is there anyway in the software that I can disable the indoor height limit? I'd like to get above some conveyors in a warehouse and need some extra height with the Mini.

Hi, Thank you for reaching out with this inquiry. With regards to the height limitation of the DJI Mavic Mini,when flying indoors. When the said drone's GPS is weak, the safety feature of the DJI Mavic Mini will trigger and limits the height to 5 meters for safety purposes. For more details regarding the DJI Mavic Mini, please refer to the link ( https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/ ... _Manual_v1.0_en.pdf ) that I have posted. Thank you.

DJI Paladin Posted at 11-15 11:50
Hi, Thank you for reaching out with this inquiry. With regards to the height limitation of the DJI Mavic Mini,when flying indoors. When the said drone's GPS is weak, the safety feature of the DJI Mavic Mini will trigger and limits the height to 5 meters for safety purposes. For more details regarding the DJI Mavic Mini, please refer to the link ( https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/ ... _Manual_v1.0_en.pdf ) that I have posted. Thank you.

[view_image]

Thank  you but can I turn that feature off to go higher than the 16 feet is what I'm asking.

Hiroshima23 Posted at 11-15 12:42
Thank  you but can I turn that feature off to go higher than the 16 feet is what I'm asking.

Hi, thank you for your response and query. For the downward vision sensor, we do not recommend to disable this feature for safety purposes. Thank you for your understanding.

Only way would be to build a platform and take off from that, if you have full gps your craft can fly any height indoors if not your restricted, also remember it’s likely your craft may go in and out of gps so this won’t help .

DJI Paladin Posted at 11-15 12:53
Hi, thank you for your response and query. For the downward vision sensor, we do not recommend to disable this feature for safety purposes. Thank you for your understanding.

It recommends NOT putting tape over these sensors... what will happen if something were to cover them?

Walrus82 Posted at 11-17 11:40
It recommends NOT putting tape over these sensors... what will happen if something were to cover them?

Hi. Thank you the additional query. With regards to the Downward Vision Sensor of the DJI Mavic Mini. We do not recommend to put any type of obstruction like tapes or sticker on the said sensor for safety purposes of the said drone and for the Downward Vision Sensors to work properly when on flight.In addition, putting any types of obstruction on the said sensors may lead to crash and may void the warranty of the said drone. Please refer to the link
( https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/ ... _Manual_v1.0_en.pdf ) for the DJI Mavic  Mini manual for further details. Thank you.

So... if the downward vision sensor isn't working, I can fly indoors at 96 feet, but if it is we're restricted to 16 feet?

I tried to use the mini to get some footage a tradeshow during setup and the 16ft limitation made it impossible to get the shots I wanted.  Can you make the limit an option or at least selectable, or at the very least raise it to 30-40 feet?

I can't imagine that flying with no down sensor and no GPS is a good idea....or maybe impossible. I tried it once at night with few sats ready and the drone ran into a bush across the road while "hovering". My bad.
I think the sonar sensor is only useful to about 32 feet anyway.

Maybe, if you take off from a taller platform, structure, staircase... floor...
Problem is it wont be reliable and prone to crash.

Ya that’s dangerous.  I work in a 4 story retail space, with a wide open Center in the building.  I tried flying the drone from the ground, and could only get up 15 feet.  So I decided to take off from the top floor, and fly into the middle.  Which worked... until I flew it too low and it wouldn’t come back up to me.  Fortunately I landed it on the ground floor.  

But got me thinking, what if I took it off from a bridge without gps? I would lose the drone if I flew it under the bridge.  That’s not cool.

till it hits the celling, don't get it too close or the props will suck it to the celling

"or the props will suck it to the celling" I have a set of P3 props that found that out, buffed all the paint of their crowns' . It was surprising how much I had to throttle off to unstick it.  

I have tried everything to get it to fly higher indoors, I do commercial building inspections and have taken off from a mezzanine and it drops down to 5 meters immediately, I have covered the sensors and too difficult to fly. If anyone is interested in starting a petition to send to DJI contact me at lanron@gmail.com  may, just maybe we will be able to talk DJI into doing something to help us.  I am trying to use it for business and the restrictions are making it difficult.  

bentley m d m Posted at 1-14 10:56
I have tried everything to get it to fly higher indoors, I do commercial building inspections and have taken off from a mezzanine and it drops down to 5 meters immediately, I have covered the sensors and too difficult to fly. If anyone is interested in starting a petition to send to DJI contact me at lanron@gmail.com  may, just maybe we will be able to talk DJI into doing something to help us.  I am trying to use it for business and the restrictions are making it difficult.

A petition won't make any difference.
What you need to do this, is either:
Good enough lighting and a suitable floor texture for VPS to work
Or a drone that allows you to switch off the downward sensors, like a Phantom 4 pro or Mavic 2

DJI's entry level drones just don't give the user enough options and control for this.

I don't think you will have any luck with a petition, I doubt there's enough interest in having an increased ceiling to get sufficient numbers to gain DJI's interest.
Just for clarity.
Let's assume it took off from a platform 20ft above the floor and was flown away from the platform, are you saying that the flight's ceiling becomes relative to the floor once the drone does not have the platform underneath it?
I suppose that's logical since it is likely using the VPS for position holding (GPS presumed to be insufficient) but it is perhaps a bit surprising if one hasn't thought about it.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 1-14 15:52
I don't think you will have any luck with a petition, I doubt there's enough interest in having an increased ceiling to get sufficient numbers to gain DJI's interest.
Just for clarity.
Let's assume it took of from a platform 20ft above the floor and was flown away from the platform, are you saying that the flight's ceiling becomes relative to the floor once the drone does not have the platform underneath it?

Let's assume it took of from a platform 20ft above the floor and was flown away from the platform, are you saying that the flight's ceiling becomes relative to the floor once the drone does not have the platform underneath it?
If the drone gets close enough for the VPS to pick up the floor, that's what happens

I suppose that's logical since it is likely using the VPS for position holding (GPS presumed to be insufficient) but it is perhaps a bit surprising if one hasn't thought about it.
It's been very surprising (and unfortunate) for a couple of flyers that have discovered this "feature" after descending in inaccessible canyons etc.

Not being able to disable VPS is just another of the serious limitations that come with using DJI Fly.

"I have tried everything to get it to fly higher indoors, I do commercial  building inspections and have taken off from a mezzanine and it drops  down to 5 meters immediately, I have covered the sensors and too  difficult to fly."

Those are actually two separate problems.

In the absence of good GPS reception, the Mini will rely on its vision sensor to hold position whenever the sticks are centred.  Under those circumstances, to ensure optimum function of that sensor, the Mini's height is restricted.  Without GPS, if the vision sensor is disabled or ineffective (too dark etc), the Mini will default to ATTI mode and will be unable to automatically brake to a halt or hold position whenever the control sticks are released or centred.  You then need to provide active stick input to slow the Mini to a halt, and continuous inputs to hold it in position if there are any wind currents trying to push it around.  Too difficult?  It's not impossible, but I wouldn't recommend anyone trying it for the first time if you're flying in a confined space.  Practise first in a more open space like a gymnasium.


The second issue is taking off from a mezzanine and having the Mini then automatically drop down to 5 meters off the floor below.  The VPS system combines two separate functions.  One is the vision sensor, a camera, used to detect patterns on the ground so the Mini can hold position in the absence of a good GPS fix.  The second function is provided by the two infrared sensors used to measure height above ground.

The primary height measurement is normally done by the barometric altimeter and IMU.  When you take off from the mezzanine, that point is recorded as zero altitude.  Descending from the mezzanine down to the floor below would register as negative altitude.  So why would the Mini automatically drop down to 5 meters from the floor below?

I'm guessing that's because, in the absence of good GPS reception, the height restriction for the VPS system kicks in.  If the infrared sensors are capable of measuring the height above the floor, the Mini will raise itself no higher than 5m above whatever those sensors are seeing.

Why not try covering only the two infrared sensors, while leaving the vision sensor camera unobstructed?  What happens then?  (Note: I haven't tried this myself.  You're on your own.)


As long as there's enough light for the vision sensor to detect patterns on the ground, it should allow the Mini to hold position.  But with the height sensors covered, the Mini would have no way of knowing whether it's still hovering over the mezzanine, or hovering at some greater height exceeding 5m.  It would be relying solely on its barometric sensor and IMU to calculate height relative to its takeoff location.

Has anyone tried this yet?  I don't have a big enough indoor area without GPS reception to test this.  We have a tall enough cathedral ceiling in the living room, but I get full GPS coverage there.

Further to my previous post, the Mini will fly in any one of three modes.  

• Normally it's GPS mode where it will hold position quite accurately whenever the sticks are centred.
• In the absence of sufficient GPS reception it will switch to Opti mode in which it relies on the VPS sensors, but limits height to 5m.
• If Opti mode is unavailable (too dark, too high,...) it switches to ATTI mode.
  

ATTI mode is only scary if you've never experienced it before.  The drone will hold its height using the barometric altimeter and IMU, but cannot hold position whenever the control sticks are centred.  Without active stick inputs to hold the drone where you want it, any wind current will cause the drone to drift away.  That's especially dangerous if you're flying in a confined space (indoors) where the drone's own downdraft creates unpredictable wind currents.

It's too bad the Mini has no switch to manually activate ATTI mode, allowing one to practise this mode.  The Phantom series had a switch to allow manually changing flight modes.  I made a video long ago with my Phantom-1 showing the difference between GPS vs ATTI modes.