All new products are prone to defects, and everyone understands that. Even big companies as the ones starting with A, had big issues with their phones. But, as I said here many times, one thing is to have an antenna issue , another is to have a piece of hardware that can hit someone.

All the issues reported here, I always see forum admins step in and asking for logs to be analyse, what of course is a good call. BUT, as a QA Engineer of a very big US company, I really can't understand how DJI QA didn't get these basic issues before mass production.

That said, aside to get customers logs, and as someone suggests here, what is obvious, DJI get a bunch of drones from your inventory and find the issues before something catastrofic happens. Basically , we are not here to do QA for DJI , and as I saw on many posts, DJI has not been so nice in replacing crashed drones due to non operator issues.

A new firmware was released, and still a bunch of reported issues, compass errors, lost signal, not returning home as expected, etc.

I am confident all these initial issues will be fixed, and the % of "bad" Sparks compared wth the sold units is low.

I hope the initial issues can be fixed by software and not just with future hardware revision releases.

+1 I said something very similar to this on another post. I totally agree with you!

What's interesting to me is that we live at a time where drone owners are being demonized by the press/media, the public, local and larger governments (state and federal in the US and whatever it is in other countries). We have strict regulations from everyone along the process of owning a UAV. To fly commercially - forget it - the hoops one must jump through to make a buck with a flying camera will run most  away from the process.
Even DJI has imposed 'air police' restrictions of their own - all in the "interest of safety"...    AT THE SAME TIME, they've released a entry level consumer drone aimed at first time drone users and there have been SEVERAL reports of this thing falling like a rock or speeding off and slamming into things!   These things are happening WITHOUT the user being in error (in most cases). You would think that "in the interest of safety" and understanding (fully) how negatively drones are viewed on the world stage, DJI would take every and EXTRA precautions to make sure this did NOT happen.

As you've said, every new product release is bound to have some 'bugs' in the beginning. However, when the possibility of the thing falling from 400 feet onto someone's head is very real - that's a BIG problem. Add to that the complete silence from the manufacturer and it's a bad situation to say the least.

Flying Wolf_NOL Posted at 2017-7-31 06:35
What's interesting to me is that we live at a time where drone owners are being demonized by the press/media, the public, local and larger governments (state and federal in the US and whatever it is in other countries). We have strict regulations from everyone along the process of owning a UAV. To fly commercially - forget it - the hoops one must jump through to make a buck with a flying camera will run most  away from the process.
Even DJI has imposed 'air police' restrictions of their own - all in the "interest of safety"...    AT THE SAME TIME, they've released a entry level consumer drone aimed at first time drone users and there have been SEVERAL reports of this thing falling like a rock or speeding off and slamming into things!   These things are happening WITHOUT the user being in error (in most cases). You would think that "in the interest of safety" and understanding (fully) how negatively drones are viewed on the world stage, DJI would take every and EXTRA precautions to make sure this did NOT happen.

First I think if some Spark having problems to do with some malfunction then dji are liable for damage to AC and property people etc, and if this is the case that's their responsibility, and should be sorted asap.

There are also many people using spark as first drone and these people are given plenty of advice, how to properly activate what type of environment to fly in I.E. open areas away from people animals high buildings, to keep within rules of the country they are flying in, this would also be the advice they would get from any drone manufacturers.

Now if you separate those who have had genuine problems with drone dropping out of the air, from those who don't bother to to take heed of advice given you will probably find in the first instance this is a tiny minute amount of sparks with serious problem of spark falling out of the sky.

On the other hand those not taking responsibility for what they are doing is much much greater and we don't seem to be really bothered half as much about this.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-7-31 06:56
First I think if some Spark having problems to do with some malfunction then dji are liable for damage to AC and property people etc, and if this is the case that's their responsibility, and should be sorted asap.

There are also many people using spark as first drone and these people are given plenty of advice, how to properly activate what type of environment to fly in I.E. open areas away from people animals high buildings, to keep within rules of the country they are flying in, this would also be the advice they would get from any drone manufacturers.

My only interest is in incidents that DO NOT involve pilot error. Sure, some people will come on these forums and try to blame DJI for their own error. However, you can tell when someone posts their flight logs and a very detailed account of what happened, they are probably telling the truth.  I also check a person't profile. If a guy owns other drones, they probably know what they're doing. If a guy has other drones and comes on here to say that his spark fell out of the sky - I believe them.

I agree that DJI should be responsible for malfunctions that are not user error - end of statement.
However, at least in the case of people losing their spark in water, they're not doing that.  At least that's not what is being reported by the users.

not only all of this is a problem..  but at what point should we as people start blaming user error on DJi themselves?  let me explain..  if this drone is that easy to cause this large of a failure rate from user error, and is targeted at the user group looking for easy entry...where should the line be drawn?     

maybe a better example this can relate to.. is badly behaving children:    at what point do you stop blaming a badly behaved child breaking stuff, and start pointing your fingers at the parents and blaming them for not properly handling the obvious issue..?   because i think that should help people understand what im on about.

ImHereToCrash Posted at 2017-7-31 10:43
not only all of this is a problem..  but at what point should we as people start blaming user error on DJi themselves?  let me explain..  if this drone is that easy to cause this large of a failure rate from user error, and is targeted at the user group looking for easy entry...where should the line be drawn?     

maybe a better example this can relate to.. is badly behaving children:    at what point do you stop blaming a badly behaved child breaking stuff, and start pointing your fingers at the parents and blaming them for not properly handling the obvious issue..?

interesting view point. In other words, If it's an entry level device, make it very easy to use and also make it rock  solid so that the users would have to try very hard to make it fail.  If I understand what you're saying.

Flying Wolf_NOL Posted at 2017-7-31 10:43
interesting view point. In other words, If it's an entry level device, make it very easy to use and also make it rock  solid so that the users would have to try very hard to make it fail.  If I understand what you're saying.

well ya..sort of.   i think more to the point of what i am intending to say is,.. like if for blind example,  half the sparks falling out of the sky are not a fault of DJi, and are user error.. what point should we expect Dji to fix that so we "easy users" cant engage this intentionally?   

same applies elsewhere to same degree.. fi they wanna claim user error and hide behind log issues.. they need to also fix the issue...so future spark owners cant make same mistake that isn't that obvious.