Frank Wang's Quest to Put DJI Robots into the Sky
forbes.com
forbes.com
Not to sound too grumpy, but.... well, since owning two DJI Phantoms and experiencing their service and how they interact with customers, I always got the idea that the people who run DJI must be a bunch of arrogant dickheads who are willing to throw their customers (and dealers!) under the bus, for the sake of GROWTH. In growth, they have succeeded. But they've alienated an incredible number of people along the way.
The biggest and most egregious thing DJI has done is to never admit the existence of a bug in their software which causes their Phantoms to fly away. This would, of course, force them to take care of customers who experience this, and would reduce their margins.
3D Robotics, with their new Solo, has a guarantee that if you have a flyaway and it's not your fault, they will replace the drone. I am really happy to see that 3D Robotics is taking the opposite stance to customer service from DJI.
Hey DJI - customer service is the new marketing! Cheers!
I only just started getting into this drone hobby - mainly for the purpose of aerial photography. Right now I'm practicing about 45 minutes a day (total flight time) with a $50 drone, flying around in doors to get used to piloting a drone by sight. Rest of my time is spent reading and researching on 'hobby drones'.
For those looking to get into it, here are my tips so far:
1. Start off with a $50 drone, something like Hubsan X4. You will crash a lot. 2. For the drones with filming capabilities, it's usually 1k-2k range. Camera are either built in or uses GoPro. 3. DJI Phantoms are the most popular ones with the Phantom 3 out this month. DJI is notorious for poor customer support from what I've read so far, so most people go to the forums. Just YouTube Phantom 3 footage and you'll see some awesome videos. 4. 3DR I also just discovered. Solo will be their first product. I'm waiting for its release so I can check out some aerial footage. 5. Another drone to consider is Yuneec Q500 Typhoon. I haven't done much research on it.
I'm waiting for Solo to release then gonna decide either that or the Phantom 3!
For those interested in the 3DR Solo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L8lZUMzhwo&feature=youtu.be
Unboxing Phantom 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzSILvb9R1k
As someone who once owned a DJI Phantom 2 that had an unexpected flyaway (despite being fully GPS calibrated prior to every flight), I'd recommend steering away from them. Their customer service is total shit, their software is garbage (and has a long history of doing ridiculous things like deciding the battery -- which is DRMed -- inside your Phantom is fake mid-flight and crashing the device),etc
(IMO) there's a lot of piece of mind in having an open source flight controller (which doesn't eliminate the possibility of things such as this happening, but does mean you can analyze the software and see for yourself where the defects are if you do happen to see one occur).
I've been really happy with OpenPilot CC3D, APM and pixhawk flight controllers. Not really sure I'd buy another "off the shelf" quad in the near future, but if I did it would almost certainly be the 3DR Solo based on my very positive experience with their components used in my own quads.
Totally agree with the advice to start out with something like the Hubsan X4 and highly suggest learning how to fly quads 'manually' (without the GPS translation and altitude maintaining features that the high-end ones do out of the box) even if you don't plan to fly that way normally... as a backup plan, just in case.
I figure by the time I source all of the parts to start building the little 250mm I'm planning, I'll be less likely to crash it or lose it. Might mess with something bigger and more autonomous later on but for now I'm starting small and then DIY-ing a little bigger.