There's no general threat using Google Assistant with Go 4 app. "DJI Drone could kill…"

[Mavic Maveric]

The only problem with Airplane Mode is, if the app you’re using relies on cellular or GPS on your device, turning this mode on disables all antennas including Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi and Cellular.

This can cause problems, sometimes. But if everything’s up to date and happy before you enable Airplane Mode, some folks swear by it.

I like the connectivity, so Do Not Disturb works better for me.

When I fly, my app uses only GPS.

I still don't understand why anybody would fly a drone with a display device not completely dedicated to the task, with EVERYTHING not necessary for flight completely stripped out.

What in the world are you doing flying with that dumb Assistant, or Siri, or Alexa, or anything else not necessary even installed much less enabled? That's just dumb and consumes resources and battery power. My Mavic's Nexus 7 has been rooted and stripped of everything I don't need, including NFZ, reporting to DJI and a bunch of other nonsense. But that's a story for another day.......

Sheesh.

I totally agree.

 

[Amarand]

I still don't understand why anybody would fly a drone with a display device not completely dedicated to the task, with EVERYTHING not necessary for flight completely stripped out.

What in the world are you doing flying with that dumb Assistant, or Siri, or Alexa, or anything else not necessary even installed much less enabled? That's just dumb and consumes resources and battery power. My Mavic's Nexus 7 has been rooted and stripped of everything I don't need, including NFZ, reporting to DJI and a bunch of other nonsense. But that's a story for another day.......

Sheesh.

Not everyone wants to “root” their phone. And plenty of people don’t want a separate dedicated device.

I’ve been flying with my iPhone XS Max for awhile now, no issues. The only thing I do is enable Do Not Disturb, and maybe enable screen rotation lock.

I do wish the DJI GO app had a “landscape orientation” setting for the main page. I think it’s stupid that they don’t.

 

[Amarand]

Not everyone wants to “root” their phone. And plenty of people don’t want a separate dedicated device.

I’ve been flying with my iPhone XS Max for awhile now, no issues. The only thing I do is enable Do Not Disturb, and maybe enable screen rotation lock.

I do wish the DJI GO app had a “landscape orientation” setting for the main page. I think it’s stupid that they don’t.

Having said that, my next RC is going to be the Smart Controller that comes with the Mavic 2 Pro because it’s annoying having to fiddle with two separate devices/batteries in your control system.

 

[John Suhr]

Millions all over the planet are using assistants, gnirtS, Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana. Virtual assistants are being used in homes, cars and on your device. There is a drone that uses some basic commands, forget its name. I use it many times a day, for a multitude of things.
I just got back from Thailand and used it constantly for weather reports, exchange rates. I met up with 4 mates and 3 of them were pulling their phones out for questions. You can activate it when it's in your pocket. I set alarms; find emails I am looking for make notes, shopping lists. I even use it to find my phone in the house or car when I lose it. Directions, TV programs times the list is endless.

You should try it, it’s amazing technology. Virtual Assistants (VA) use Artificial Intelligence to learn your voice and the kind of thing you have been looking for.
A VA will be on your DJI drone soon, I mean new drones to come. It will be built into a DJI Go app. Not in the near future though

Really try one on your phone it is amazingly accurate and fast. GA is by far the best one on the market at the moment. Give it a few years and every house hold will have at least one. They are in many “digital” homes now where they are used to control temperature and other household items VA. I am planning to do a video on VA and “the internet of things” but that is not relevant to this forum. I think it’s the most amazing technology a lot of fun as well.

Wow sorry for the crazy operation! I understand why you would use assistant but I get nervous when a I get a call on my iPhone and am flying.
They should warn no multitasking if this is a confirmed problem. Guess I’m glad I’m iPhone and to turn up brightness I used to swipe up. Now I use the crystal sky. I can actually see what I’m about to hit, I don't understand how people can fly without crashing without one. The only time my Mavic Pro ever went out of control was when I calibrated badly or took off an ignored magnetic interference warning or didn’t see the warning. I’ll never fly inside a factory again. I imagine you could test for this issue with the props off.

 

[Amarand]

Millions all over the planet are using assistants, gnirtS, Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana. Virtual assistants are being used in homes, cars and on your device. There is a drone that uses some basic commands, forget its name. I use it many times a day, for a multitude of things.
I just got back from Thailand and used it constantly for weather reports, exchange rates. I met up with 4 mates and 3 of them were pulling their phones out for questions. You can activate it when it's in your pocket. I set alarms; find emails I am looking for make notes, shopping lists. I even use it to find my phone in the house or car when I lose it. Directions, TV programs times the list is endless.

You should try it, it’s amazing technology. Virtual Assistants (VA) use Artificial Intelligence to learn your voice and the kind of thing you have been looking for.
A VA will be on your DJI drone soon, I mean new drones to come. It will be built into a DJI Go app. Not in the near future though

Really try one on your phone it is amazingly accurate and fast. GA is by far the best one on the market at the moment. Give it a few years and every house hold will have at least one. They are in many “digital” homes now where they are used to control temperature and other household items VA. I am planning to do a video on VA and “the internet of things” but that is not relevant to this forum. I think it’s the most amazing technology a lot of fun as well.

Agree to disagree. VA’s are distracting when flying. I would not rely on them to accurately take my requests, especially with potential wind and drone noise. No thanks!

Positive controls. 100% focus. Do not disturb. No distractions. Period.

 

[HerManSoft]

Your DJI Drone could kill you or someone close to you.
Or at least do some serious damage to you or people near you!

Please send this serious warning to as many places as possible.
If you are flying with an Android device and initiate Google Assistant with “Ok Google” or “Hi Google” and you are flying your DJI drone with DJI go app your aircraft becomes totally out of control.
Take a look at this video.

I have been in constant contact with DJI, almost 20 emails for many weeks and they refuse to put out a general warning to DJI go app users not to engage Google Assistant.
Their response has been this.
“Kindly noted that I have updated the flightrecords as you provided back on MAR 21ST to the Field Application Engineering team…”
“As you mentioned, on your previous emails, it is unsafe for the people around. We appreciate your effort however to provide us with the needed records for our designated developers to review the flight and confirm your claimed issue with the DJI GO 4 app when used with the Google Assistant.”

DJI know there is a problem and a serious one. I know they are working very hard at solving the problem, but they are refusing to warn the public.

Please pass this warning to as many as you can.

Hi I always put it in flight mode.

 

[Cdcolt]

It seems that John was using GA to increase the screen brightness on a sunny day, NOT to “surf the internet” or “talk on the phone”. At the outset this sounds like a reasonable thing to do as otherwise on both Android and iOS you’d have to navigate to “settings” to do this. If he had this issue then its an admirable and natural thing to do to warn others of the possibility. Is this the only case like this? So what if it is? You don’t know until you post it.

 

[MavicMikeK]

@John Gowland - Correct me if I'm mistaken but in this 2nd post about the problem didn't you say GA was off? I am starting to wonder if the problem is more with your phone, drone or controller. This whole issue sounds pretty weird to be blaming GA in my opinion. I think you need to do more detective work and try an Apple device with your controller and drone or just fly it only with your controller and no FPV at all. I have never used GA and I've owned 10 Android devices over the past 20 years. I think DJI would be savvy enough with their software to prevent GA from interfering with a flight. If not they need to know about it for sure.

 

[Kajtek]

Oh, and once you do use GA it is very difficult to disable. I now have to turn my phone off before take off.

When you had this problem you could just disconnect the phone, press RTH button on the controller and wait for the drone to land. You had RTH at some point but you were still trying manually bring the drone down with the phone connected.

 

[Zorzi]

I didn't read all the messages as this thread seems very polemic. But it seems reasonable to me the warning that John posted. In my phone, for example, sometimes GA engages even when I don't ask. Keep in mind that GA is not perfect and it may engage with wrong interpretation of speaches it listens. Also, if an almost 1 Kg thing with fastly spinning blades at almost 70 Km/h doesn't look really dangerous to some people here, it doesn't mean it is not dangerous and yes, it can kill. An eye injury is already a tragedy. We pilots should fly as safe as possible, I really don't get the bashing on the OPs arguments...

 

[Tom-Air]

Your DJI Drone could kill you or someone close to you.
Or at least do some serious damage to you or people near you!

Please send this serious warning to as many places as possible.
If you are flying with an Android device and initiate Google Assistant with “Ok Google” or “Hi Google” and you are flying your DJI drone with DJI go app your aircraft becomes totally out of control.
Take a look at this video.

I have been in constant contact with DJI, almost 20 emails for many weeks and they refuse to put out a general warning to DJI go app users not to engage Google Assistant.
Their response has been this.
“Kindly noted that I have updated the flightrecords as you provided back on MAR 21ST to the Field Application Engineering team…”
“As you mentioned, on your previous emails, it is unsafe for the people around. We appreciate your effort however to provide us with the needed records for our designated developers to review the flight and confirm your claimed issue with the DJI GO 4 app when used with the Google Assistant.”

DJI know there is a problem and a serious one. I know they are working very hard at solving the problem, but they are refusing to warn the public.

Please pass this warning to as many as you can.

Thank you very much for making us aware of this.

 

[PhoebeSnow]

I have 4 DJI drones and 4 android phones for drone flying only. Each of the 4 has the apps removed and no sim cards installed for phone service. I removed all apps and have never had an issue related to interfering apps while flying. Lastly, I would never contemplate using GA or any app while flying.

 

[DaddyDe]

I don’t normally use android devices with my DJI drones. But even with the apple iPods & iPhones, I learned a long time ago, when originally flying the P1 and P2, not to have any other apps open in the background due to potential interference with flying the aircraft. Anymore I just use ipads dedicated to only flying and have never added any apps other than the dji go apps. The only android device I have is the DJI smart controller that I use with the M2P and I have had an issue with the drone going straight up on RTH even though I have the settings configured to RTH at current altitude. I live on a remote mountainous ranch and don't normally fly above or near other people and I think for me the greatest danger is to the aircraft being destroyed which is significant. I also got in the habit years ago of not having metal objects in my pockets that might interfere with the aircraft’s compass or whatever and I always remove my keys, guns, knives, coins, etc. before flying any of the aircraft.

 

[Quad808]

I think A LOT of you missed the whole point of the OP.
Is there ANYWHERE in DJI documentation that warns the end user about using the device, phone or tablet, for doing anything else while flying? Thats the point.

If you were a new user and only read the DJI manual, would you know this, and is this a problem that DJI, and other drone makers need to address? Not using your device while flying for anything other than flying is quite obvious to most pilots, but that doesn't mean it is to everyone.

If this could be recreated, and then when the problem arrises, disconnect the phone....if the drone immediately corrects itself...then we have a possible answer.

 

[PhoebeSnow]

I think A LOT of you missed the whole point of the OP.
Is there ANYWHERE in DJI documentation that warns the end user about using the device, phone or tablet, for doing anything else while flying? Thats the point.

Some things are acutely obvious and having full concentration on the operation of just flying your drone, and nothing else, is one of them.

 

[sar104]

I think A LOT of you missed the whole point of the OP.
Is there ANYWHERE in DJI documentation that warns the end user about using the device, phone or tablet, for doing anything else while flying? Thats the point.

If you were a new user and only read the DJI manual, would you know this, and is this a problem that DJI, and other drone makers need to address? Not using your device while flying for anything other than flying is quite obvious to most pilots, but that doesn't mean it is to everyone.

If this could be recreated, and then when the problem arrises, disconnect the phone....if the drone immediately corrects itself...then we have a possible answer.

I don't think anyone is likely to have missed the point, but this almost certainly isn't a real issue. No one else has reported it, or even anything remotely similar, and no one has reported being able to duplicate it. There is no warning about other processes on devices while flying because it isn't a problem.

 

[Johnmcl7]

I didn't read all the messages as this thread seems very polemic. But it seems reasonable to me the warning that John posted. In my phone, for example, sometimes GA engages even when I don't ask. Keep in mind that GA is not perfect and it may engage with wrong interpretation of speaches it listens. Also, if an almost 1 Kg thing with fastly spinning blades at almost 70 Km/h doesn't look really dangerous to some people here, it doesn't mean it is not dangerous and yes, it can kill. An eye injury is already a tragedy. We pilots should fly as safe as possible, I really don't get the bashing on the OPs arguments...

It's worth reading the thread first, the problem is the OP is posting this warning for the second time but has yet to provide any evidence of the issue despite being requested to provide it. They did post the flight logs to Phantompilots but they do not show the problems the OP claims, they were asked to provide logs that showed the issue but they hadn't done so. While they don't have to it's a lot more convincing to prove the problem exists particularly when no-one else has encountered this issue.

I agree with the advice about using a separate dedicated device which is what I do myself but at the very least, I wouldn't use any other software on the device while flying the drone. I don't believe it will cause the problems the OP has described but it minimises the risk of any problems such as losing the live feed from the drone if the app crashes or similar due to other activity on the device.

 

[Tigrr1]

I personally think that if your stupid enough to try to use your Android or Apple based phone for ANYTHING other than the DJI GO4 app while flying you are not smart enough to be flying! When I fly I shut off all apps other than GO4 and turn on Do Not Disturb. I get no alerts, no messages, no calls. Nothing to distract me from my drone or to cause device to loose connection with drone.

 

[dfb]

I am aware of that sar104 and have said so a few times. I hope it is true, solve my particular issue I can then use GA when I want and no one else would get hurt.
That would be my ideal outcome.
But I think not, DJI are very concerned and indicated there is an issue on more than one occasion. They seem to be working on it and putting a lot of time and effort into it, that is what they have told me.
It is very odd that no one else has used GA while flying with the Go 4 app. I have also pointed out that disabling GA is often, not always, very difficult. If you google how to disable it, it sometimes works and sometimes does not.
If I never posted any warning and someone got hurt I would feel a ****. So I had to report it and emphasis it.

I don't believe it is currently possible to disable Google voice commands. Just this month I tried to do that. The way I found is to revoke permission for Google to use the mike. If you think that is permanent, well don't tap the microphone in the search window, google turns voice on again. If you avoid voice an just type requests the mike will stay off. BUT; you will begin to see Google Play Services reporting failures in other android apps that are not even voice related. That fix is to return permission for the microphone! Google wants it on!!!!!
John, I have not had your problem with the Mavic, because I use a Crystal sky, not a phone.

 

[Taylor1430]

John, you obviously enjoy flying but it's probably time for you to take a few things into consideration. You are flying an aircraft, albeit a small one. It is incumbent, upon you, to make sure you are flying safely and in a safe environment. Contrary to what the public may perceive, these are NOT toys.

The reason I say that is because you, as an experience pilot, should have some tools in your tool belt to ensure it is being operated safely. While I don't understand the using of VA while flying, I fully understand that you did not see what was about to happen..especially with something as simple as raising the brightness. However, at some point (and this is where your tools come in), you need to be prepared to react in a variety of scenarios...whether it is loss of signal to a fly-off. When I see you react in the video, it's a lot of cussing and pushing everything all over the screen (and the sticks on occasion). There is no plan or action to actually attempt to recover the craft...you just let it go.

You had a variety of options. For instance, did you know you don't actually need a device to fly your Mavic? It's not recommended as you will be missing a lot of data, but it can successfully be done. As an experience pilot, you should know this and understand this. Once you realized that your phone was causing a flyoff, a simple yank of the USB to disconnect the device would have solved that issue..then use your controller to bring the bird back home...or at least hover to reboot your device or do what you need to do.

Things happen...some you can prevent and some you cant. You should understand ATTI mode and how the drone will be have...in case it ends up in ATTI mode and you would like to prevent from flying into the side of the house.