GoPro Wifi left on during flight of P2

[DesertFlyer53]

I normally configure my gopro using my smart phone app prior to every flight, then I turn off the wifi. Today I turned off the indicator lights on my go pro and forgot I did that as I normally make sure the blue wifi light is OFF prior to flight. It was off but only because I turned the light off in the go pro setting menu. Took off and the P2 flew fine (thank god). I read time and again not to fly with go pro wifi turned on. I know this but today I screwed up. Was I lucky or is this not really a issue???

 

[av8inglife]

Lucky indeed.
As for why you did not encounter any issues...My first guess would be because the GoPro itself was not actively communicating with another device (i.e. your mobile device & GoPro App) and it was merely broadcasting a wireless SSID. Had the Gopro actually been connected to a device via the WiFi connection and communicating, the results may have been different.

Again only speculation, for what its worth.

 

[DesertFlyer53]

Lucky indeed.
As for why you did not encounter any issues...My first guess would be because the GoPro itself was not actively communicating with another device (i.e. your mobile device & GoPro App) and it was merely broadcasting a wireless SSID. Had the Gopro actually been connected to a device via the WiFi connection and communicating, the results may have been different.

Again only speculation, for what its worth.

Good point. Thank you.

 

[OI Photography]

Lucky indeed.
As for why you did not encounter any issues...My first guess would be because the GoPro itself was not actively communicating with another device (i.e. your mobile device & GoPro App) and it was merely broadcasting a wireless SSID. Had the Gopro actually been connected to a device via the WiFi connection and communicating, the results may have been different.

Again only speculation, for what its worth.

I agree, if the gopro app was already closed on your phone then you may have dodged a bullet by the fact the camera had stopped actively transmitting video over the wifi by the time you flew. The root problem with having the gopro's wifi on is the way it can drown out your control signal to the receiver, so it sounds like yours was keeping quiet enough at the time to let you do your thing.

 

[DesertFlyer53]

Lucky indeed.
As for why you did not encounter any issues...My first guess would be because the GoPro itself was not actively communicating with another device (i.e. your mobile device & GoPro App) and it was merely broadcasting a wireless SSID. Had the Gopro actually been connected to a device via the WiFi connection and communicating, the results may have been different.

Again only speculation, for what its worth.

I agree, if the gopro app was already closed on your phone then you may have dodged a bullet by the fact the camera had stopped actively transmitting video over the wifi by the time you flew. The root problem with having the gopro's wifi on is the way it can drown out your control signal to the receiver, so it sounds like yours was keeping quiet enough at the time to let you do your thing.

Sounds logical. I dodged a bullets alright. Lesson learned. Gopro indicator lights will always stay on from now on! Good thing I turned the app off on my phone before I flew!

 

[OI Photography]

Sounds logical. I dodged a bullets alright. Lesson learned. Gopro indicator lights will always stay on from now on! Good thing I turned the app off on my phone before I flew!

I was hit by that same bullet once, but I deserved it for not realizing the app was still open and the wifi wasn't off like I thought. And I hadn't even deactivated the status lights on the gopro :roll:

 

[DesertFlyer53]

Sounds logical. I dodged a bullets alright. Lesson learned. Gopro indicator lights will always stay on from now on! Good thing I turned the app off on my phone before I flew!

I was hit by that same bullet once, but I deserved it for not realizing the app was still open and the wifi wasn't off like I thought. And I hadn't even deactivated the status lights on the gopro :roll:

Did it cause you to crash?

I'm in the habit of always checking to make sure the blue gopro light isn't flashing when I take off. I just forgot I turned off the light in the gopro setting menu. One mistake I will never make again!

 

[OI Photography]

Did it cause you to crash?

Yessir. I could tell it wasn't consistently responding to commands, but it was one of my first flights and before I could bring it in it took a dive in to the neighbor's back yard.

I knew I shouldn't leave the wifi on, but I let myself get too distracted by some curious observers and didn't notice I hadn't fully turned it off when I hit the button. I've also since removed the gopro's wifi button (the external part anyway) as the gimbal I use now has a brace that could easily bump it on with just a tiny shift of the camera.

 

[skeeter]

Phew! That could have really turned out differently. Glad it didn't!

And, thanks OI Photography for reminding me to remove that external wifi button on the GoPro! It really is close to the stock Zenmuse GP holder bracket.

Speaking of wifi, many moons ago my original GoPro Hero3 Black had a firmware issue that would randomly turn on/off it's wifi. (the firmware has been since updated and, so far, has been a non-issue) Makes me wonder if any of the flyaways might be caused by this "feature" and/or the wifi button being activated by the mounting bracket....hmmmm :?:

 

[DesertFlyer53]

Makes me wonder if any of the flyaways might be caused by this "feature" and/or the wifi button being activated by the mounting bracket....hmmmm :?:

I would tend to doubt it. Because, as I unknowing proved today. Having the wifi on in and of itself will not cause a crash. The wifi needs to be actively communicating with a wifi app. At least that would appear to be the case since having it on had no adverse affect on my Phantom. If I would have had my smart phones gopro app running, the results might have been much different.

 

[skeeter]

Makes me wonder if any of the flyaways might be caused by this "feature" and/or the wifi button being activated by the mounting bracket....hmmmm :?:

I would tend to doubt it. Because, as I unknowing proved today. Having the wifi on in and of itself will not cause a crash. The wifi needs to be actively communicating with a wifi app. At least that would appear to be the case since having it on had no adverse affect on my Phantom. If I would have had my smart phones gopro app running, the results might have been much different.

I would tend to doubt it as well. If someone with a network/RF/spectrum analyzer could take a peek at a GoPro during wifi initialization, we may have a more definitive answer. I'd like to see if it gets bursty during initialization...



...Skeeter
since 1960....

 

[ianwood]

I have a spectrum analyzer but I lack a Faraday cage. Way to noisy around here to get a clean result. Suffice to say leaving GoPro WiFi on is playing with fire. All it takes is a couple of poorly timed bursts and your Phantom is in a tree. We've already seen a couple of examples of P2 crashes as result of the GoPro WiFi being on.

 

[DesertFlyer53]

Correct. I'm not saying it's not as important now to make sure your GoPro wifi is off. I just dodged a bullet! But... if anyone suddenly realizes they left theirs on and the craft is in flight, the first thing to do might be to shut off your gopro app. May just save a crash.