As i have been using the smart controller for a while now i thought I would reflect on it as last night i tried to update my standard controller.

One of the main advantages of the smart controller is that its dedicated. A friend of mine a long time ago uttered the imortal words - there is no subsitute for dedicated hardware support. All of the issues that you have with have in a phone that needs to be removed from its case, the cable wiggled in, phone batteries, calls/sms/messages whilst flying, OS versions, sudden crashes of the app etc etc are all gone.

Yes its expensive but all those little niggles and hassles are instantly removed and for me that makes the smart controller worth it.

Quentyn

Haven’t you got any of the many problems people are complaining about in the forum? Example weak signal?

When I was making my purchase I questioned was it worth the money. It's pretty expensive after all and I had a very hard time trying to justify that cost.

Against what I felt was my better judgement at the time, I decided to just buy the darn thing and take a chance on it.

Truthfully, this turned out to be one of the best decisions ever. The controller is hassle free, and works perfectly every time. It's very high quality, feels it awesome. Performance is amazing.

Haven't given the extreme price of it a second thought since day one of turning on the controller and flying with it. It's worth ever cent to have a dedicated high quality controller that works perfectly.

I'm in a CE zone too, and I've not had any signal issues either.

mathiashoffner Posted at 4-13 04:18
Haven’t you got any of the many problems people are complaining about in the forum? Example weak signal?

i am in a CE zone and i havent noticed any issues with weak signal at all.. just make sure that the antennas are aligned. I once had poor reception and then realized that as the drone was 100m immediately above me that i should probably align the antennas. Saying that i haven't noticed any issues recently

The one think i would like them to resolve is app support - i dont want to side load and some apps dont side load ( UK NATS app for one)

yes its expensive but its hassle free flying

Quentyn Posted at 4-13 07:00
i am in a CE zone and i havent noticed any issues with weak signal at all.. just make sure that the antennas are aligned. I once had poor reception and then realized that as the drone was 100m immediately above me that i should probably align the antennas. Saying that i haven't noticed any issues recently

The one think i would like them to resolve is app support - i dont want to side load and some apps dont side load ( UK NATS app for one)

Sounds good, thanks a lot!
I’ve also considered the smart controller for about 2 weeks now, and after all I think I have made the desision to buy one new thing week :-). It is very expensive, but think I will take the chance

mathiashoffner Posted at 4-13 07:28
Sounds good, thanks a lot!
I’ve also considered the smart controller for about 2 weeks now, and after all I think I have made the desision to buy one new thing week :-). It is very expensive, but think I will take the chance

You won’t regret it I concur with everything that has been said above, no issues here either .

No issues for me
Better signal than my mav 1,

Sorry for the Mavic noob question: what is "CE zone" and why are there complaints of low signal in that zone?

(Upgrading from the P3P after many years)

Thanks, Chris

I bought the Smart Controller in something of a panic, I was due to take the flight test for PFCO and just prior to the test I lost connection between the 'phone and the RC1A controller. I wiggled the wire- no joy. I had a spare phone and swapped that in- and in minutes that had failed too- for the same reason: the cable connection had worn loose.  After much profanity I got the connection and promptly made the decision to replace the Frankenstein set up with the SC. 3 days later, after minimal practice with it I passed the test.  

I really like the simplicity of the SC. Turn it on and go. No more screen orientation issues, message popups etc, just the one thing to charge with a clear camera view.

I am surprised that I can't customize the default screen background and quite a few apps don't work but my biggest gripe ( now fixed thank goodness)  was the date stamp error which really surprised me as it took so long to fix and really dented my confidence in the DJI data logging side which is so important for CAA certification.

Is it worth the money? If you are serious about aerial capture: yes.

Well despite our very first one bricking itself due to memory issues, we still firmly love ours ( Albeit this is our second UNIT!)

We are commercial drone operators and we normally fly with our two dji inspire for most of our contract work, with them we also have two CrystalSky monitors.

We always love the fact that they have hdmi, usb and memory Card slots.

When on site with a client, we can hook up one of our large monitors and show them what we are and have captured easily,,and then save it to card or usb to hand over.

Now we can do this on our  Mavic Pro 2 on smaller jobs too, it was worth it just for that alone.

And of course the super bright display is also a god send on bright days too.

Despite a few isssues wirh firmware updates, I would still recommend it to anyone!

Not A Speck Of Cereal Posted at 4-25 18:24
Sorry for the Mavic noob question: what is "CE zone" and why are there complaints of low signal in that zone?

(Upgrading from the P3P after many years)

CE compliant areas regarding the transmission power - basically CE is used in Europe. You will use FCC in the US which is more powerful and why you have a longer range (5KM in CE, 8KM in FCC) with the Mavic 2's.

Encouraging to know Quentyn and with the dual remote now up and running it is looking more tempting - thanks for sharing.

Not A Speck Of Cereal Posted at 4-25 18:24
Sorry for the Mavic noob question: what is "CE zone" and why are there complaints of low signal in that zone?

(Upgrading from the P3P after many years)

CE zone is Europe. In Europe there are different requirements about the strenght of the signal. The controller will adapt it's signal on the geo position. In the CE zone, there's a limitation on output level. Because of that the smart controller will have a lower range in the CE zone than everywhere else.

On the other hand, you have to keep the drone in visual sight. Because of that, the output level is sufficient to fly in Europe complient to the regulations.

sorry, but I didn't find that a noob question. CE compliance is about regulations, limitations of output signal by Europe regulations.

No issues here either.

No weak signal issues here in Australia too, but I don't have a standard remote to compare with.