Short story:

When my phone's battery is low (it started at +/- 32%), the remote seems to switch between charging and not charging, causing the APP to either continuously connect and disconnect or to crash all together (and even crash the phone - happened at around 20% battery left). After charging the phone, the problem dissapears and the APP works like it should again.


Long story:


Today I planned to take a few aerial shots of some castles in the region I live in. The first flight went off without a single problem. I then packed everything up, except for the remote (I left my phone in so I would not have to reconnect everything again) and drove to the next location. Also there my first flight went without any issues, brought the mavic down and turned everything off. I then decided to turn on the APP again to have a look at the pictures, however, this required a connection to the drone since I do not have it set to download the pictures to my phone. So I turned on the drone, but the APP kept connecting and losing connection over and over again, and every time the connection got lost, the APP would kick me out of the editor.

After multiple tries I finally managed to get a connection long enough to have a look at the images and decided I was not satisfied. I rebooted everything (mavic, remote and phone) in the hopes of solving the connection issue. It seemed like the problem was solved, so I took the mavic up, but soon got a warning that the connection was lost (even though I could still control the mavic), so I brought the mavic back in. I tried, but the APP kept connecting and disconnecting, so I gave up. I then went to another location thinking there was some interference somewhere causing the issues, but also on the new location I kept having the same problem. In fact, it was even worse. Whenever I would start the APP, my phone would crash an restart. If I did not plug in the remote, but just started the APP the phone stayed on, but as soon as I connected the remote, my phone would crash and reboot. So I gave up.

When I got home I tried connecting the phone with another USB cable (as I already read a couple of times in other posts), but to no avail. Then I noticed, that when I connected the remote, that the "charging" indicator on the phone would switch rapidly between charging and not charging, almost in the same way that the APP report being connected and not connected, so I thought, why did the first flights go without a problem, what changed? So I thought, what if the remote is not powerful enough to charge the phone? So, I put the phone in the charger and let it charge. When it was at about 85% I put it back in the remote. Again the "charging" indicator flashed, at which point the APP opened, and lo-and-behold, the charging indicator stopped flashing and the APP instantly gave me a "GO FLY"!


At the moment the connection issues began I had about 32% battery left on the phone. When the crashes started happening I was down to about 20%.

@DJI: Is it possible that the charger inside the remote is not powerful enough to charge the phone and restarts constantly causing the phone to get disconnected all the time? Is there a way to disable charging but retain a data connection between the remote and the phone?

Hi, we're very sorry about this issue. I just want to clarify, have you try to re-link RC to your AC? Also, may I know what mobile device are you using? As of the moment, there's no way to disable the auto charging of Android phone when it's connected to your RC. I highly suggest you to fully charge your phone to avoid auto-charging. Please keep us posted for further help. Thank you.

No, I have not tried to relink the remote to the drone (if that is what you meant with AC). Relinking does not seem to be needed, since everything works fine when the phone battery is charged enough.

I always charge my phone, however, during use with the screen on all the time, it is normal for the battery to deplete, especially if the remote it not charging the phone properly as it is supposed to. Which, obviously, also cuts down on the flying time because when the phone battery is empty, it's game over.

My phone is a Motorola 3G 3rd Gen. With Android 5.1.1.

The weather wasn't good enough to fly the last couple of days, but I did manage to reproduce the problem. I used my phone until I had only 30% battery left. The remote was charged all the way up. And again the APP kept connecting and disconnecting.

I wanted to try connecting the phone to the remote through a powered USB hub to see if the issue really is what is causing the problem, however, I do not have one.

Again, after charging the phone, the APP connected without issue.

@DJI:
Do you think, having a type of adapter that only connects the remotes data wires to the phone's USB, and having a separate connector that can be connected to a power bank to supply power to the phone, could do the trick?