why does the mavic air does not support dynamic homepoint update?
would be such a great feature if you could use just your iPhone on your bike and the mavic air could follow you in active track (more than 100m!!!)

:: Paul

Hello and good day Paul. Thank you for sharing this information with us today. The best thing I can do is to forward this information/thread to our DJI R&D Team for further development of the product. Thank you for your support and happy holidays.

DJI Stephen Posted at 12-18 09:56
Hello and good day Paul. Thank you for sharing this information with us today. The best thing I can do is to forward this information/thread to our DJI R&D Team for further development of the product. Thank you for your support and happy holidays.

Thanks Stephen! That would be great to see this feature also on the Mavic Air!!

wessiack Posted at 12-18 09:57
Thanks Stephen! That would be great to see this feature also on the Mavic Air!!

You are welcome Paul. I have already forwarded the thread to our DJI R&D Team. If you have any other concerns with DJI. Please feel free to post it here at DJI Forum. We are here to help you.

Hi Stephen! Any news on that feature request? I was wondering other DJI drones (even the smaller ones) already have this feature???

I have been clamoring for this feature ever since the MA was released.  I'm hoping to use it to track me on my bike without having to take the controller with me.  As stated above, it works for 100m then stops.  This feature is available on every other drone including the Spark.  Why not MA?

I just updated from spark, can't believe air doesn't have this feature where my spark had it!

him7403 Posted at 2-2 12:19
I just updated from spark, can't believe air doesn't have this feature where my spark had it!

ya its weird the lack of feature parity, im also upset about this, nothing sucks more then when battery is low and have to jump at the screen to cancel RTH which sometimes you cannot do cuz click cancel RTH and it just pops up again continuing to count down.. like no! happened to me a few times....it sucks


3 modes i wish mavic air had, all of which i confirmed are in the SDK so dji could if they wanted to flip a switch an add these functions into their native app...

1. dynamic home point (feels like a huge oversight by DJI here, can't be intentionally left it out right? )

2. waypoints (incredibly useful function to let it complete missions itself and return as needed and not have to risk warranty loss because using Litchi and may not be logging like DJI wants)

3. follow me mode (GPS follow).    i never thought i would say i want follow me mode but i had a friend make a good point, you dont need to be seen for the drone to follow you around, plus get a decent latitude of options, so you can basically film a cinematic tour around an area, not worry about signal loss since drone is basically overtop of you all the time.  and its also a slightly dumbed down version of active track so it follow you around, just you gotta control alt, direction its pointing..but it can lose you visually and keep following and it knows you are homepoint so it wont try to fly away if battery is too low..

They do this on purpose so all devices don't have all the features.  It's capable but they don't want this device to be able to do it, just like lack of waypoints that the Phantoms have.

Scutmud Posted at 2-2 14:16
They do this on purpose so all devices don't have all the features.  It's capable but they don't want this device to be able to do it, just like lack of waypoints that the Phantoms have.

Mavic 2 has way points.

Mavic pro (last gen) has follow me and dynamic homepoint.

Spark has Dynamic homepoint..

Mavic air has ????

HereForTheBeer Posted at 2-2 15:08
Mavic 2 has way points.

Mavic pro (last gen) has follow me and dynamic homepoint.

Has the Spark had dynamic homepoint since launch or was it turned on later?

jwishbone Posted at 2-2 17:14
Has the Spark had dynamic homepoint since launch or was it turned on later?

turned on later, few months into its life i do kind know why spark got it.. poor battery life + 100m limit when using gestures was causing RTH crashes and issues..  but...not limited to the spark.. mavic pro and phantom 4 got dynamic home point as well..and mavic pro and phantom 4 have very good battery life and i dont think either do gesture based takeoff and follow without the remote.... so i dont know entirely the logic DJI is using..  no good argument for why its not a feature parity....

HereForTheBeer Posted at 2-2 13:05
ya its weird the lack of feature parity, im also upset about this, nothing sucks more then when battery is low and have to jump at the screen to cancel RTH which sometimes you cannot do cuz click cancel RTH and it just pops up again continuing to count down.. like no! happened to me a few times....it sucks

Would love these features too on DJI go4.

Litchi provides WP and Follow Me. I use it very often.

Dear DJI Team,

as mentioned in the previous posts, PLEASE add the features dynamic home point and GPS tracking for the Mavic Air.
There is no reason why most of the other DJI products have this feature and they are disabled DJI Mavic.
This limits the use of the drone significantly.
It would be the perfect action drone to take with you, e.g. on MTB tours, but unless there is an easy way to use it as tracker/follow cam (without having to use the remote controller) it is useless for me.

You raise the claim to be the market leader in the drone business and the products are everything else than cheap.
So please consider the concerns of your customers and further develop your products/software, especially if the hardware is already in place and it's just about a firmware upgrade!

Thanks and best regards
Peter

Forget about it.
Mavic Air pilots have been asking for this feature(and others, like gimbal-positioning by button) on this forum from very beginning. You see the results.

konzecao Posted at 3-16 04:56
Dear DJI Team,

as mentioned in the previous posts, PLEASE add the features dynamic home point and GPS tracking for the Mavic Air.

this is the issue when you are the market leader in physical sales and profit... if you know people will still buy in huge numbers and see you as beacon example of the drone industry.... most recognizable brand and the benchmark.. ya this happens all the time with big tech companies.    they can sit back and ignore things if they know people will buy it still.

konzecao Posted at 3-16 04:56
Dear DJI Team,

as mentioned in the previous posts, PLEASE add the features dynamic home point and GPS tracking for the Mavic Air.

Maybe they will introduce this, but in reality dynamic homepoint on Mavic Pro and spark, I keep reading about how useless it is how most of the time it’s not working, I wonder if they opted out of implementing it in MavAir because it’s either not refined enough, I see the reason some will use it Tracking bike car etc, and although som3 say they need it for boats which is just a very bad idea .

I know for me anyways I would prefer to wait than put up with something that is tiresome and just doesn’t cut it.

Regards sports drones are great for some but not all sports, if your the pilot and also taking part in the sport, then I would say you are not serious about filiming or participating in the sport, really to cover sports you need to be serious about piloting the drone not trying to participate and film. If your talking about covering insurance sports well unless you will need many batteries so lots of landing and changing batteries .
I also think we should get real about Mavic Air it will never be a pro drone to cover everything if someone absolutely needs dynamic homepoint then why purchase in the first place. And if you want to film professionally then MavAir is not a good choice .

hallmark007 Posted at 3-16 09:54
Maybe they will introduce this, but in reality dynamic homepoint on Mavic Pro and spark, I keep reading about how useless it is how most of the time it’s not working, I wonder if they opted out of implementing it in MavAir because it’s either not refined enough, I see the reason some will use it Tracking bike car etc, and although som3 say they need it for boats which is just a very bad idea .

I know for me anyways I would prefer to wait than put up with something that is tiresome and just doesn’t cut it.

I’ll use Adriano Araujo‘s very enjoyable short films he posts to this forum of him running as evidence against the last half of your post.  He may not be creating “professional” Hollywood level films, but I think he does a great job and I quite enjoy them!  I’m glad he has a small drone such as the Spark or MA that allows him to be able to create and share what he does.  I can very much see how having the dynamic home point feature would be extremely useful in making the types of films that he creates.

Cheers!

Adriano Araujo Posted at 2-4 04:18
Would love these features too on DJI go4.

Litchi provides WP and Follow Me. I use it very often.

Just quoting you here so you can see my complement above in post #18. Keep up the great work on your short films you create!

wessiack Posted at 2-2 05:30
Hi Stephen! Any news on that feature request? I was wondering other DJI drones (even the smaller ones) already have this feature???

I guess you will never hear about this feature request again from him....

KlooGee Posted at 3-16 10:24
I’ll use Adriano Araujo‘s very enjoyable short films he posts to this forum of him running as evidence against the last half of your post.  He may not be creating “professional” Hollywood level films, but I think he does a great job and I quite enjoy them!  I’m glad he has a small drone such as the Spark or MA that allows him to be able to create and share what he does.  I can very much see how having the dynamic home point feature would be extremely useful in making the types of films that he creates.

Cheers!

You are right about Adriano And for jogging it’s fine and he has made some nice videos and a short slow mountbike ride yes I’ve seen some, but out and out sports as the poster was referring to or MTB sports, so I don’t think either spark or MavAir are equipped to cover these sports certainly if your taking part and if your filiming without taking part then they are also limited.

Yes short film yourself riding a bike or running around for 10 minutes, but covering MTB sports I’m not so sure .

hallmark007 Posted at 3-16 10:54
You are right about Adriano And for jogging it’s fine and he has made some nice videos and a short slow mountbike ride yes I’ve seen some, but out and out sports as the poster was referring to or MTB sports, so I don’t think either spark or MavAir are equipped to cover these sports certainly if your taking part and if your filiming without taking part then they are also limited.

Yes short film yourself riding a bike or running around for 10 minutes, but covering MTB sports I’m not so sure .

If you are talking about actually covering a moutain bike race or something like that, I agree.  

However, if you are talking about taking it with you to be able to capture an awesome MTB trek like is shown in most of the pages below, I think it would be a fantastic companion.  This is what I interpreted kenzecao to be interested in, but maybe I had the incorrect perception.

https://www.google.com/search?q=USA+mountain+bike+tours

KlooGee Posted at 3-16 11:12
If you are talking about actually covering a moutain bike race or something like that, I agree.  

However, if you are talking about taking it with you to be able to capture an awesome MTB trek like is shown in most of the pages below, I think it would be a fantastic companion.  This is what I interpreted kenzecao to be interested in, but maybe I had the incorrect perception.

Maybe I got the wrong perception.
But in his words, “This drone would make a perfect action drone” he goes on to say” as it is it’s useless to him” , but without dynamic homepoint to cover what you are trying to show me it’s quite possible , but to cover an event while you take part in the event I’m not so sure .

hallmark007 Posted at 3-16 09:54
Maybe they will introduce this, but in reality dynamic homepoint on Mavic Pro and spark, I keep reading about how useless it is how most of the time it’s not working, I wonder if they opted out of implementing it in MavAir because it’s either not refined enough, I see the reason some will use it Tracking bike car etc, and although som3 say they need it for boats which is just a very bad idea .

I know for me anyways I would prefer to wait than put up with something that is tiresome and just doesn’t cut it.

boats are the best reason i think because if you are on the boat and the battery is going low, would you really wanna have your mavic going back to take off location and possibly landing in the ocean/river.   as someone who occasionally goes out fishing and boating, usually launch locations are out on the water after you launched the boat, that way not juggling to many things.., so RTH would just land in the water if it had to go back to where you launch it..  plus it extends the serivable life span of the battery allowing it to target you for longer and manually bring it in and land it.

as for it being refined enough...eh, i think it was highly misunderstood. ya it was a bit rough in implementation...  people thinking it was following the controller/smart device's GPS when in reality every 10-15 seconds it was updating its homepoint to aircraft's internal GPS.   


DJI could improve dynamic homepoint overnight if they wanted to on all drones if they wanted to.  combining GPS follow on smart device + dynamic homepoint..   so that way able to verify that following you and it can keep streaming new homepoint, plus it can maybe help it keep pace with what its following and active tracking if its getting little confused it can augment correcting itself..    as a fall back if you dont have built in GPS could toggle for it to update homepoint internally or go back to take off, and if lost signal for extended period of time, i have a toggle for return to take off location or hover in place..

HereForTheBeer Posted at 3-16 11:42
boats are the best reason i think because if you are on the boat and the battery is going low, would you really wanna have your mavic going back to take off location and possibly landing in the ocean/river.   as someone who occasionally goes out fishing and boating, usually launch locations are out on the water after you launched the boat, that way not juggling to many things.., so RTH would just land in the water if it had to go back to where you launch it..  plus it extends the serivable life span of the battery allowing it to target you for longer and manually bring it in and land it.

as for it being refined enough...eh, i think it was highly misunderstood. ya it was a bit rough in implementation...  people thinking it was following the controller/smart device's GPS when in reality every 10-15 seconds it was updating its homepoint to aircraft's internal GPS.   

Boats are easily the worse and the most risky place to use dynamic home point, you have to realise a boat is constantly moving and will require you to set DH almost every 5 seconds even if you manage to do this, let’s say you hit RTH and your drone starts it’s run to DH and while flying back you lose signal , all the time your drone is flying back your boat is moving so homepoint is now continually moving even if your anchored, so let’s say you now lose radio signal , your craft will continue its return to DH which will almost certainly have moved, as it lands you have a couple of choices try guiding boat under landing drone or jump into water and try hand catching.

Using drone from a boat you always be within VLOS in fact well in VLOS you set loss of signal to hover you then use boat to get to the drone you should then by getting closer to the drone be able to recover signal and manually land , if you don’t regain signal you can just wait under drone until it lands.

I’m not sure why anyone would use DH in a boat then hit RTH and expect the boat not to move while craft is returning, boats on water constantly move.
Flying a drone from a boat should be seen as a place to manually fly you should never let battery get to critical or low which will trigger rt DH as its almost certain this homepoint will have moved.

It’s much simpler just to set loss of signal to hover, your drone will never go in the water, and never initiate RTH whether you have DH or RTH .

hallmark007 Posted at 3-16 12:04
Boats are easily the worse and the most risky place to use dynamic home point, you have to realise a boat is constantly moving and will require you to set DH almost every 5 seconds even if you manage to do this, let’s say you hit RTH and your drone starts it’s run to DH and while flying back you lose signal , all the time your drone is flying back your boat is moving so homepoint is now continually moving even if your anchored, so let’s say you now lose radio signal , your craft will continue its return to DH which will almost certainly have moved, as it lands you have a couple of choices try guiding boat under landing drone or jump into water and try hand catching.

Using drone from a boat you always be within VLOS in fact well in VLOS you set loss of signal to hover you then use boat to get to the drone you should then by getting closer to the drone be able to recover signal and manually land , if you don’t regain signal you can just wait under drone until it lands.

first of all, i suggestion to anyone flying with DH, not to click RTH..  manually take over when its time to land for any reason..

if its active tracking you, which is the most likely use case, it should always be within VLOS anyway, kinda has to be to continue to track you on active track.    once you hear your low battery alarm, you should then pick the controller back up and manually bring it in to land on your location.    assuming most people leave low battery at 30% (default) that gives you several minutes  once alarm goes off to sort things out..   having used active track with DH before while boating  (mavic pro).  i never had issues, i mean maybe if very windy or going too fast.  but assuming that active keeping up and following you not letting it get too far, once battery alarm goes off, you make sure you bring it in, landing on boat or i always hand caught it and pulled down on stick to have it spin down..  

if signal is lost it should always default to hovering in DH mode... not landing. but in theory if using DH correctly, shouldn't suffer signal loss or they should be very minimal if it happens.. because in DH should following you, not something else may get beyond range and battery..

the reason i suggest adding GPS follow into it as a sorta hybrid form to it is to verify what its following is actually in possession of the controller thus able update the homepoint and stream in new homepoints...  if it sees its not following GPS somewhat it can turn off DH and revert back to takeoff HP say GPS data from smart device stops for period of time...or sees your smart device is back on the shore, it can turn off DH..  but if GPS data from smart device kicks back in and is in agreement with aircraft then it start updating again.  

HereForTheBeer Posted at 3-16 12:32
first of all, i suggestion to anyone flying with DH, not to click RTH..  manually take over when its time to land for any reason..

if its active tracking you, which is the most likely use case, it should always be within VLOS anyway, kinda has to be to continue to track you on active track.    once you hear your low battery alarm, you should then pick the controller back up and manually bring it in to land on your location.    assuming most people leave low battery at 30% (default) that gives you several minutes  once alarm goes off to sort things out..   having used active track with DH before while boating  (mavic pro).  i never had issues, i mean maybe if very windy or going too fast.  but assuming that active keeping up and following you not letting it get too far, once battery alarm goes off, you make sure you bring it in, landing on boat or i always hand caught it and pulled down on stick to have it spin down..  

The whole point of DH is if you lose signal or run battery down it will return to last updated homepoint, if your not going to use the DH RTH then there is absolutely no need to use it, like why would anyone bother inputting new homepoint if they were not going to use it, it’s pointless and particularly from a boat, because if you do use it it will go to last point installed and 100% boat will have moved so effectively the homepoint will be in the water.
I can understand using it on terra ferma because the homepoint will be the last place you were standing that makes sense.

hallmark007 Posted at 3-16 12:41
The whole point of DH is if you lose signal or run battery down it will return to last updated homepoint, if your not going to use the DH RTH then there is absolutely no need to use it, like why would anyone bother inputting new homepoint if they were not going to use it, it’s pointless and particularly from a boat, because if you do use it it will go to last point installed and 100% boat will have moved so effectively the homepoint will be in the water.
I can understand using it on terra ferma because the homepoint will be the last place you were standing that makes sense.

on  boat, you shouldn't ever use RTH function while on water... just a given, on water and dji's landing protection isnt known for its accuracy in detecting and avoiding danger... . at-least in my opinion.. once get low battery alarm you should manually be landing it on your boat or hand catching it.  not trusting automated system to land it..   

as for lost signal being part of its design...i hope not, image highlight a boat or a car isn't you and it flying away because of that...  rip drone.   hope it would have a fail safe against that and would return to take off or hover at-least.      


again GPS function could geofence around your phone/tablet say 300 feet or 1000 feet or something if the drone falls outside of this circle after x number seconds or updates it reverts back to flying back to take off location or could set home point manually to your smart device and have smart device pinging the update location instead of the drone...   not going to save your drone from going itno drink if you preform a RTH, but it will keep the drone on the right track and better informed with it power and time remaining..  

HereForTheBeer Posted at 3-16 13:08
on  boat, you shouldn't ever use RTH function while on water... just a given, on water and dji's landing protection isnt known for its accuracy in detecting and avoiding danger... . at-least in my opinion.. once get low battery alarm you should manually be landing it on your boat or hand catching it.  not trusting automated system to land it..   

as for lost signal being part of its design...i hope not, image highlight a boat or a car isn't you and it flying away because of that...  rip drone.   hope it would have a fail safe against that and would return to take off or hover at-least.      

I don’t understand second paragraph, but I stand by what I said if your intention is not to use DH return, then there is no advantage in continually setting homepoint on a moving boat simply because boat will continually be moving if you need or use DH, yes on land but a lot people think it’s useful on water but it’s not and has no benefits that will out do the risk when flying on water.

The whole Geo thing well I don’t want to get into the realms of that, except to say, if you can set HP on land and always fly within reach then leave drone set at that, though it will require taking off from land.

I still believe the way these drones are set up flying on water just requires pilot to use loss of signal to hover and never let drone battery go to low or critical , DH won’t help so no need to be fussing about with it just sit back and enjoy the fishing, unless of course you’re fishing fo Tuna ;+)::::::

KlooGee Posted at 3-16 10:24
I’ll use Adriano Araujo‘s very enjoyable short films he posts to this forum of him running as evidence against the last half of your post.  He may not be creating “professional” Hollywood level films, but I think he does a great job and I quite enjoy them!  I’m glad he has a small drone such as the Spark or MA that allows him to be able to create and share what he does.  I can very much see how having the dynamic home point feature would be extremely useful in making the types of films that he creates.

Cheers!

Thanks KlooGee for the kindy words.

Dynamic home point is very useful for me as I very often fly with just phone (no RC) as it is easier to hold / hide in my adventures. ;-)

I have both, Spark and MA, and I use more the spark for Dynamic Home Point.

HereForTheBeer Posted at 3-16 12:32
first of all, i suggestion to anyone flying with DH, not to click RTH..  manually take over when its time to land for any reason..

if its active tracking you, which is the most likely use case, it should always be within VLOS anyway, kinda has to be to continue to track you on active track.    once you hear your low battery alarm, you should then pick the controller back up and manually bring it in to land on your location.    assuming most people leave low battery at 30% (default) that gives you several minutes  once alarm goes off to sort things out..   having used active track with DH before while boating  (mavic pro).  i never had issues, i mean maybe if very windy or going too fast.  but assuming that active keeping up and following you not letting it get too far, once battery alarm goes off, you make sure you bring it in, landing on boat or i always hand caught it and pulled down on stick to have it spin down..  

"he reason i suggest adding GPS follow into it as a sorta hybrid form to it is to verify what its following is actually in possession of the controller thus able update the homepoint and stream in new homepoints..."

Parrot Anafi does that

Adriano Araujo Posted at 3-22 03:51
"he reason i suggest adding GPS follow into it as a sorta hybrid form to it is to verify what its following is actually in possession of the controller thus able update the homepoint and stream in new homepoints..."

Parrot Anafi does that

this is true !      i wish dji would start listening to us, i actually elected to not save up for the mavic 2 anymore..  dji decided to not listen to the customer base so i decided to save the $2000-ish i was going to set aside for spring and summer... planning some trips and its a shame, dji....  

i actually stopped recommending DJI drones to people that ask... i just state customer service is a gamble if they actually work with you or against you, specially true if the logs are inconclusive + they seem to have the strictest limitations and ignore customers requests and desires for features and functionality...

Dynamic Homepoint ? as in return to controller instead of gps setpoint ?

@dji: any news when dynamic homepoint update will be available on Magic Air???

dynamic home point is still missing on MP2 .. and it's super annyoing .. had it on my MP1.... >.<

DJI are you listening to your customers? I have mavic pro 1, spark and mavic air and on every drone i have dynamic homepoint except for mavic air.... Little and cheap spark had this function why mavic air no? Its a one year after you released mavic air and you abandoned him after one month after release. Shame on you...

LookAt_Wictim Posted at 8-12 00:56
DJI are you listening to your customers? I have mavic pro 1, spark and mavic air and on every drone i have dynamic homepoint except for mavic air.... Little and cheap spark had this function why mavic air no? Its a one year after you released mavic air and you abandoned him after one month after release. Shame on you...

The answer to your question is a resounding NO, they are not listening to their customers.  The mods on this forum offer the same canned response - "The best thing I can do is to forward this information/thread to our DJI R&D Team for further development of the product", but whether they really do it or not is questionable.  Nothing ever seems to come out of it...EVER.  The MA seems to be a dead product at this point, in the sense that DJI does not seem to be enhancing or developing it any further.  Mind boggling.

well this is a shame, it would make it much better, and well half the reason i bought a drone. the guy in the shop upsold me to the air, after i' chosen the spark. sad to realise that part of the reason i bought this was the ability to follow a subject.

Canefan Posted at 8-12 06:48
The answer to your question is a resounding NO, they are not listening to their customers.  The mods on this forum offer the same canned response - "The best thing I can do is to forward this information/thread to our DJI R&D Team for further development of the product", but whether they really do it or not is questionable.  Nothing ever seems to come out of it...EVER.  The MA seems to be a dead product at this point, in the sense that DJI does not seem to be enhancing or developing it any further.  Mind boggling.

yep - that how it is learn it hard way, that DJI dropped Air dead... after many tries on this forum I think none of pilots idea went thru :/

And if there is workaround for WP (like Litchi - even they base on Air SDK if I'm not mistaken), DJI starts "it's not our software" story and limits warranty...

Dji mavic mini will be release 30th october and mavic air still dont have FW update for dynamic homepoint. Well dji takes a ... on their customers..