Can someone explain how the follow me mode works? I was expecting the camera to be pointed at the remote the whole time but switching from FPV to follow Me mode seem to do nothing.

There is no "Follow Me" flight mode for the Phantom 3 that will keep the camera pointed at the RC.  This might be added in a later update of the DJI Pilot app or by a third-party app.  

You may be referring to the "Follow" Gimbal Operation Mode.  There are three Gimbal Operation Modes selectable on the Camera screen of the DJI Pilot app that control camera orientation during flight:  Follow, FPV and Free.  The first two of these are described on page 32 of the Phantom 3 Owner's Manual.  Follow is the normal flight mode and it keeps the angle between the current gimbal position (where the camera is pointing) and the nose of the aircraft "approximately" constant at all times.  However, it will dampen any vibrations and will compensate for any left/right or forward/backward tilting of the phantom needed to maintain position due to wind or phantom flight maneuvers, and will keep the camera fairly level.  FPV (First Person View) mode will still have some vibration dampening, but this mode will allow the camera to tilt left and right with the Phantom as you fly it as if the camera were more rigidly fixed in place below the Phantom copter.

Correction - "Free" gimbal mode is only available on the Inspire 1, which uses the same DJI Pilot app.  With the Phantom 3 there are only two gimbal modes:  Follow and FPV.

Thanks for explaining that. I guess I had it all wrong. :-)

david.p.mann@ea Posted at 2015-5-12 05:19
There is no "Follow Me" flight mode for the Phantom 3 that will keep the camera pointed at the RC.   ...

The "follow me" feature confusions comes from here. At the bottom of the Features Page on the Left you can see the "Follow Me" is an advertised feature for SDK Developers.

I applied to be an SDK Developer 3 weeks ago and received no response... Maybe I had a poor proposal, or maybe no one has been given the SDK at this time which may explain why there is not a "Follow Me" app for the P3.

Kind regards,
Jake

mjnewsum Posted at 2015-6-1 06:03
The "follow me" feature confusions comes from here. At the bottom of the Features Page on the Left ...

Jake,

The new SDK is out. Ultimate Flight and Litchi are both using it in their alphas and betas for both the P2 and P3.

Jerry

Follow me is now available

Do you need a cellular iPad (with gps) connected to remote control? I have iPad mini retina WiFi and follow me mode didnt work on this device.

I get warning: "The Follow Me position is invalid. Please try again."

rosabertina Posted at 2015-9-8 18:19
Do you need a cellular iPad (with gps) connected to remote control? I have iPad mini retina WiFi and ...

Yes, you need a device with GPS to use the Follow Me Intelligent Flight Mode.  Only the cellular iPad mini has GPS.  Non-cellular iPads do not have GPS.

steverp3s Posted at 2016-1-17 22:01
Yes, you need a device with GPS to use the Follow Me Intelligent Flight Mode.  Only the cellular i ...

Hi all,

Do you *have* to have a tablet device to talk to the dji?

Can you not use arduino and gps to control the unit?

Thanks
Nick

steverp3s Posted at 2016-1-17 22:01
Yes, you need a device with GPS to use the Follow Me Intelligent Flight Mode.  Only the cellular i ...

What if you are in an area of no phone coverage? Is your dji useless?

Im wanting to send my dji gps waypoints live from my own gps location.

Is this possible with the currebt state of tge ssk?

user0d76602bf8 Posted at 2016-8-18 08:48
What if you are in an area of no phone coverage? Is your dji useless?

Im wanting to send my dji g ...

The Phantom does not need cellular phone coverage to operate, it is only required if you want to have live map display on your phone/tablet. But if you want to use the Follow Me mode, then you have to have a phone/tablet equipped with GPS connected to the RC unit. Or, alternatively, you can tether a dedicated GPS unit to your phone.

The GPS unit in your phone/tablet is passing on its position to the RC unit, which is then telling the aircraft where the RC unit is located. If you do not have a good GPS reception in your phone/tablet, then Follow Me will not work as expected.

Geebax Posted at 2016-8-18 00:06
The Phantom does not need cellular phone coverage to operate, it is only required if you want to h ...

So you must have a mobile device then, you cant feed gps via an actual gps unit running on arduino or raspberry pi?

user0d76602bf8 Posted at 2016-8-18 10:01
So you must have a mobile device then, you cant feed gps via an actual gps unit running on arduino ...

No idea, in order to use one of those dev boards you would have to work with the DJI SDK, and I don't see the point, when the mobile device can do all of that for you with the existing DJI Go App. The only advantage of your approach would be that the GPS could be a good quality Garmin unit and that alone would improve the reliability of the positioning significantly. As it stands, you can tether one of the Garmin units to the mobile device anyway. I don't knoiw whther it uses BT or NFC, but either way, those who have them say they work very well.

Geebax Posted at 2016-8-18 01:50
No idea, in order to use one of those dev boards you would have to work with the DJI SDK, and I do ...

aaaah if you can tether then awesone, didnt know that. The point is, if you were super remote and zero network coverage. Mobile devices use gps and gsm i though to get position. I'm only starting to look into all this now so not really sure how it all works.

My intention was yep to use the sdk to use the gps data from a specific unit to communicate with the dji via something like the Rasp Pi. My main enquiry was what happens in the situaion where your mobile device has no network. Can mobiles still receive actual gps data these days?

The reason for this, i want to be able to walk a path, record that, then send those coords to the dji to follow ...and this done in areas of no network coverage. Very remote.

Really appreviate your info. Helping me scope where the limitations are. Very helpful. Thanks

user0d76602bf8 Posted at 2016-8-18 16:41
aaaah if you can tether then awesone, didnt know that. The point is, if you were super remote and  ...

Mobiles only have relatively poor GPS receivers, and you are partly correct in thart most mobiles use the cell towers to reduce the time-to-first-fix, but even out of cell range, they still work in a fashion. But a dedicated GPS device like a Garmin is far better at getting a position fix, and far more accurate too.

So if you tether a Garmin to your iPhone or whatever, you should get a really good positional fix, but it is important that the Garmin has a good view of the sky, some people put the RC unit inside a car and drive off then wonder why they lost the drone.

The other possibility is to use Litchi to plan your route off-line then run it in the field.

Geebax Posted at 2016-8-18 08:25
Mobiles only have relatively poor GPS receivers, and you are partly correct in thart most mobiles  ...

Yeah the mobile positional reliability is not robust enough for my needs. I cant rely on it so need to design in a more stable uptime solution. I'll investigate this tethering, had no idea you could do it

The gps receiver would be outside yep.

I cant preplan the route unfortunately. I need to be on site and track my precise  path over terrain and then upload that to the dji so it can follow the same coords.

Im looking to capture survey data so the condition of the site wont be known until there and i only need to capture a portion so i want control of the route taken by driving it myself first and have the dji follow.

I need to investigate the sdk boundaries and what exactly i have access too. From research so far, it seems perfectly reasonable to achieve. My main concern was the quality of the gps signal in very remote locations. Very happy to hear the tethering options.

Thanks very much.