SeanGillian Posted at 2017-8-6 16:09
I snapped same arm, send back to dji for repair, $107 cost

how did yours happen?

fans5d9349b7 Posted at 2017-8-6 14:39
Surely walking in "Jedi mode" some 200 meters away from the home point would use a large percentage of the battery - meaning it could try to return home soon. Also, you could have set a new home point at the new position you walked to.

After calculations on the map I overestimated the distance, it was actually 82 meters.

Tsolsi Posted at 2017-8-6 16:37
After calculations on the map I overestimated the distance, it was actually 82 meters.

walking in jedi mode I meant. Ah well it happened. I'm tired now, going to bed. This has kept me up all day now already... just have to let it go and breathe out... tomorrow JDI will have send me something back (I hope, and I expect it to be so). Just remember guys... ask JDI to change this cuz it's impractical, and untill they do, follow all the advice given here. Remember what not to do.

fans5d9349b7 Posted at 2017-8-6 14:53
The Spark itself warms you that it's battery is dying, by flashing all its lights red. It's a case of reading the manual.

I am sure it was following my hand green lights and all, it should have happened though. I would have noticed otherwise.  Ah well it happened, let's hope JDI learns from this, I sure did. Just disable rth in gesture mode and prompt for reactivation after or something. Make it so it lands or hovers until you grab it or land in palm.

Really anything besides vertical momement up (or back) without you ordering it in gesture. And in case of down, let it hover until you do something on your phone or remote. Better than this. Sure it's my fault I should have read everything up front. I did watch about all the video's I could find month's before I had the thing. But unfortunately it wasn't enough.

Tsolsi Posted at 2017-8-6 17:01
I am sure it was following my hand green lights and all, it should have happened though. I would have noticed otherwise.  Ah well it happened, let's hope JDI learns from this, I sure did. Just disable rth in gesture mode and prompt for reactivation after or something. Make it so it lands or hovers until you grab it or land in palm.

Really anything besides vertical momement up (or back) without you ordering it in gesture. And in case of down, let it hover until you do something on your phone or remote. Better than this. Sure it's my fault I should have read everything up front. I did watch about all the video's I could find month's before I had the thing. But unfortunately it wasn't enough.

But you have to consider there may be scenarios where the spark is over water in gesture mode, and if something goes wrong you wouldn't want it to just land in the water, you'd want it to go to a home point on land. You can't have it both ways. Change your home point if you walk away from it, keep an eye on your battery level and don't fly under trees with a low battery.

Do I? No I think I prefer a hover and a prompt, I personally don't want it go to shore to have it stolen on landing. (17 million people on half the size of Hawaii) I still think there are way better alternatives to the current situation. Also I think that on a daily basis more people walk underneath trees during Jedi mode then sail the waters in Jedi mode. Having the option to choose when entering gesture mode would just be awesome, that's all. You can disagree sure, but why?

Tsolsi Posted at 2017-8-7 01:13
Do I? No I think I prefer a hover and a prompt, I personally don't want it go to shore to have it stolen on landing. (17 million people on half the size of Hawaii) I still think there are way better alternatives to the current situation. Also I think that on a daily basis more people walk underneath trees during Jedi mode then sail the waters in Jedi mode. Having the option to choose when entering gesture mode would just be awesome, that's all. You can disagree sure, but why?

But what's the point in a "prompt" if you can't hear it or ignoring the app?

Dude u messed up face it.... gave you plenty of warnings.

Danielvdhurk Posted at 2017-8-6 14:21
I have already send all my panic mails to DJI, guess they are still enjoying their weekend though, hoping for the best. I've send them a mail straight after the falling like a brick event as well (no reply so far, guess due to the weekend). Thank you for your reply. I'll keep the post updated on the process.

I still don't like that return home is an option in gesture mode though, I think it should be handled differently since most people in gesture mode will be near to the drone (and the noise it makes) and not actively handling the remote in that situation. Anyway, the only thing I changed in settings is the return home altitude, I cranked it up to 100 meters instead of the 30 meters it was in the beginning. Though 30 meters would still have caused the tree to be the problem it was.

Sorry for the crash, since you've sent an email to the Support, you should have a ticket number, right?
What is your ticket number? I'd like to escalate it for you.

This would not be happen when Dji remove the HP for gesture Control only when no device is connected:
http://forum.dji.com/thread-107807-1-1.html

$gambino$ Posted at 2017-8-7 01:44
Dude u messed up face it.... gave you plenty of warnings.

Warnings I could not hear nor see are not warnings given to me but to the ether.

fans5d9349b7 Posted at 2017-8-7 01:28
But what's the point in a "prompt" if you can't hear it or ignoring the app?

the prompt would be checked eventually if the drone starts hanging in mid air and stopped responding to the jedi force (so one would know something's up)

DJI Diana Posted at 2017-8-7 01:59
Sorry for the crash, since you've sent an email to the Support, you should have a ticket number, right?
What is your ticket number? I'd like to escalate it for you.

The last message I received was: Your request（#669075）has been updated, please reply the email below.
After that I put in all the required data for an RMA, no answer on my request of glueing it back unfortunately.

Thank you so much, if I receive a ticket number you'll be the first to know!

$gambino$ Posted at 2017-8-7 01:44
Dude u messed up face it.... gave you plenty of warnings.

And I am facing it, also I am trying to get improvements to happen, don't we all want improvements? Should it not be that the Spark gets improvements if the need for them arises?

For all other people wanting to tell me the obvious "it's my own fault I should have read every bit of documentation ever printed before ever flying the thing", keep it to yourself, you are only repeating what other people have already said.

For all other feedback on how DJI could improve gesture mode, low battery situations & rth,  thank you! Glue suggestions also, big thank you!

This is what happens when a previously reputable company starts selling toy drones to toy consumers with zero airmanship.  I must say I'm enjoying the thread, though.  I will enjoy it even more once the repair bill total is posted.

Tsolsi Posted at 2017-8-6 16:14
how did yours happen?

I flew into a very thin power line, hard to see at line of sight

Danielvdhurk Posted at 2017-8-6 14:57
I'll just make a quick video of the demise from the drone's perspective, showing my total bliss before and stunned silent amazement of what was just happening so fast at that point. I just couldn't speak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcNhIzWKtqk&t=17s

What was your RTH Altitude?  Seems it was going Up to RTH....

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-6 15:07
Because you were using RC and app you could have changed your homepoint at anytime during your flight including when you were using gesture modes.

I think the issue is that the app is not intuitive and especially these various settings are not intuitive.

Most especially on the Spark, which is advertised as essentially flying itself and being so simple as to be for the "mass market" from kids to grandparents, these are huge issues.

As Danieldhurk mentioned, the action that happened really shouldn't be expected in that mode. Just because it *is* doesn't mean that it's the right way to do things or the best way to do things.

DJI has essentially taken Phantom types of activities and applied them to the Spark instead of customizing the software to the device and the market.

They advertise it as so simple to use that anyone can get the hang of it, even without a remote control. But that's not the case - you'd have to be aware of these settings beforehand to know to change them, and for people using the Spark as advertised, there's no possible way they'd now to anticipate needing to break up their "Jedi style" actions and recordings to dig through the settings menu in the app hooked up to an RC to manually set a new home point every few meters. That's just atrocious product design to have that be the expected operation. As the OP mentioned, the default expected reaction in this mode should be to gently land - after all, in this palm gesture mode, the Spark is very close to you so things should be relatively safe, and you also don't want to chase it back to the home point. Bad software UX all around is to blame here.

fans5d9349b7 Posted at 2017-8-6 23:09
But you have to consider there may be scenarios where the spark is over water in gesture mode, and if something goes wrong you wouldn't want it to just land in the water, you'd want it to go to a home point on land. You can't have it both ways. Change your home point if you walk away from it, keep an eye on your battery level and don't fly under trees with a low battery.

Come on, think reasonably here. What's more common: someone's in a busy urban or open environment showing off to their friends, or someone's on a boat using gesture mode over water?

Make the software work best for the most common, expected scenarios and that will sort the majority of the issues.

Don't sacrifice the greater good for the sake of a few unlikely scenarios for the point of "what iffing" on the Internet.

Or read the manual before playing with an expensive toy.

Palomino Posted at 2017-8-7 14:13
I think the issue is that the app is not intuitive and especially these various settings are not intuitive.

Most especially on the Spark, which is advertised as essentially flying itself and being so simple as to be for the "mass market" from kids to grandparents, these are huge issues.

I don't entirely agree with you, first off gesture mode is probably the most difficult to use, it was advertised for children and grandparents first you need to be 16 and over to use it, grandparents are probably the best pilots out there and certainly the ones who don't go crying first thing goes wrong. It wasn't advertised as a simple to use drone you need to show me where you seen that.

There is a real issue of responsibility here and when something goes wrong you think we should try getting out of it by saying it's to hard,
All drones are difficult to new users new firmware updates software updates calibration looking after batteries charging  wifi radio ghz etc , all stuff we need to do to learn to fly drones, it may not be for everyone but hey you can always go for a walk.
So if it's to much to read your manual or to many things to remember , just blame it on the product.

As you mentioned OP he was holding the remote in his hand the app was on he received 3 warnings loud and clear, if he had made it his business to read a little bit about RTH he could have just paused his spark and let it down gently, how is that difficult.

Lastly I purchased sometime ago FCPX for editing, in the promo video I watched how simple operators were able to edit fantastic videos in minutes special effects just appeared in your videos beautiful text titles.
So I got it home it comes with download manual of about 5000 pages but it took me such a long time reading learning studying just to get a 3 minute edited video, but I watched all the you tube tutorials videos etc and I learned to work less than 10% of the program , but I never thought that maybe I should call Apple tell them they made it look so easy and it's not so I am now throwing the toys out of my pram and looking for my money back.

If it's beyond you to learn this then maybe it's not for you , if it was easy everybody would be doing it.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-7 14:49
I don't entirely agree with you, first off gesture mode is probably the most difficult to use, it was advertised for children and grandparents first you need to be 16 and over to use it, grandparents are probably the best pilots out there and certainly the ones who don't go crying first thing goes wrong. It wasn't advertised as a simple to use drone you need to show me where you seen that.

There is a real issue of responsibility here and when something goes wrong you think we should try getting out of it by saying it's to hard,

> It wasn't advertised as a simple to use drone you need to show me where you seen that.

Are you being serious?? Look at the product page!

It features a prominent picture of teenage models controlling it with just their palm - the very definition of simple.

The drone was marketed as "mass market" according to multiple reviews from prominent media places - those talking points and language came from DJI. It's marketed as a "selfie drone" which means it's not expected to operate the same way as a professional drone like a Mavic or Phantom - it should be simpler and more intuitive, which is exactly as advertised.

It also has the word "intelligent" in relation to the flight modes and battery about a half dozen times on the page, and it literally says "Smart, Reliable, and Incredibly Intuitive". By all objective reasoning, it has failed on each of those fronts in multiple ways in these posts.

Reliable: lots of power offs mid-flight. Disconnects causing fly aways.

Intuitive: the very discussion in this thread about what should happen in a simple mode and how the software is designed to work.

> There is a real issue of responsibility here and when something goes wrong you think we should try getting out of it by saying it's to hard

No, the issue is that the software is carried over from professional drones and it is not as intuitive or as simple or as reliable as they advertise it. The bottom line is that they demonstrate and sell it based on one set of expectations but it was released with an entirely different experience.

I love my Spark, but let's not pretend like this is a drone I would give my mom or even my sister, who they advertised this to.

> If it's beyond you to learn this then maybe it's not for you , if it was easy everybody would be doing it.

It's not beyond me or anyone else here, and you don't need to be an ignorant a-hole about things.

The point is, they *did* advertise it as so easy everyone could do it! EDIT: here's their remarketing ad following me on Facebook. Hmm, what's the copy say?

I can't believe you can't see the irony in your statements...

Automatically disabling low battery RTH when in gesture mode may seem like a good idea to some of you, but I think you'd change your mind real quick the first time the Spark mistook the side mirror on that passing bus for your palm and followed it over a river bridge.  Or whatever other scenario you can think of.  There's always going to be cases where certain software decisions aren't the right call.  That's why DJI gives pilots the option to select RTH settings.  If you choose not to use them, that's your own damn fault.  And criticizing DJI for ALLOWING you to select a certain option is downright ridiculous.

Throwing the toys out of the pram is right! That's what this entire thread is all about.  A loud obnoxious noise coming from the pram.  Fortunately on a forum we don't get the smells too.

Palomino Posted at 2017-8-7 15:08
> It wasn't advertised as a simple to use drone you need to show me where you seen that.

Are you being serious?? Look at the product page!

Almost everything you say is rubbish, I really don't feel the need to debate this with you for one simple reason. Implying that teenage models are in your words (the very definition of simple) it's a ridiculous sexists statement from someone who crashed his drone into a building because he didn't bother to read up on how to fly it.

Palomino Posted at 2017-8-7 15:08
> It wasn't advertised as a simple to use drone you need to show me where you seen that.

Are you being serious?? Look at the product page!

And for your information just as many teenage models in the Mavic promo , simple!!!!!!!!!

Irate Retro Posted at 2017-8-7 15:13
Automatically disabling low battery RTH when in gesture mode may seem like a good idea to some of you, but I think you'd change your mind real quick the first time the Spark mistook the side mirror on that passing bus for your palm and followed it over a river bridge.  Or whatever other scenario you can think of.  There's always going to be cases where certain software decisions aren't the right call.  That's why DJI gives pilots the option to select RTH settings.  If you choose not to use them, that's your own damn fault.  And criticizing DJI for ALLOWING you to select a certain option is downright ridiculous.

Throwing the toys out of the pram is right! That's what this entire thread is all about.  A loud obnoxious noise coming from the pram.  Fortunately on a forum we don't get the smells too.

I fully endorse all that.

i go a step further and give us the option to just turn off RTH and enable another mode entirely.. ..i know sounds dumb until consider alternatives like "return to signal" mode instead which is literally like it sounds, just returns exact route it came to find signal.   should  just disable RTH in certain events. like gesture modes obviously but also if compass error or gps error.. should just disable RTH instead..  and if it wants to go into Atti mode have us slide bar to accept it if it times out then lower in alt and beep on both RC and the spark.. but dont land hover couple feet off surface incase its water...  

Tsolsi Posted at 2017-8-7 02:35
The last message I received was: Your request（#669075）has been updated, please reply the email below.
After that I put in all the required data for an RMA, no answer on my request of glueing it back unfortunately.

Okay, hope it can be sorted out shortly.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-7 15:14
Almost everything you say is rubbish, I really don't feel the need to debate this with you for one simple reason. Implying that teenage models are in your words (the very definition of simple) it's a ridiculous sexists statement from someone who crashed his drone into a building because he didn't bother to read up on how to fly it.

>  it's a ridiculous sexists

An age isn't a sex, you moron.

And way to not know how to read, and also to skip over everything else. You're kind of an idiot.

Lol ^^^lolz

Palomino Posted at 2017-8-7 18:57
>  it's a ridiculous sexists

An age isn't a sex, you moron.

As you said  quote: "Teenage models the very definition of simple "

I addressed all your other questions in a previous post. Having to refer to personal insults is about right for you.

DJI Diana Posted at 2017-8-7 01:59
Sorry for the crash, since you've sent an email to the Support, you should have a ticket number, right?
What is your ticket number? I'd like to escalate it for you.

I now have a RMA Case number: CAS-872731-Z5H0D4

I have posted the package today.
10-15 working days without shipping they said, so it's really going to be a 50/50 chance wheter or not it will arrive back in time before my departure. If it arrives late I'll probably have to face some import taxes higher than the repair costs (or free warranty service if I'm lucky).

The communication about RMA also cointained this sentence: "And to address your concern, It is not normal that is going on RTH once gesture is initiated."

That gives me hope

Best of regards and thank you  so much for helping with escalating!

HiWEB Posted at 2017-8-7 12:23
What was your RTH Altitude?  Seems it was going Up to RTH....

first it was 30 meters (default I believe) and I changed it to 100 due to some buildings in the vicinity being higher than 30 meters. The tree coverage was lower than 30 meters anyway so it wouldn't have mattered.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-7 14:49
I don't entirely agree with you, first off gesture mode is probably the most difficult to use, it was advertised for children and grandparents first you need to be 16 and over to use it, grandparents are probably the best pilots out there and certainly the ones who don't go crying first thing goes wrong. It wasn't advertised as a simple to use drone you need to show me where you seen that.

There is a real issue of responsibility here and when something goes wrong you think we should try getting out of it by saying it's to hard,

I played around with the spark before the accident happened, also using my mobile phone. In that mode it decided to land instead of RTH so I figured, cool they really thought about that! So I expected it to be the same in gesture mode.

DJI further replies to my by e-mail: And to address your concern, It is not normal that is going on RTH once gesture is initiated.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-7 15:25
I fully endorse all that.

I endorse having the option to choose to disable it, especially with no windows, busses, reflective material or other people around.

ImHereToCrash Posted at 2017-8-7 15:38
i go a step further and give us the option to just turn off RTH and enable another mode entirely.. ..i know sounds dumb until consider alternatives like "return to signal" mode instead which is literally like it sounds, just returns exact route it came to find signal.   should  just disable RTH in certain events. like gesture modes obviously but also if compass error or gps error.. should just disable RTH instead..  and if it wants to go into Atti mode have us slide bar to accept it if it times out then lower in alt and beep on both RC and the spark.. but dont land hover couple feet off surface incase its water...

Those are some great suggestions, c'mon more suggestions people instead of telling who or what to blame and what's wrong let's work on something constructive here!

Tsolsi Posted at 2017-8-7 02:38
And I am facing it, also I am trying to get improvements to happen, don't we all want improvements? Should it not be that the Spark gets improvements if the need for them arises?

These guys are just ignorant with no concept of how to make improvements. i think you are doing the right thing by suggesting these things. weather it is your fault or not you are still allowed to make suggestions and the ones you are making are relevant in my opinion. not that it matters to all those " Captain Obvious' " out there.

Thor1 Posted at 2017-8-8 06:20
These guys are just ignorant with no concept of how to make improvements. i think you are doing the right thing by suggesting these things. weather it is your fault or not you are still allowed to make suggestions and the ones you are making are relevant in my opinion. not that it matters to all those " Captain Obvious' " out there.

Thank you for your positive note in the midst of all this negativity

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-8-8 01:23
As you said  quote: "Teenage models the very definition of simple "

I addressed all your other questions in a previous post. Having to refer to personal insults is about right for you.

> Having to refer to personal insults is about right for you.

Rich coming from a guy who dropped insults and false blame in nearly every thread he's responded to, and I can't help if you don't know the difference between age and gender. The fact that you re-highlighted the quote without explaining the "sexist" part of "teenage models" (which is exactly what they are on the Spark page) highlights your ongoing lack of coherence.