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People Are Complaining That Their New DJI Drones Are Falling Out of the Sky (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on Quartz: The DJI Spark, the smallest and most affordable consumer drone that the Chinese manufacturer has released, seems to be having flight problems that could have dangerous side-effects. On DJI's support forum, multiple users -- Quartz counted at least 14 separate complaints across two forum posts -- have reported that while they were flying, their Spark drones have switched off and fallen like rocks out of the sky. In some cases, the drones were close to the ground and were easy for their owners to retrieve and send diagnostic information to DJI, but in others, the drones crash landed in thick woods, or, in a couple of instances, in lakes. [...] It's not clear what caused these crashes -- some forum posters suggest some could've been user error, but others shared their drones' flight logs and showed nothing out of the ordinary had been happening before the crash. DJI told Quartz it was looking into the issues on the forums we uncovered. "DJI is aware of these reports and we are investigating to determine the causes," a spokesperson added.
are they using Samsung batteries?
T2.
The Russians did it. -PCP
I'll shoot them into a million pieces
Casey Neistat did a video review of the DJI Spark drone. He didn't mention having a problems with the Spark falling out of the sky. Of course, he had a pre-production model first and did a review of the production version shortly after he got it.
That's better than the uncontrolled full throttle fly-away problem the phantoms were known for.
This model has hand motion control. Someone probably flipped it the bird in flight and it committed suicide. Drones have feelings too...
It seems Chicken Little was right after all.
#DeleteFacebook
Dr. Charles Luther is overriding their control signals.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Most consumer technology gadgets are junk. Save yourself time and money and don't buy them.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I'm using electronic pulses of light to take down the drones https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Meanwhile they profit for "unintentional" planned obsolescence. I doubt they will replace the damaged unit.
No, it's a $499 coral reef incubator.
That is too bad. My Mavic, though it took far too long to arrive after I order it, has been nothing but a dream to fly and shoot video. DJI is a flawed company, but when they are on...man they are on.
What would the Dow Jones Index know about making drones?
My DJI Mavic Pro worked great until the last software update. Now it's a piece of fucking worthless junk. FUCK DJI!
Fucking hell, these issues go back to the beginning of DJI themselves. Search "DJI wobble of death". This company is a joke but their marketing team are geniuses!
While DJI was making commercial shit that crashed all the time, open-source was busy providing good firmware that actually worked.
What DJI offered was an out-of-the-box experience that took no knowledge or skill. Sure, they crashed a lot and wasted your money but for the generation of lazy idiots with more money than sense they were and still are the ticket!
Funny thing is all these brainiacs on slashdot can't put together and sell a better product.
Go China!!
...why is such a non-story being posted? "Multiple people" in "2 forum posts" complained about something or other? OMG. World epidemic! Panic! DJI needs to recall every drone ever made.
This is what fake news looks like; worthless crap some lackey makes up out of whole cloth...
For many years, hobbyists and experimenters have been fighting for radio frequencies, access to airspace and proper insurance coverage for model airplanes and helicopters. Those models took more effort and skill to operate than these new drones, and the years of hard dealing with government bodies to get appropriate radio frequencies and to work out the rules so modellers wouldn't be banned in favor of "real" aviation were long, tough battles.
Now we have these drones that are flyable by anyone with surveillance and flight capabilities much better than the old models, but instead of being operated by experienced modellers who follow the rules, have insurance, and fly responsibly around full size aircraft, they are being used to do dumb stunts including peeping, flying near wildlife, flying near accident sites and flying near full sized aircraft.
It's very sad that the hard-earned rights of the established modellers have to be put at risk by the risky, rude and occasionally felonious behavior of the operators of these drones.
Maybe someone was pointing/testing a GPS or other signal jammer in the vicinity. On a side note, I'm not sure why anyone would purchase a drone from a manufacturer that controls where you can fly it. http://www.dji.com/flysafe/geo...
and in still other news... water wet
when you fail to register your drone in the USA with the FAA and get the corresponding "unlock code" to operate it freely.
I'll be laughing my ass off if they discover it's a bug in some stupid geofencing code.
Since DJI announced software to give them control of your drone, would it be surprising if this was to blame?
Just take the propellers off and gun the throttle to determine what is happening without risking loss or damage to your drone.
When you build something that is inherently unstable, and fly it using fuzzy logic as a fine-tuned set of parameters based on existing feedback, the rate of feedback change and the average feedback over time, you end up with a very complicated device that may, under some circumstances, operate in ways that seem entirely normal to the drone, but inexplicable to the operator.