I lost it.. :((

KevMo Photog · Dec 13, 2016

ebi718 said:
I think it bears repeating that OA requires adequate lighting to work. Thus it would have been useless (ineffectual) given the lighting conditions shown in the last minutes of the video even if the OP had it turned on ( or it came on automatically).

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I disagree! From what I saw there was plenty of light at time he hit the building! I have had mine stop at 22mph heading right at a building in the shade at sunset and it stopped dead 10ft away from it! But the glass might have been what kept it from stopping maybe! Or else it was not turned on accidentally. Or it malfunctioned.

neven · Dec 13, 2016

Bigbells said:
When I updated the firmware on my P4P two days ago, the RTH altitude was reset to the default 30 meters. For me, it needs to be 52 meters but I've flown 4 times since the update without remembering to reset the RTH altitude.. I ain't forgettin' no more!

I don't know for sure if that is a case in Go v.4 but in Go v.3 RTH altitude is shown as a notification when you start your motors

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F3honda4me · Dec 13, 2016

KevMo Photog said:
I disagree! From what I saw there was plenty of light at time he hit the building! I have had mine stop at 22mph heading right at a building in the shade at sunset and it stopped dead 10ft away from it! But the glass might have been what kept it from stopping maybe! Or else it was not turned on accidentally. Or it malfunctioned.

Since he still had the default RTH height set, I'm guessing he also had OA on RTH disabled still. That's probably why it hit the building.

Pharm · Dec 13, 2016

F3honda4me said:
...I have a feeling a lot of people out there are incorrectly flying under the assumption that RTH automatically uses OA when in fact you have to turn on this setting in order for that to be true.

Agree. A lot of people have issues in flight because they "assume" things instead of reading the manual and actually understanding or KNOWING what to expect.

Personally, I don't see any evidence here for a warranty claim (I could be wrong if there was a malfunction) but it appears to me that even if OA was turned on, it could have been foiled by low light (which is very subjective when viewing a video since the camera will often make the ambient light appear brighter than it actually was) or by the reflection, both of which are described and warned about in the manual. The RC lost contact because the AC went behind the building (in any case, the actual cause of RTH initiating is irrelevant in this case - the question is WHY it hit the building). RTH ensued at too low of an altitude and it struck the building. Given the low light and the glass, it's quite probable that the OA system functioned as it should have within its stated parameters but was unable to overcome the low light and/or reflection (hence the explanation and warnings in the manual)(this is also assuming the OP did in fact, have OA turned on).

I hope DJI does repair or replace it for you but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't, given the evidence in their favor.

Stepping off soapbox now.

F3honda4me · Dec 13, 2016

Pharm said:
Agree. A lot of people have issues in flight because they "assume" things instead of reading the manual and actually understanding or KNOWING what to expect.

Personally, I don't see any evidence here for a warranty claim (I could be wrong if there was a malfunction) but it appears to me that even if OA was turned on, it could have been foiled by low light (which is very subjective when viewing a video since the camera will often make the ambient light appear brighter than it actually was) or by the reflection, both of which are described and warned about in the manual. The RC lost contact because the AC went behind the building (in any case, the actual cause of RTH initiating is irrelevant in this case - the question is WHY it hit the building). RTH ensued at too low of an altitude and it struck the building. Given the low light and the glass, it's quite probable that the OA system functioned as it should have within its stated parameters but was unable to overcome the low light and/or reflection (hence the explanation and warnings in the manual)(this is also assuming the OP did in fact, have OA turned on).

I hope DJI does repair or replace it for you but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't, given the evidence in their favor.

Stepping off soapbox now.

It sounds like OP has DJI Refresh, so DJI is going to cover it either way.

Pharm · Dec 13, 2016

F3honda4me said:
It sounds like OP has DJI Refresh, so DJI is going to cover it either way.

Excellent!

lickitysplit11111 · Dec 13, 2016

F3honda4me said:
Since he still had the default RTH height set, I'm guessing he also had OA on RTH disabled still. That's probably why it hit the building.

Nope, I enabled OA and tried it out in a park on stadium lighting poles and it worked fine , it stopped the copter about 15-20 feet in front of the pole each time with a beeping from the RC

KevMo Photog · Dec 13, 2016

Pharm said:
Agree. A lot of people have issues in flight because they "assume" things instead of reading the manual and actually understanding or KNOWING what to expect.

Personally, I don't see any evidence here for a warranty claim (I could be wrong if there was a malfunction) but it appears to me that even if OA was turned on, it could have been foiled by low light (which is very subjective when viewing a video since the camera will often make the ambient light appear brighter than it actually was) or by the reflection, both of which are described and warned about in the manual. The RC lost contact because the AC went behind the building (in any case, the actual cause of RTH initiating is irrelevant in this case - the question is WHY it hit the building). RTH ensued at too low of an altitude and it struck the building. Given the low light and the glass, it's quite probable that the OA system functioned as it should have within its stated parameters but was unable to overcome the low light and/or reflection (hence the explanation and warnings in the manual)(this is also assuming the OP did in fact, have OA turned on).

I hope DJI does repair or replace it for you but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't, given the evidence in their favor.

Stepping off soapbox now.

I Still think it should have stopped even in this light Pharm. I had one stop in same or less light. This is of course if he had OA turned on. I'm guessing not. But the glass may have been a factor for sure. He has DJI Care so he'll get a new one for 79 or 99 bucks I think it is. DJI will figure it out when they get his bird for sure.

F3honda4me · Dec 13, 2016

lickitysplit11111 said:
Nope, I enabled OA and tried it out in a park on stadium lighting poles and it worked fine , it stopped the copter about 15-20 feet in front of the pole each time with a beeping from the RC

Did you turn on return to home OA? That's a totally different setting than the regular obstacle avoidance stuff you turn on for flying around, P modes, intelligent flight modes etc.

When you were testing with the light poles, was this during RTH or just flying around/follow/tracking etc?

KevMo Photog · Dec 13, 2016

Pharm said:
Agree. A lot of people have issues in flight because they "assume" things instead of reading the manual and actually understanding or KNOWING what to expect.

Personally, I don't see any evidence here for a warranty claim (I could be wrong if there was a malfunction) but it appears to me that even if OA was turned on, it could have been foiled by low light (which is very subjective when viewing a video since the camera will often make the ambient light appear brighter than it actually was) or by the reflection, both of which are described and warned about in the manual. The RC lost contact because the AC went behind the building (in any case, the actual cause of RTH initiating is irrelevant in this case - the question is WHY it hit the building). RTH ensued at too low of an altitude and it struck the building. Given the low light and the glass, it's quite probable that the OA system functioned as it should have within its stated parameters but was unable to overcome the low light and/or reflection (hence the explanation and warnings in the manual)(this is also assuming the OP did in fact, have OA turned on).

I hope DJI does repair or replace it for you but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't, given the evidence in their favor.

Stepping off soapbox now.

I take that back Pharm! I just looked at video again and it was def darker than my case. The sun was totally gone here and overcaset. So it had to be pretty dark on the shadow side of that building. But he just posted that he had OA turned on. But I think your right it's prob too dark to stop it.

lickitysplit11111 · Dec 13, 2016

F3honda4me said:
Did you turn on return to home OA? That's a totally different setting than the regular obstacle avoidance stuff you turn on for flying around, P modes, intelligent flight modes etc. When you were testing with the light poles, was this during RTH or just flying around/follow/tracking etc?

That I don't remember ,but I used it during regular flying not the RTH OA setting you speak of , I did go thru all the setting and set them to what made sense to me and I'm hoping DJI will clue me in on what I did wrong or if the copter did something unexpected like what was mentioned "because of the glass' , "not enough light" OA malfunction , whatever the case may be .. I was the operator and I'll take the Zero for what happened but I think I at least deserve an explanation as to the cause from DJI whether its under warranty or DJI Care.
Im new to all this but by the sound of it a lot of people on this forum are not exactly sure of how all the settings work ,
I cant seem to find the "Trace your Path " RTH setting nowhere in the Manual , can you Please tell me where it may be found so I can learn to enable it so this is not repeated in the future ... Thank you for your help.

lickitysplit11111 · Dec 13, 2016

KevMo Photog said:
I take that back Pharm! I just looked at video again and it was def darker than my case. The sun was totally gone here and overcaset. So it had to be pretty dark on the shadow side of that building. But he just posted that he had OA turned on. But I think your right it's prob too dark to stop it.

I believe it was about 10 minutes before sunrise.

smiller · Dec 13, 2016

It really is very confusing. For all their hyping of the feature, it seems like DJI has not only buried RTH OA under an advanced settings menu, but has it turned off by default(?) That makes no sense, but it at least seems to be the case. I guess the only way we'll know (like so many other poorly documented features) is by real-world testing on our own.

ginola73 · Dec 13, 2016

smiller said:
I think the more detailed .DAT logs off of the bird (now that you have it back) might indicate the state of all options, but I don't know who besides DJI can decode them to that level.

Unless somebody in this forum can decode this, then our guessing game will never ends..

F3honda4me · Dec 13, 2016

lickitysplit11111 said:
That I don't remember ,but I used it during regular flying not the RTH OA setting you speak of , I did go thru all the setting and set them to what made sense to me and I'm hoping DJI will clue me in on what I did wrong or if the copter did something unexpected like what was mentioned "because of the glass' , "not enough light" OA malfunction , whatever the case may be .. I was the operator and I'll take the Zero for what happened but I think I at least deserve an explanation as to the cause from DJI whether its under warranty or DJI Care.
Im new to all this but by the sound of it a lot of people on this forum are not exactly sure of how all the settings work ,
I cant seem to find the "Trace your Path " RTH setting nowhere in the Manual , can you Please tell me where it may be found so I can learn to enable it so this is not repeated in the future ... Thank you for your help.

lickitysplit11111 · Dec 13, 2016

OK thats a pic of "a" setting I'd like to read "Exactly" what the setting does in the manual, and I'm assuming you mean the "Smart Return -To-Home
Have you tried it ?

smiller · Dec 13, 2016

lickitysplit11111 said:
OK thats a pic of "a" setting I'd like to read "Exactly" what the setting does in the manual

So would we all

So far as I can tell, other than what it says on the screen it's completely undocumented, nor is it clear how it relates to the main obstacle avoidance setting (which also mentions RTH in its on-page description.) What does what ???

Pharm · Dec 13, 2016

lickitysplit11111 said:
OK thats a pic of "a" setting I'd like to read "Exactly" what the setting does in the manual, and I'm assuming you mean the "Smart Return -To-Home
Have you tried it ?

He's referring to the obstacle avoidance RTH, the setting that's NOT turned on in the picture.

johnmont250 · Dec 13, 2016

someone on another forum mentioned that the follow the flight path home only works when there is no connection to the rc, and when the ac gets a signal, it will resume normal rth(oa off or on) ie a straight line back to the home point.

if i underdstood correctly...