Can the Phantom 4 use a Dynamic Home Point when Flying from Boat?

[BengalBoy]

My question is whether or not the Phantom 4 can be setup or manually instructed to reset a "home point" as I fly from a moving boat?? I've enjoyed flying my Phantom 2 Vision+ the last couple years flying from a boat and knowing the home point was always being reset to my controller's position as it moved along in the boat. Now that I have a P4 will it change or can it be manually made to change the home point as I move across the water?

 

[PROJEFFREY11]

My question is whether or not the Phantom 4 can be setup or manually instructed to reset a "home point" as I fly from a moving boat?? I've enjoyed flying my Phantom 2 Vision+ the last couple years flying from a boat and knowing the home point was always being reset to my controller's position as it moved along in the boat. Now that I have a P4 will it change or can it be manually made to change the home point as I move across the water? View attachment 53269

I too wonder this.

 

[Meta4]

My question is whether or not the Phantom 4 can be setup or manually instructed to reset a "home point" as I fly from a moving boat?? I've enjoyed flying my Phantom 2 Vision+ the last couple years flying from a boat and knowing the home point was always being reset to my controller's position as it moved along in the boat. Now that I have a P4 will it change or can it be manually made to change the home point as I move across the water?

No ... the P3 and P4 allow you to reset home to the current location of the controller (as long as you have a gps enabled phone or tablet) but it's not dynamic.
It just locks on to the current location and doesn't continue to update.

 

[BengalBoy]

Thanks Meta4 for the response. Can you tell me where the setting for this manual reset is in the menu of the Go app?? Looks like remaining conscious & aware of battery life and distance will be very important now to avoid RTH drama.

 

[Jussaguy]

No ... the P3 and P4 allow you to reset home to the current location of the controller (as long as you have a gps enabled phone or tablet) but it's not dynamic.
It just locks on to the current location and doesn't continue to update.

Follow me is essentially a dynamic home point. It will keep following you using GPS reception and then just land using the sticks or setting a new homepoint but as long as you have reception, you can always switch on Follow Me and call it a dynamic movement that follows you, it just won't land but you can do that. It's not like you're gonna let it land itself in a boat anyway.

It's not dynamic but you can reset it in the MC settings from the boat essentially getting the same thing. They moved it from the main screen to the MC settings. It's right above the "Multiple Modes" button. Stupid place and I wish they would put it back on the main screen. In fact, I wish they would make it a programmable button.

Also, and I really have to check this but I think once the bird is on the way down, it becomes dynamic but that's not really what you're after I know and I am not 100% sure either.

I have noticed this recently by accident.

I was flying in a huge field which I don't normally do and I love to film my landing in ATTI mode so I was using this occasion to test the RTH over and over and I could have sworn that once it was on its descent, if I walked away, the bird was following me. I noticed it on my last bat and only had one more chance to test it and that was only a few days ago. Haven't tested since.

Either way, you should always in my opinion for safety (of the bird) reasons always be using a GPS/Glonass enabled receiver (ALL IPADS that are not cellular ARE NOT GPS enabled).

With GPS enabled, you can also turn on the follow me mode once you have completed whatever it is you are shooting.

There ya have it. Dynamic homeport through follow me.

If that doesn't make sense, I blame the clock.

 

[zacksomeone]

I love to film my landing in ATTI mode....

Sounds new. Please do explain.

 

[Jussaguy]

Sounds new. Please do explain.

I'm sorry, what sounds new?

ATTI mode is the non-gps mode (still used the VPS for landing) and I love doing a smooth ATTI landing coming in slow and low for some reason. Love the way it looks on screen.

It's nothing new and something I WOULD NOT recommend if you are not at least a minimal experienced operator and probably more leaning towards intermediate advanced because if you screw up in ATTI mode you could sail right into a wall or tree. That hovering that your P4 or PX does is because the flight board (with the GPS) says "okay, he let go of the sticks, let's figure out how to spin these props so we hover perfectly" which is great for flying but a little mechanical when shooting. When you shoot, if possible, ATTI mode just looks better.

I would not mess with it yet if I were you. If you want to learn to fly and land in ATTI mode, first go buy a SYMA X5SW and fly it around your backyard for a month. It's a ton of fun too.

I was flying a couple of my old Syma's the other day and to be honest, on a flying level, I actually get as much or more enjoyment than flying anything. So much fun. An underrated toy.

I have a few websites (like 50 actually) that I bought and haven't built up yet but one of them is a list of the top 5 "drones" on the market at www.topfivedrones.com (it needs to be seriously updated right now by the way) but I list it as our number 5. Behind the P4, Inspire Pro, P3X. Yuneec Q500+ 4K, and the Syma X5C. I think I want to change the Inspire and the P4 around. It depends on the day and what I am doing but the X5 gets such a beautiful picture but it doesn't have the fun factor as the Phantoms IMO.

 

[pakar]

Litchi has dynamic homepoint

T@p@t@lk

 

[Jussaguy]

Litchi has dynamic homepoint

T@p@t@lk

What is the purpose of a dynamic home point when you can just set a new one?

I suppose in case you lose reception on second thought you would have a more accurate last spot.

Didn't know Litchi had dynamic homepoint, Thanks.

Is anyone else surprised that there are not more third party apps for the Phantoms? It's not like they are new and DJI made it an open system and none of the apps are very good. One would think that making a good app would be high on someone's list. A lot of money to be made with some simple coding. Maybe simple is a little bit generous but still.

If someone threw some cash at developing a really good app, don't you think it could make lots of money. Isn't Litchi just one coder working on his own because he wanted waypoints when the Pilot App didn't have it.

I still have the beta app for it but I never use it as I actually like the Go App when it works.

I wish the company that makes the Drone Deploy software would make a regular flying app as their software is the best one but it's for 3D mapping which I highly recommend trying out if you haven't. It's super fun. That's another one I have the beta for. I hope they don't take it away from me.

I used it to film a location of a house that is like a mansion that I took my family on and the dude that owns it is like this 28 year old trust fund LA guy and I told him I would make a photo-read 3D model of his house for promotional purposes if he would give me a week a year there for perpetuity and he jumped on it with the only stipulaation is that it can be over-ridden by a paying customer but essentially I got a time share while I was on my vacation and spent about 2 hours 3D mapping his house with Drone Deploy. So fun and to the person that was asking who much they should charge (if you are reading outside of your thread and see this), I should have mentioned that sometimes bartering services can work out better than actually getting cash.

 

[Foosy]

...

Is anyone else surprised that there are not more third party apps for the Phantoms? It's not like they are new and DJI made it an open system and none of the apps are very good. One would think that making a good app would be high on someone's list. A lot of money to be made with some simple coding. Maybe simple is a little bit generous but still.

If someone threw some cash at developing a really good app, don't you think it could make lots of money. Isn't Litchi just one coder working on his own because he wanted waypoints when the Pilot App didn't have it.

I still have the beta app for it but I never use it as I actually like the Go App when it works.

I wish the company that makes the Drone Deploy software would make a regular flying app as their software is the best one but it's for 3D mapping which I highly recommend trying out if you haven't. It's super fun. That's another one I have the beta for. I hope they don't take it away from me.

I used it to film a location of a house that is like a mansion that I took my family on and the dude that owns it is like this 28 year old trust fund LA guy and I told him I would make a photo-read 3D model of his house for promotional purposes if he would give me a week a year there for perpetuity and he jumped on it with the only stipulaation is that it can be over-ridden by a paying customer but essentially I got a time share while I was on my vacation and spent about 2 hours 3D mapping his house with Drone Deploy. So fun and to the person that was asking who much they should charge (if you are reading outside of your thread and see this), I should have mentioned that sometimes bartering services can work out better than actually getting cash.

I think you are answering your own question:
There isn't that much cash to be made. You yourself did not pay for these apps and are still running beta.

A good software requires serious development and is not trivial. However, as a consumer, I agree with you: would be nice to have some other options.

 

[Jussaguy]

I think you are answering your own question:
There isn't that much cash to be made. You yourself did not pay for these apps and are still running beta.

A good software requires serious development and is not trivial. However, as a consumer, I agree with you: would be nice to have some other options.

For sure, but a well funded, better company will have a stronger R&D and a less wonky beta like the DJI Go App. :forehead slap:

 

[BengalBoy]

Follow me is essentially a dynamic home point. It will keep following you using GPS reception and then just land using the sticks or setting a new homepoint but as long as you have reception, you can always switch on Follow Me and call it a dynamic movement that follows you, it just won't land but you can do that. It's not like you're gonna let it land itself in a boat anyway.

It's not dynamic but you can reset it in the MC settings from the boat essentially getting the same thing. They moved it from the main screen to the MC settings. It's right above the "Multiple Modes" button. Stupid place and I wish they would put it back on the main screen. In fact, I wish they would make it a programmable button.

Also, and I really have to check this but I think once the bird is on the way down, it becomes dynamic but that's not really what you're after I know and I am not 100% sure either.

I have noticed this recently by accident.

I was flying in a huge field which I don't normally do and I love to film my landing in ATTI mode so I was using this occasion to test the RTH over and over and I could have sworn that once it was on its descent, if I walked away, the bird was following me. I noticed it on my last bat and only had one more chance to test it and that was only a few days ago. Haven't tested since.

Either way, you should always in my opinion for safety (of the bird) reasons always be using a GPS/Glonass enabled receiver (ALL IPADS that are not cellular ARE NOT GPS enabled).

With GPS enabled, you can also turn on the follow me mode once you have completed whatever it is you are shooting.

There ya have it. Dynamic homeport through follow me.

If that doesn't make sense, I blame the clock.

Great information!! Thank You!! I will mostly be orbiting the boat or flying nearby, however, now that I have the range on the P4 I'm getting.. I can see the desire to fly near the shoreline and film or shoot while the boat keeps moving away. Those are the instances where I wonder what it will do. Should I experience low battery and RTH initiated will it try to fly back to old home point and disregard my sticks, or, how do I regain manual control if it goes in to RTH and tries to fly to old home point? It was a big deal when the firmware of the Vision+ got updated to support a dynamic homepoint. Your post about the tracking is great information and should be obvious to me, hahah, however, it wasn't! Thank you for explaining where the settings are!

 

[pakar]

To stop RTH you must push one time the button from the rc controler next to power and then manually you can bring it to the point you are.
Be careful, if you are 3,4 miles or more away from the first home point even with 60 percent of battery it will start RTH if it sees that is too far to return ..
So the best thing to do is renew every minute the home point.
Sorry for my bad English, I hope you understand what I said.

T@p@t@lk

 

[Vasekp]

One idea i heard is to set the bird stay hoover if it lost signal so you could go there with a boat and regain control. But to set to follow me mode is easiest i think