I've just pulled the trigger on my Mavic and cant wait to start getting some amazing footage - its been a long wait.

I have been using my iPhone 6 with a friends and its just going to be too small. I will get an iPad mini to use with mine and I know its been beaten to death so I apologise now (im not new to forums and have exhausted search on here whilst I've been stalking before posting).

I even reached out to DJI about WIFI or Cellular iPad and got the reply that:

Controller has a range of 4.3miles but when you use a wifi connection to your tablet/phone that range drops to 80m and an altitude of only 50m.

I've read on here that there are people who tether their iPhone to iPad and get full capabilities and others that say that follow me doesnt work and they have to cache maps before they head out.
If your iPad has cellular too, are you guys putting a different sim in there to give you full functionality and range ?

As with so many things on forums theres a million different answers.

Thanks in advance - hope to be contributing to this forum a lot.

Welcome to the forum and to Mavic ownership. I was going to say that you'll love it, but I guess you already know that.

Regarding DJI's answer, what they're referring to is when you use a mobile device to control a Mavic directly without going through the remote control. But I really don't think that's what you're asking about or had in mind, so it's not really relevant to your question.

Yes, many of us -- myself included -- use a tablet like the wifi-only iPad Mini 4 and provide it with internet access through our phone via mobile hotspot. When you do that you will get dynamically updated maps and won't need to cache them in advance. But yes, if your tablet has no internet connection then you'll only be able to use the maps during a flight if they're cached in advance.

The only functionality you won't get with a wifi-only tablet -- whether it's tethered or not -- is Follow Me and the ability to dynamically reset your home point during a flight. That's because the wifi-only version of the iPad doesn't include GPS, which is used for both those functions.

Thanks for the welcome and the reply.
So I would need cellular iPad and the cellular activated (with a sim card) to get the full functionality from the drone. I wanted to do a lot of 'follow me' footage so I would need the cellular it seems.

WOLF Y LOBO Posted at 2017-5-2 18:33
Thanks for the welcome and the reply.
So I would need cellular iPad and the cellular activated (with a sim card) to get the full functionality from the drone. I wanted to do a lot of 'follow me' footage so I would need the cellular it seems.

I wanted to do a lot of 'follow me' footage so I would need the cellular it seems.

Yes, you can only use Follow Me with a device that has GPS, and in the case of an iPad Mini that means you'd have to buy the cellular version.