Flight time & transmission distance TESTED & CONFIRMED

TTTyd · Oct 3, 2016

I came across this well-made Mavic review in Chinese, and here are their real-world test results for flight time and radio transmission distance:

Flight time (3'10" in video): Orbit mode at 10m radius and 10m altitude in medium wind: 8% battery left after 24 minutes, and battery completely drained after 26 minutes. Repeated tests show similar results (25-26 minutes)

Transmission distance (4'25" in video): Weak transmission signal warning at 6km (3.7mi), however "no hiccups in video feed were observed". Continued to 7km (4.3mi) without problems, and the tester decided to bring the Mavic back due to battery level concerns.

With The Birds · Oct 3, 2016

Very promising..

kmaluo · Oct 3, 2016

TTTyd said:
I came across this well-made Mavic review in Chinese, and here are their real-world test results for flight time and radio transmission distance:

Flight time (3'10" in video): Orbit mode at 10m radius and 10m altitude in medium wind: 8% battery left after 24 minutes, and battery completely drained after 26 minutes. Repeated tests show similar results (25-26 minutes)

Transmission distance (4'25" in video): Weak transmission signal warning at 6km (3.7mi), however "no hiccups in video feed was observed". Continued to 7km (4.3mi) without problems, and the tester decided to return home due to low battery.

That range with video transmission blows me away. I wish that was in English, as it seems to be a video manual of the Mavic.

m0j0 · Oct 3, 2016

That was pretty neat flew it straight out I would like to see one completed without the time lapse. I'm interested to see when or if there are drops in video.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

Haroldo · Oct 3, 2016

Nice video.
Actually a Mavic engineer mentioned in a Chinese website that the max transmission range of OcuSync could be over 10km in an ideal situation. So 7km is just a piece of cake.

m0j0 · Oct 4, 2016

Wow.. I wonder where they stole the technology from... Lol

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With The Birds · Oct 4, 2016

m0j0 said:
Wow.. I wonder where they stole the technology from... Lol

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

They had the opportunity to build on part of the existing wifi standard, i.e. Wifibroadcast https://befinitiv.wordpress.com/wifibroadcast-analog-like-transmission-of-live-video-data/

We need to give credit to DJI for packaging technology at a reasonable cost. They probably aren't inventing anything new but they don't have to steal anything either.

m0j0 · Oct 4, 2016

Maybe not but given my knowledge of the Chineese and their propensity to disregard copyright protected tech I would not be surprised.

John Locke · Oct 4, 2016

With The Birds said:
They had the opportunity to build on part of the existing wifi standard, i.e. Wifibroadcast Wifibroadcast – Analog-like transmission of live video data

We need to give credit to DJI for packaging technology at a reasonable cost. They probably aren't inventing anything new but they don't have to steal anything either.

I'm not so sure. If they aren't inventing anything, why isn't Yuneec using it? Most of us are sold on DJI because they have Lightbridge. Yuneec and others must know that, right? That's DJI's primary advantage, do we agree on that? So if this OcuSync technology is "off the shelf", you'd think the others would be using it.

I'm thinking the Ocu-Sync technology is something special DJI invented, like Lightbridge 2yrs ago with Inspire.

Did I read correctly, does OcuSync provide a 1080 downlink instead of 720 to the display device (iPhone)? That feature was stated for the DJI googles, but is the also supported to the iPhone display running Go? I know Lightbridge 2 supports 1080, but does OcuSync do this too?

With The Birds · Oct 5, 2016

John Locke said:
I'm not so sure. If they aren't inventing anything, why isn't Yuneec using it? Most of us are sold on DJI because they have Lightbridge. Yuneec and others must know that, right? That's DJI's primary advantage, do we agree on that? So if this OcuSync technology is "off the shelf", you'd think the others would be using it.

I'm thinking the Ocu-Sync technology is something special DJI invented, like Lightbridge 2yrs ago with Inspire.

Did I read correctly, does OcuSync provide a 1080 downlink instead of 720 to the display device (iPhone)? That feature was stated for the DJI googles, but is the also supported to the iPhone display running Go? I know Lightbridge 2 supports 1080, but does OcuSync do this too?

John I don't profess to know what occusync is, all I suggested in my post is that DJI had the opportunity to build on existing technology and to start from scratch would not be necessary.

I have seen the wifibroadcast protocol in action. Similar or superior range to lightbridge with lower latency and 1080p resolution. The code is open source and can be implemented with cheap off the shelf hardware.

Why Yuneek or others haven't gone with it I can't say but it is available and proven.

Consider this- The mavilk can operate from a phone or tablet without the controller and DJI didn't need to do anything unique to your hardware. It is obviously able to be implemented as a software solution with conventional compliant wifi hardware.

m0j0 · Oct 5, 2016

Yes 1080 to the smartphone from the bird.

Larry56 · Oct 5, 2016

m0j0 said:
Yes 1080 to the smartphone from the bird.

A very interesting point in this video is that at 3:33 into it, I noticed he had a tablet (possibly a iPad mini or full-sized iPad) attached to the RC in place of a smartphone. Some may have noticed it in the video sooner but I didn't watch the whole thing so I thought I'd at least point out this little detail in case everyone missed it. I know there were some users questioning whether this could be done at all. Well apparently, unless he did a special modification, it can. I'm sure that'll be good news to some. I've always used an iPad but frankly, I may start using my 6plus instead just cause it seems to fit better.

Peter Galbavy · Oct 5, 2016

As an aside, nothing is invented from scratch (anymore). All inventions are improvements on previous ones. "If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" to slightly paraphrase Isaac Newton.

With The Birds · Oct 5, 2016

Peter Galbavy said:
As an aside, nothing is invented from scratch (anymore). All inventions are improvements on previous ones. "If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" to slightly paraphrase Isaac Newton.

Agreed Peter and that was simply my point. Why would DJI, or any entity for that matter, start from scratch in any endeavour where a lot of the work had already been done for then. It's an illogical proposition.

Pablo1981 · Oct 7, 2016

Another video testing the range:

Not the best video ever but he seemed to get out to 3.8 miles into a headwind without issue. Homepoint was a suburban area too, not exactly ideal conditions. Impressive.

Mimoid · Oct 7, 2016

7 km that's awesome! I hope this will not be crippled over here in EU. Why with the Phantom we get only like 2.5 km (1.5 miles) in perfect LOS conditions. A little further if you're prepared to fly while constantly losing the video feed.

/// Tom

Peter Galbavy · Oct 7, 2016

It's something called the law. There are limits on the power output of certain type of radio device and DJI, like all manufacturers, conform to those regulations/laws.

TheLightSpeedz · Oct 7, 2016

Larry56 said:
A very interesting point in this video is that at 3:33 into it, I noticed he had a tablet (possibly a iPad mini or full-sized iPad) attached to the RC in place of a smartphone. Some may have noticed it in the video sooner but I didn't watch the whole thing so I thought I'd at least point out this little detail in case everyone missed it. I know there were some users questioning whether this could be done at all. Well apparently, unless he did a special modification, it can. I'm sure that'll be good news to some. I've always used an iPad but frankly, I may start using my 6plus instead just cause it seems to fit better.

You can see the "clamp" just barely holding he top of the iPad!

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

Mimoid · Oct 7, 2016

Peter Galbavy said:
It's something called the law. There are limits on the power output of certain type of radio device and DJI, like all manufacturers, conform to those regulations/laws.

Law or not, what is the reason? Why OK in the US, why NOK in EU? Technical reasons, health reasons, or just a "aye, now, 'tis how we always did 'ere laddie, better get used to it or we'll gie ye a skelpit lug so you 'member".

/// Tom