New Flytrex Goodies

[srandall25]

Ok here we go....worlds 1st look at the inside the Flytrex Live Tracker. Next we'll get them sent over to iBoz and iZoom to begin working their magic.

Frank - see my comment above... Would you recommend I refuse to accept the package on this? I already have the Core 2. I don't want to make a $200 mistake on this if it's not working right with spotty cellular connectivity. Thanks.

 

[jarrah31]

I've got a Flytrex Live and have been fairly happy with it so far. I can understand what you mean about the data cables being loose as I once pulled on the cables to unplug it and the yellow wire almost came out, but pushing it back in was ok and had no issues since.

I agree that support is now poor. My issue is that badges aren't being generated (not really major in the grand scheme of things), and my email to Flytrex support on Monday is still unanswered. I did get one response to a question asking where I should solder my power cables to on the vision plus by pointing out the lack instructions in their site, but their reply was to look at the core installation page which doesn't help at all being different product.

Other than that it's been working great and I'm happy with my purchase, logging all my results without fail, though this has been in an area with mobile data. On Simon Newton's review video, it does say in the comments somewhere that data will/should be cached on the Live till the next data connection is obtained...

I do hope they pull their fingers out and get more people on support as I think there's only one person called Rebecca answering them so far (based on two other emails before my live arrived).

 

[srandall25]

Yep, you are correct.. Rebecca is the only response I was able to get a while back... I guess they're one deep in support. Assuming they're selling thousands of these.. not a good idea to compromise on the support side.

 

[sidebox]

I have heard nothing from flytrex since placing my order for the core model at the beginning of August. I sent two emails. No response. How long did it take for them to ship your orders? They claim to ship every 48 hours. I'm not even sure what that means, but it makes it sound like their turnaround time is roughly 48 hours.

 

[srandall25]

I have heard nothing from flytrex since placing my order for the core model at the beginning of August. I sent two emails. No response. How long did it take for them to ship your orders? They claim to ship every 48 hours. I'm not even sure what that means, but it makes it sound like their turnaround time is roughly 48 hours.

I ordered mine with expedited shipping the day it was first released, July 10th.. The first attempted delivery was yesterday. I wasn't there to receive. Rebecca sent me a response on August 3rd with an apology on the delay. It doesn't appear as if many people have heard from support in the last couple weeks since..

 

[Dirty Bird]

I have heard nothing from flytrex since placing my order for the core model at the beginning of August. I sent two emails. No response. How long did it take for them to ship your orders? They claim to ship every 48 hours. I'm not even sure what that means, but it makes it sound like their turnaround time is roughly 48 hours.

Ordered my Live on July 10th and it arrived just this Thursday August 14th. Haven't had a chance to install it yet.

 

[DronePilot]

From looking at flyNfrank's photos of the the live internals it seems the live certainly has the storage capacity to cache all the GPS data. The IC in the center of the first photo is a Winbond 25X128 serial flash with 16MB of storage.

 

[flyNfrank]

Ok here we go....worlds 1st look at the inside the Flytrex Live Tracker. Next we'll get them sent over to iBoz and iZoom to begin working their magic.

Frank - see my comment above... Would you recommend I refuse to accept the package on this? I already have the Core 2. I don't want to make a $200 mistake on this if it's not working right with spotty cellular connectivity. Thanks.

Ok I'm going to respond based on everything I personally experienced with just the Live Tracking device alone. And also the fact that you currently already have the core2, which is no doubt a good investment.

I would not except delivery. You will save yourself the stress in dealing with it any further. I so wish I was in your shoes now, then mine with all that I have went through, and still more to come with my device not working.

I'm going to share something with you now that I didn't mention it in the past because I didn't want you or others pissed at me. But I ordered my live tracker July 11th, paid extra for Rush Shipping, they shipped it on the July 20th. In my hands on July 25th over 3 weeks ago.

 

[flyNfrank]

I have heard nothing from flytrex since placing my order for the core model at the beginning of August. I sent two emails. No response. How long did it take for them to ship your orders? They claim to ship every 48 hours. I'm not even sure what that means, but it makes it sound like their turnaround time is roughly 48 hours.

When I ordered mine I was told their very 1st order was sent out July 10th. My order was sent the 20th. I was told prior to the 20th that if I do manage to get mine, the next batch would be going out for at least 2 weeks later.

 

[rrmccabe]

I don't think I want to go down this path. I ordered a week ago. I still have yet to get a response either pre purchase or post. I just disputed it with PayPal and in the event it ships plan to refuse delivery. I will just eat the money spent with T-Mobile. Between no response and no data caching when you lose cell service momentarily is a deal breaker.

 

[flyNfrank]

You know of coarse we all have different taste in what we like, and don't like. But for anyone that has not received their FLT yet, it's very possible that when you do get it and go through all the motions of getting everything setup and functioning as it should, you will probably find out that the FLT does not meet expectations. Once you finally figure out how to make it to your live page, you'll notice that there is nothing to it. No data or saved data, just looks like a blank map page, and that is all it actually is. Nothing goes on with the page unless you are flying. And then it doesn't stay there to view. You will need locate software that can record your display monitor just to see what it looks like. I would think at some point this may change, but even if it does there is not much wow factor to it. For me, this when I realized I gave up my ability to have control over your flight files in exchange for the flight to be added to your account profile. I paid $200 and took two steps backwards.
I remember showing my wife how she could watch me fly while on the couch using the ipad, and she just gave me a look like I had to be joking. LLOL!

 

[rrmccabe]

Sent Flytrex email telling them I wanted to cancel order. And was in process of disputing with PayPal.

Got a quick response saying they were 3 days behind on email even though they responded to last one in about 1 hour. Anyway, they refunded purchase price.

So impresses with ease of that.

I think I will buy a core2 locally and get a marco polo.

Thanks for all the great info in this thread.

 

[johnie]

I have a FTL but haven’t installed it yet, I’m sure they wouldn’t be so dumb as to make the mistake of not being able to keep all the flight data intact and send it on when a connection appears.
It does have 16mb of on board memory as it mentions it on their website.

I’m not sure why pull_up hasn’t commented on what happens when you lose connection to your service yet, maybe he’s on holiday but here’s a comment he posted on another forum where he mentions what happens in this situation.

The Live has an internal memory. If phone service is interrupted the Live records the telemetry internally, then transmits it again when cell data is re-established. If you operate in a no-service area it stores all the telemetry internally and then uploads it to your Live account when it next gets service.

Further down the thread he also mentions..

If you have no sim card in it/no signal it will record the data to internal memory. When it rejoins a network it will send the stored data. What I don't know (but will find out) is if you can plug into its USB and download the data manually. Stay tuned for the answer on that.

Got an answer: "Not yet, but it will come..." There is a (currently Windows only) utility app to configure the Live if you can't log on to your mobile netowrk automatically - it manually sets the Acces Points and all the others things that should happen automatically when connecting a GSM device to a new network, but ocessionaly don't. They will be able to modify the app to provide this feature.

Link to original post http://forums.multicopterpilots.com/pha ... l#post1809

 

[johnie]

At 15:05 UK time I emailed Flytrex and asked this

Can you tell me what happens if during flight the 2G connection drops. Can I still retrieve all my flight data even if the signal doesn't return that day?

At 16:20 UK time they replied with the following answer

Hi John,

Thank you for the email! Technically Flytrex Live continues to record your flight data even if the data connection drops during the flight. We will have a new option available via the control panel in the next couple of days (should be ready this week) that let's you re-sync missions in case that some mission data have gone missing during the flight. Using this option will tell Flytrex Live to re-sync the recent missions data in case that some mission data wasn't received successfully.

We actually already had this option during the beta testing, but we decided to try and automated it some more and currently have it under further development.

In addition, we will soon release a Windows PC app that let's you connect to your Live using the USB port and download your backup missions data as files as well, so users will have another option to re-load these missions to their profile. We'll most likely need a bit more time to get this part working though.

If you would like, I invite you to stay tuned with our upcoming updates at our Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/flytrex

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with.

Have a great weekend!

I think that’s a good answer and think a reply in 1 hour 15 minutes is pretty good service. If only DJI were that good at customer service!

 

[yariv]

Hi Guys,
Yariv from Flytrex here.

Sorry for the late responses you've been getting in the past few weeks, you deserve better !
We poorly managed the last month - a few key employees took loonnnngggg vacations on the same time while the remaining team worked on development, production and QA (every Core and Live are checked by our team before shipment).

Anyways, yes to all questions !

Yes, the live records all your missions to the 16MBit memory chip - read more about it in the post we'll be putting soon - there's an option of just removing the SIM card if you are flying in an area without reception - enabling the Flytrex Core functionality.
If you lose reception after you start - the Live still records everything the the internal memory.

Yes, we will soon release a windows program that will enable you to download your missions to the usual file format, as well as to manually change the APN if needed.

The Flytrex Live is a very large step from the Flytrex Core, as can be seen from the electronics (I'm attaching a better image at the end J) just to go over a few features:
It supports firmware updates over the air, something that companies like Samsung and Nokia have done only in the past few years.
It supports world wide GSM, with a quad band antenna on board. Plus a barometer, an accelerometer and a voltage sensor.
It has an internal APN list of every cellular operator in the world (also kept up to date over the air, no worries, we keep the file really small), so you wouldn't usually need to setup a manual APN via the software.

So, yes, we've been very much behind on the standards we set to ourselves - delivering great products on time, having useful up to date information about our products on our website and answering people asap when they need us.
Please bear with us, it is still going to take a few more days until we'll be back to normal operation and to answering emails really fast like we used to. And I'm sorry if I will not able to respond on this thread as much as I'd like, I need to work on making better products and a better experience for you guys

I hope we can consider these to be growing pains. We have some great ideas for the future, awesome products in development and an awesome team that can deliver.

Fly safe and always have fun !

Cheers,
Yariv.

 

[rrmccabe]

Thanks for followup.

 

[flyNfrank]

I don't get it. So you come on here to sell your product? Yes most can agree your website has never been one that describes your products in very good detail. Which of coarse leads to numerous questions being asked, over, and over. Why not deal with it one time and get the info out that people so desperately try to get answers for? And maybe this is out of your reach, but your products are only part of your business. Without good public relations, your products are nothing. Your post above is actually a great example that shows the public relations for customers does not exist. You read this thread and obviously looked past what I have posted about your company not responding to numerous emails of mine, and done so even after I pleaded with your company in the public to please-please respond to my emails. I said I desperately needed your help. Yariv, it's obvious you along with your partners have selective viewing. You only see what you choose to see which clearly explains why I and several others have had a bad experience with your company over the product you talked so much about in your post.

Yariv, your company took a lot of the fun and enjoyment I got from my Vision Plus hobby. I have never had to ask a business to please not ignore me and respond to my emails. This is my hobby that allows me to get away from my repetitive working world. I own and administrate a number of websites. And in doing that, I deal with a number of companies on a regular basis. Never have I experienced one that was so out of wack, as yours. You have a huge product release coming up, and you have employees that take vacation? That's not a fault of the employee, but is the fault of management for allowing it or not getting additional people in to cover the loss. I'll be the 1st to say that upset customers could actually care less why you failed to provide good public relations. I would prefer to know what arrangements are being put in place to satisfy those that are unhappy.

At this point I'm not that concerned with where things may or may not go for myself and your company. But I do tend have a concern for my fellow pilots, and more importantly the new pilots that come into this hobby each day. I have given many of these new pilots a type of support for your FLT and the Core2 and this happens because they can not get the info from you, or website as well as your social media site. I paid $200 for a FLT that I got zero support. The new guys don't get response from emailing and ask me. I then attempt to get answers. After 5-6 not answered email I then blow off a little and speak my mind.

By the way Yariv, you obviously read my post just a page or two back. Why not address I have a broken wire harness(see attached image), My FLT has flashed light sequence correctly. And more?

 

[amitregev]

I don't get it. So you come on here to sell your product? Yes most can agree your website has never been one that describes your products in very good detail. Which of coarse leads to numerous questions being asked, over, and over. Why not deal with it one time and get the info out that people so desperately try to get answers for? And maybe this is out of your reach, but your products are only part of your business. Without good public relations, your products are nothing. Your post above is actually a great example that shows the public relations for customers does not exist. You read this thread and obviously looked past what I have posted about your company not responding to numerous emails of mine, and done so even after I pleaded with your company in the public to please-please respond to my emails. I said I desperately needed your help. Yariv, it's obvious you along with your partners have selective viewing. You only see what you choose to see which clearly explains why I and several others have had a bad experience with your company over the product you talked so much about in your post.

Yariv, your company took a lot of the fun and enjoyment I got from my Vision Plus hobby. I have never had to ask a business to please not ignore me and respond to my emails. This is my hobby that allows me to get away from my repetitive working world. I own and administrate a number of websites. And in doing that, I deal with a number of companies on a regular basis. Never have I experienced one that was so out of wack, as yours. You have a huge product release coming up, and you have employees that take vacation? That's not a fault of the employee, but is the fault of management for allowing it or not getting additional people in to cover the loss. I'll be the 1st to say that upset customers could actually care less why you failed to provide good public relations. I would prefer to know what arrangements are being put in place to satisfy those that are unhappy.

At this point I'm not that concerned with where things may or may not go for myself and your company. But I do tend have a concern for my fellow pilots, and more importantly the new pilots that come into this hobby each day. I have given many of these new pilots a type of support for your FLT and the Core2 and this happens because they can not get the info from you, or website as well as your social media site. I paid $200 for a FLT that I got zero support. The new guys don't get response from emailing and ask me. I then attempt to get answers. After 5-6 not answered email I then blow off a little and speak my mind.

By the way Yariv, you obviously read my post just a page or two back. Why not address I have a broken wire harness(see attached image), My FLT has flashed light sequence correctly. And more?

Hi Frank,

I'm really sorry that you feel that way. To be honest, I do believe that many users are happy with our products - Flytrex Core and the new Flytrex Live, and with the work we are doing. This is reflected by the feedback we are getting from many of our users and I don't think its fair to determine that all users are not happy with our products.

Personally I feel that stating that all users are not satisfied with our products is not fair and incorrect.

We already have a great number of pilots using the new Flytrex Live and reporting great success using it. Most of them were able to get everything installed without much trouble. You can easily find those posts by users on our Facebook page and other forums. You can also easily check out flights recorded with the new Live by browsing the Flytrex Explore page -- you will find many flights titled as Flytrex Live flights recorded by Live pilots already.

Like Yariv mentioned we acknowledged that this is a new product and that we still have things that needs fixing and improving, but our team has been doing exactly that for the past couple of weeks, with many things already fixed, improved and working much smoother already. More new features and improvements will be introduced in upcoming weeks as well.

Our team has been dedicate from day one to actually innovate this market and taking this position has its own challenges. Personally I feel that we are doing a decent job and we are definitely open for feedback. I personally have accepted the feedback you provided via email and indicated that we're working on improving things, but we can't finish everything in a week.

I'm really sorry for the trouble you've been having and I can personally add that we've been doing our utmost to help you with each question you had and getting things running for you as quickly as possible. I honestly don't think that your last post is fair - not to me personally (as I did my best to reply to many of your emails myself), nor to our team, who has been doing its utmost to help with your questions as well.

As for your last question - again, we already replied to this email about the broken cable. We sent you an email that we'll be glad to send you a new replacement cable for free and waiting for your shipping details. We will arrange quick shipping as soon as we receive your reply. Yariv didn't reply to this here because we sent you a reply via email..

I hope this helps a bit. Have a great Sunday!

 

[Onezerosix141]

Hello. I have an early-release unit and helped with beta testing. Now it's been released here's an in-depth look - including what you can see "live" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU8QqwC3kdw

This is the only video out there that was helpful.
When are you guys planning to update the site & add the Flytrex Live supported carrier list?

 

[amitregev]

Hello. I have an early-release unit and helped with beta testing. Now it's been released here's an in-depth look - including what you can see "live" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU8QqwC3kdw

This is the only video out there that was helpful.
When are you guys planning to update the site & add the Flytrex Live supported carrier list?

Hi Onezerosix141

A page l listing supported carriers was added over the weekend and you can check it out here: http://www.flytrex.com/support/flytrex-live/supported-carriers/.

We're working to update this page with new carriers and new countries all the time. Currently waiting for feedback from several new pilots using Live in countries that are still not listed and I hope to have those added today/tomorrow. We will continue updating this page as we gather new information from pilots around the world.