Hi all
Fairly new here and to drones so I am no expert but I thought I would give back a little. When I was looking at what device to use with my Mavic, I ran across a lot of threads talking about what did not work. Frankly, it was discouraging and I spent a lot of time to try and figure out something that would be reliable but it was very hard to sort out since most of the posts are about things that did not work for someone. Of course, that is natural, we don't spend much time talking about what was successful. Anyway, I thought I would post something that is working for me in case it is useful to someone who is new and trying to get things set up
It seems that iPad solution tends to be more reliable but they are expensive (have to get the cellular versions to get GPS) and the displays seem somewhat dim outdoors. I am not anti-Apple (I am writing this on a Mac) but thought android offered more options at a more reasonable price. But ... seems like a consistently reliable solution or android is hard to find, at least it seemed so to me.
My first setup was with the Wunderphone. I set it up per the thread here and sideloaded DJI Go 4 version 4.15. Works great, no issues. The only problem I had with the setup was that I wanted something a bit bigger for my old(er) eyes. Still going to use it when I want to pack light and I think it is a great solution. Only other issue is the common one of the controller charging the android device and draining the controller battery. So far, I have not tried to do anything about that ... The display is great, no messed up video and the lag is not bad.
For something bigger, I decided that the 8 inch range was a good trade between size and portability. So, I got a Samsung S2 T710 off ebay. There are a couple versions of this device but the T710 (2015) seems to have the best reports. I was hoping it would come with Android 6 but it was used and the previous owner had upgraded to 7.0. I was worried it would not work.
I went thru the same android optimization process posted several places in the forum and side loaded 4.1.15. As far as i can tell, 4.1.18 and 4.1.22 don't have anything I am interested in and many people seem to have more problems with these versions. I also rooted the device per instructions on the web and installed the "Disable Battery Charging ROOT" app from the play store. This sounds hard and takes some web searching and reading but in the end, only took about 20 min to do. I use this to disable charging on the tablet before I start the DJI go app.
I have only flown with this configuration a couple of times but I really like it. No video breakups or issues, even when I was getting low signal warnings. Lag seems to be about 1/2 sec. The only thing that does not work right is that the Disable Battery Charging app seems to have an issue in re-enabling the charging after I fly. It works for turning if off, but does not work in turning it back on. The solution is to simply reboot the tablet and it is again charging fine. Also, one trick to get it to disable charging is to disable root permissions notifications for this app in the SU (Superuser) app. In the future, I may look into using Tasker (or similar) to automate all the pre-flight android tasks (Brightness 100%, Airplane mode, notifications off, disable charging, etc.)
I am also using the SKYREAT aluminum foldable tablet mount (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7RFDBA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and when setup correctly I can see both the controller and the tablet screens fine. I am also using the RaySun USB cables (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WMF7JUA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
I need to do more flying to say for sure but, so far, it is working well. If anyone knows of an issue with this configuration that I should look out for, please let me know.
Hope this helps someone.
Fairly new here and to drones so I am no expert but I thought I would give back a little. When I was looking at what device to use with my Mavic, I ran across a lot of threads talking about what did not work. Frankly, it was discouraging and I spent a lot of time to try and figure out something that would be reliable but it was very hard to sort out since most of the posts are about things that did not work for someone. Of course, that is natural, we don't spend much time talking about what was successful. Anyway, I thought I would post something that is working for me in case it is useful to someone who is new and trying to get things set up
It seems that iPad solution tends to be more reliable but they are expensive (have to get the cellular versions to get GPS) and the displays seem somewhat dim outdoors. I am not anti-Apple (I am writing this on a Mac) but thought android offered more options at a more reasonable price. But ... seems like a consistently reliable solution or android is hard to find, at least it seemed so to me.
My first setup was with the Wunderphone. I set it up per the thread here and sideloaded DJI Go 4 version 4.15. Works great, no issues. The only problem I had with the setup was that I wanted something a bit bigger for my old(er) eyes. Still going to use it when I want to pack light and I think it is a great solution. Only other issue is the common one of the controller charging the android device and draining the controller battery. So far, I have not tried to do anything about that ... The display is great, no messed up video and the lag is not bad.
For something bigger, I decided that the 8 inch range was a good trade between size and portability. So, I got a Samsung S2 T710 off ebay. There are a couple versions of this device but the T710 (2015) seems to have the best reports. I was hoping it would come with Android 6 but it was used and the previous owner had upgraded to 7.0. I was worried it would not work.
I went thru the same android optimization process posted several places in the forum and side loaded 4.1.15. As far as i can tell, 4.1.18 and 4.1.22 don't have anything I am interested in and many people seem to have more problems with these versions. I also rooted the device per instructions on the web and installed the "Disable Battery Charging ROOT" app from the play store. This sounds hard and takes some web searching and reading but in the end, only took about 20 min to do. I use this to disable charging on the tablet before I start the DJI go app.
I have only flown with this configuration a couple of times but I really like it. No video breakups or issues, even when I was getting low signal warnings. Lag seems to be about 1/2 sec. The only thing that does not work right is that the Disable Battery Charging app seems to have an issue in re-enabling the charging after I fly. It works for turning if off, but does not work in turning it back on. The solution is to simply reboot the tablet and it is again charging fine. Also, one trick to get it to disable charging is to disable root permissions notifications for this app in the SU (Superuser) app. In the future, I may look into using Tasker (or similar) to automate all the pre-flight android tasks (Brightness 100%, Airplane mode, notifications off, disable charging, etc.)
I am also using the SKYREAT aluminum foldable tablet mount (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7RFDBA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and when setup correctly I can see both the controller and the tablet screens fine. I am also using the RaySun USB cables (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WMF7JUA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
I need to do more flying to say for sure but, so far, it is working well. If anyone knows of an issue with this configuration that I should look out for, please let me know.
Hope this helps someone.
