Mildman
lvl.4
United Kingdom
Offline
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fans9c9d61d2 Posted at 2017-12-29 07:06
I've had my Spark (fly more) since the end of November. I live in the UK, so the weather has not been ideal for getting lots of flights but when the conditions have been suitable I've been exploring the range of my Spark. Being in the EU, my Spark is limited to the CE regulations. However the farthest I have been able to fly is 170m. So taking advice from the DJI forums I have picked up on the OTG cable which seemed to improve signal stability and I have also purchased a parabolic reflector (yet to be tried). Today I find that he latest firmware update has removed the OTG function. I have to say I am very disappointed with the performance of the Spark compared to what DJI advertise - 2km when unobstructed, free of interference, with remote controller when FCC compliant. I suspect that most purchasers of entry-level consumer drones will not know that in Europe it is not possible to comply with FCC. I can't actually find anywhere in DJI's advertisement where the CE limitation is explained, so take this as a miss-sell. I accept the "DroneSafe", Line of Sight argument, but I can still clearly see my Spark when it's lost signal and it decides to return to home. Having used the work-around (OTG) for the lack of performance, DJ have removed this fix in the latest firmware update. As others have indicated, I believe that DJI are hoping to keep sales of the Mavic by differentiating on the performance of the Spark. The actual limitation of range for the UK variant is on the transmitter power. In EU I believe that we are limited to 25mW of transmit power, compared to 600mW in the US. This is to avoid interference with other 5.8GHz equipment such as mobiles phones. DJI have no reason to limit the distance of the Spark beyond the transmit power limitations unless trying to protect Mavic sales.
I'm thinking about returning my Spark and asking for a refund.
Find the easily available FCC hacked APP (on 4.1.15), with and OTG cable and your Spark will become a reliable, trusted product.
In the UK and on Android, its junk, a toy that cost £700. Even on IOS now without OTG is useless, I've tried and tested multiple devices.
I ran out of patience with the deliberate misleading by DJI and reluctantly got the hacked FCC App, but i am not regretting it one bit...it was either that, or sell it at a huge loss. |
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