THE VERDICT ON THE WAYPOINTS FOR MAVIC AIR

[karmateque]

Allright fans, I have been digging around and been waiting for a while for the waypoints missions to be available for MA. Can we put a verdict on this topic?
1)As of May 22, 2018, is it available yet?
2)Is Litchi still the best for waypoints (since it loads the data on to the craft and completes the mission in case of signal loss with the RC?
3) Anyone else try the other app options? Drone Harmony, precision flight planner, etc?

Let's grab this topic and make it final. All input appreciated.

P.S. This is my first time writing on here but I have to say that I have learned a world of info here and mostly forum members are kind and helpful. I wanna thank you and wish you all happy flights ...

 

[mackt83]

I recently have started to use Litchi with CS and the Mavic Air, for the pure function of waypoints. I haven't tested any of its other functionalities. Been available since April to the best of my knowledge. I tested it this morning, with Google Earth Pro and the Litchi Hub. Worked great, very intuitive and I seem to get better efficiency out of my batteries when doing a WP mission. Also, the sheer preciseness and smoothness of the shots beat my hands flying hands down. No pun intended. I also love how Litchi automatically syncs to www.airdata.com. Montana Monk on Youtube has a two part tutorial that started me off using the LitchiHub pretty quickly.

There is a vast amount of good info from the other users on here as well but I my opinions seem to fall in line with everyone else so far with very short usage. Litchi may react and perform different on other O/S and hardware. I can only speak towards the CS. Overall, glad I dropped the 25 bucks on the Amazon App Store but I have a few honest issues with it compared to DJI Go 4.

1. I can't seem to change from 2.4\5.8ghz with Litchi, maybe I'm missing something. The uplink\downlink dropped off around 500m in my congested neighborhood. DJI Go seems to get me closer to 1km. Litchi responded to this question "Hi, It depends on the drone model, not all models can change it. Please check Litchi's settings when connected to the drone to see if you can change it." So I am assuming this means no to the Mavic Air, unless again it's hiding from me.
2. Installing Google Play Services in CS, for use of Google Maps inside of Litchi, severely increased the RAM usage and performance. So i went back to Here Maps, which I don't find all that bad. It seems to cache very well.
3. DJI Go 4 seems to run cleaner and smoother on the CS, although I wish DJI Go 4 had battery indicators of the remote and CS along with the aircraft battery like Litchi.

I have not tested any other apps but switching back and forth between the two apps depending on what I want to accomplish is probably the future. Hope this helps

 

[RaWine]

Bumping to note, I notice a new $700 nonDJI drone has a native waypoint style feature. Looks like it works fine from what I've seen.

Why not MA?

 

[OldBlueHeron]

Just to add, Spark has been added to Litchi beta for waypoints and orbit now as well. Works really well.

 

[charlas]

Never had issues with waypoiont on Litchi, footage is always nice and smooth and predictable, so would say even if DJI don't give it us when they release the Mavic 2 as a consolation then I'm not really bothered.

 

[OldBlueHeron]

Yeah, I use Litchi on my Mavic Pro for waypoints as well. It’s just nicer setting up missions on a PC.

 

[jonathan tozer]

Whole heartedly agreed oldblueheron!

 

[Air Beetle]

Lol, it's firmware and software that constantly evolves. Good luck trying to put a "verdict" on it.