UAV Forecast….Gone With The Wind…????

[Winston Bull]

So t’ other day I set up my bird, all excited to fly, and I opened up my UAV Forecast app, and it seemed rather….static. It took me a minute to see the little banners so deftly and subtly placed in the corners of the screen that said…. “Preview”. What the heck!??!

You can no longer use it without a never-ending subscription. I know I know—you can get the basic for less than $6.99 (US) a year. But am I the only one irked by the ethics of this….???? It’s his app and he can do what he wants with it. I know this. But couldn’t he also just as easily just started charging his new subscribers from that moment on?

 

[msinger]

UAV Forecast app is dead - Unless you want to pay!

An app that me, and probably many of you were using for a long time - UAV Forecast, today updated and stopped showing local weather info unless you upgrade to a subscription. The developer slowly pushed his way to this, removing features from the free version for quite some time now, but today...

mavicpilots.com

 

[Winston Bull]

UAV Forecast app is dead - Unless you want to pay!

An app that me, and probably many of you were using for a long time - UAV Forecast, today updated and stopped showing local weather info unless you upgrade to a subscription. The developer slowly pushed his way to this, removing features from the free version for quite some time now, but today...

mavicpilots.com

Hmmmmm…. Month and a half ago….. Perhaps they really don’t let me out that often…..

 

[slup]

The UAV app can both be a blessing & a curse... curse as all fields should be properly adjusted to your drone & not kept at the default settings the app comes with when installed. To adjust it properly it's required that you have some experience & knowledge... so a newbie using the defaults can easily be tricked to believe that the text "Good to Fly" is a guarantee.

Furthermore, the only useful & unique data compared to the mainstream weather apps, is wind at different heights... sat.count & KP value aren't that useful, you will always have sufficient sat.count if the sky is free from obstacles & KP value have nearly no influence on drone flying in practice, have never ever seen a incident case where the KP have been the main factor, or even contributing, here at the forum.

Properly adjusted the app can be a "blessing" as a convenient tool to quickly assess the conditions... but what matter most is the wind & that info you can get from several apps & on that, add your own common sense and way of flying. The only parameter that you lack is wind speeds at different height, but that can be mitigated by learn that the wind speeds usually increase with increased height.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Ethics? Since when did it become unethical to charge money for something that costs money to provide?

Their business model no longer could support the service. A big part of this is ad blockers. Do you use one?

Nothing is free.

 

[Winston Bull]

Ethics? Since when did it become unethical to charge money for something that costs money to provide?

Their business model no longer could support the service. A big part of this is ad blockers. Do you use one?

Nothing is free.

Good points there, especially concerning ad blockers. But I don't think I am naive enough to say it is unethical to charge money for what costs money to produce: I was more seeing a scenario where he keeps his long-time supporters at one level and simply starts charging a higher level for the new ones. But perhaps that isn't done either.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Good points there, especially concerning ad blockers. But I don't think I am naive enough to say it is unethical to charge money for what costs money to produce: I was more seeing a scenario where he keeps his long-time supporters at one level and simply starts charging a higher level for the new ones. But perhaps that isn't done either.

I see nothing unethical with a new pricing model for new customers while rewarding loyalty of long-time customers by grandfathering in their existing situation.

I benefit from this with a lifetime subscription to SiriusXM, unavailable to new customers for quite some time now (more than a decade).

 

[msinger]

I was more seeing a scenario where he keeps his long-time supporters at one level and simply starts charging a higher level for the new ones

There's often a misconception around software where many believe it should be either free or very low-cost. And then many of these same people expect complimentary upgrades, ongoing support, and other benefits at no cost. Long-time support is much appreciated, but it doesn't pay the bills.

I don't like when prices increase either, but it's pretty much the norm for everything in this world.

 

[Capt KO]

Thankfully I could use a single subscription on both my android phone and ios tablet. Enjoyed it for free and still enjoying it as pay for view. I use it daily for my flying, boating, and fishing..knowing wind speed and direction before heading out is important to me.

 

[hank970]

Perhaps a minority opinion here: I'm not familiar with the app, but it seems to me that much, if not most, of the information it provides is available to anyone who's even minimally aware of his or her surroundings. Does anyone really need an app to tell them which way the wind is blowing, that it's sunny to partly cloudy, that the Sun won't be setting for a couple of hours, and that visibility is far greater than any VLOS distance it's legal to fly with a drone?

 

[Capt KO]

Perhaps a minority opinion here: I'm not familiar with the app, but it seems to me that much, if not most, of the information it provides is available to anyone who's even minimally aware of his or her surroundings. Does anyone really need an app to tell them which way the wind is blowing, that it's sunny to partly cloudy, that the Sun won't be setting for a couple of hours, and that visibility is far greater than any VLOS distance it's legal to fly with a drone?

You can't tell the wind speed and direction at 400ft from the ground, it's often double at that height and far above safe flight. The app gives you that info in close to real time.

 

[hank970]

And how, exactly, would the app know what the precise wind speed and direction are at 400' AGL in any given location? Answer: Absent sensors in that location and at that altitude, and an awareness of local terrain characteristics, it wouldn't. Rather, the app is guessing based on broad regional, but not local, indicators and trends which it gleans, probably, from NOAA. If conditions in the relatively small area where I'm flying don't conform precisely to those of the broader surrounding area, then, for my purposes, the information provided by the app would be either misleading or useless.

How accurate are your local weather forecasts, and why are they called forecasts rather than predictions? Where I live, they offer only a rough approximation of current and future conditions. Is that better than no information at all? Sometimes, but only sometimes. I'll take my chances by observing and experiencing what's going on around me, and if, after takeoff, there's any indication that conditions at a higher altitude aren't conducive to safe flight, then I'll react accordingly.

 

[Rchawks]

I dropped mine the other day and now I just use Windy which I've had for some time now.

 

[Capt KO]

Been using UAV Forecast for years for free and have been very satisfied with accuracy, the new pay version is also worth it to me. Really don't care if others agree or not, it works for me.

 

[Rchawks]

It's a good app.

 

[Chrislaf]

The AirData UAV app provides much of what UAV Forecast provides and it’s free.

Chris