toggles, etc. So it is a huge learning curve! But taking it baby steps, and just getting used to to operating the flying part of Drone handling.
I am 72 and I have a DJi mini and maybe I go buy the larger one, as you see the age is not important and buy the way this are not toys for children.
 
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