Phone Overheating with Remote

[Dperreau]

I was recently trying to fly my new Mavic Air on a hot day (86-89 degrees) and my phone shut down from overheating a short while after connecting to the remote while trying to get connected to the drone. I would say that about 10minutes transpired from when I connected to their remote and when the device screen was hot to the touch and shortly thereafter shut down. Fortunately, I hadn’t yet taken off because there were probably a few to many trees around me for the RTH to end with positive results. (Note: I did not have the phone in a case.)

Has anyone else experienced phone overheating and have any recommendations on how to mitigate this?

Would using a second disconnected phone (that doesn’t have LTE phone service) as the remote device work, or is cellular connectivity required/preferred?

Should I shut down everything but Wi-Fi when operating (LTE data, GPS, NFC, etc.)?

Thanks all!

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

Make sure you stay out of direct sunlight. When in direct sunlight the phone will be trying to boost the brightness as high as possible, then the combined heat from the direct sun can cause an overheating issue.

 

[ZX14-R]

If phone is below 33% charge it will start charging from the remote controller battery if enabled ?

Disable the cache of video while flying.

 

[bliksem]

Put the phone in airplane mode... i.e. shutdown everything not required.
If your phone is not an iPhone then it will charge from the controller's battery and that will also contribute to heat generation.

 

[Dperreau]

Put the phone in airplane mode... i.e. shutdown everything not required.
If your phone is not an iPhone then it will charge from the controller's battery and that will also contribute to heat generation.

So, to make sure I understand this correctly, the software doesn’t need any access to the phones cellular data connection (except perhaps to update airspace restrictions etc.?) and I can fly with only WiFi activated?

This was going to be my plan but I wanted to read up and pull this community before moving forward on that assumption.

 

[bliksem]

You don't need wifi or cellular WHILE flying... i.e. you can put the phone in airplane mode.
Before taking off you can do updates/unlock/check air space etc then go to airplane mode.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

I use a Nokia 7.1 Plus and a first generation Google Pixel and they both get very hot if I am flying in a hot day. But never to such an extent that they have to shutdown. As others have said, you are better of disabling everything except location services when flying. If you still experience the issue, you might want to look into getting another phone.