Sucking my iPhone's battery

[Digitaldias]

Hey guys.
I recently did a quick flight with my Mavic Pro in fairly cold weather. Temperature was around -10C (14F) with my phone battery at 50%, it went completely dry after only 5 minutes of flying (!)

Luckily, I still had visual contact with the drone, and could fly it home on the controller alone, but that gave me a big scare - perhaps we should vote for a setting where the drone flies to its home point if the phone looses battery - or at the very least, actually DISPLAY the phone's own battery status while operating it.

 

[newt2u]

I suspect your iPhone battery is a bit tired. The app does put a high load on it but 5mins from 50% to flat is a bit quick, even at those temperatures.

A better idea might be to trickle charge the phone from the controller battery. Even with 3 batteries on my air my controller only drops one light while flying, so it has enough capacity. This happens on my Mi drone and its a bonus sometimes, when I want to fly and forgot to charge the phone beforehand.

 

[tictag]

I'm not 100% sure but I think only Androids actually charge from the RC. You can, however, buy a dual lightning adapter that can connect to both the RC and a battery pack. They are pennies on Amazon.

 

[Mr. Salty]

Did your battery's charge bounce back after it warmed up? Cold can suck the life right out of the battery.

I was flying in November with an iPad. It was warmer than what you were flying in. The iPad charge quickly went from 74 percent to 12 percent. The aluminum back of the iPad is like a heat sink. Once I was back in the car for a while the iPad charge went back to where it had been.

 

[Digitaldias]

Did your battery's charge bounce back after it warmed up? Cold can suck the life right out of the battery.

I was flying in November with an iPad. It was warmer than what you were flying in. The iPad charge quickly went from 74 percent to 12 percent. The aluminum back of the iPad is like a heat sink. Once I was back in the car for a while the iPad charge went back to where it had been.

That is a valid point, I did go from "dead" to 50% in minutes once I was home again, I remember noticing that it was very quick. Maybe I'll try to keep the phone's back warmer on my next cold-day flight .
In any event, where would I give a feedback to DJI to have them have an option to display the phone battery status? I think it's a fair request to be able to see the phone battery while flying

 

[OralndoMavic]

I might suggest you obtain another iPhone, one dedicated for your controller. You can probably pick one up cheap, refurbished eBay. Myself I use Android, an extra phone I had. No concerns about batteries.