Hey all,

some exciting news. A future Mavic Air 2 feature got leaked!



What do you think? Which Firmware are you on?

UK still .250

South Africa 01.00.0250, we are close to the end of the world, so no surprise.

Nice that means 360⁰ obstacle avoidance. Apas 4.0. When thw senaors see goes left right when not  no left right

Is this course lock?

I'm in London, England and use the iPhone XS. I'm on v1.1.6 of the Fly app and firmware .250. I have all of the gimbal and YAW sensitivity and smoothness settings in the app which work perfectly, new battery info, the camera switching back to H.264 after changing the frame rate back to 30p or lower and the word 'WIDE' under the 4K option in the camera settings (?). I seem to have lost the flight time counter from the battery drop down and I don't have the new forward/backward pitch only feature or the toggle to integrate APAS with OA so presume that will be on the next FW update .309 that 'Air Photography' accidentally leaked by the look of it.

I've since booted the drone up on my phone and with Assitant 2 for Mavic (latest version 2.0.14 released on MacOS on 5 Aug) and they both state I'm on the latest firmware at .250 - so still waiting.

A J Posted at 8-7 11:52
I'm in London, England and use the iPhone XS. I'm on v1.1.6 of the Fly app and firmware .250. I have all of the gimbal and YAW sensitivity and smoothness settings in the app which work perfectly, new battery info, the camera switching back to H.264 after changing the frame rate back to 30p or lower and the word 'WIDE' under the 4K option in the camera settings (?). I seem to have lost the flight time counter from the battery drop down and I don't have the new forward/backward pitch only feature or the toggle to integrate APAS with OA so presume that will be on the next FW update .309 that 'Air Photography' accidentally leaked by the look of it.

I've since booted the drone up on my phone and with Assitant 2 for Mavic (latest version 2.0.14 released on MacOS on 5 Aug) and they both state I'm on the latest firmware at .250 - so still waiting.

Wait for the new firmware which is .0330 and has this superb feature that I think it simulates the 360⁰ obstacle avoidance and probably Apas 4.0 maybe.

How do we monitor battery temps now?

Niknik Posted at 8-7 12:31
Wait for the new firmware which is .0330 and has this superb feature that I think it simulates the 360⁰ obstacle avoidance and probably Apas 4.0 maybe.

Thats interesting - where did you get 360 OA and APAS 4.0 from? The MA2 does not have side sensors so there is no hardware in the drone to avoid obstacles to the side. The new feature shown in the vid prevents the drone from rolling left and right even in open areas where there are no obstacles to avoid.

Route77 Posted at 8-7 12:50
How do we monitor battery temps now?

There is a new sub section called 'battery info' in the safety section in the app which shows the battery temperature amongst other key info on the batteries such as month/year of manufacture.

A J Posted at 8-7 13:00
Thats interesting - where did you get 360 OA and APAS 4.0 from? The MA2 does not have side sensors so there is no hardware in the drone to avoid obstacles to the side. The new feature shown in the vid prevents the drone from rolling left and right even in open areas where there are no obstacles to avoid.

Yes, this is my thought. If you lock left and right movements then apas go only left and right only when the front camera and both front and back sensors see the sides else no. If this is like that then we have a 360° like obstacle avoidance. Also in active track avoidance type if this is a rule then it will be much more safe.
I guess will see in a few days

In regards to the firmware, I think you were on the right path in regards to the people with the early review units getting copies of the next firmware version, but I would bet it is based on the person’s login, not based on hardware serial number.  My guess is that someone at DJI just messed up and didn’t realize they were accidentally publishing these early versions to the reviewer’s beta pool.  

Status Quo for us mere mortal Canadians, (Air Photography is CDN)  so still on .250 but I have both the 1.1.6 app versions for Android and iOS, I use both devices.

It is interesting that the new APAS setting is firmware dependent. If it was simply changing the format of the two Fly toggles for obstacle avoidance, then no firmware update would be needed. It seems the firmware team is developing a more advanced internal operation of the sensors (forward, back, down). Probably as the drone moves forward,it can use the front sensor to "see" what is on periphery. This would only work while moving forward, and could be the reason for the switch to turn off sideways only movement (right stick l/r). Saying you have obstacle avoidance turned on, but allowing sideways movement is not accurate since there are no side sensors.

Good to see them making firmware improvements. It would be best to wait for an official firmware update rather than trying to load one of these intermediate builds.

Niknik Posted at 8-7 14:57
Yes, this is my thought. If you lock left and right movements then apas go only left and right only when the front camera and both front and back sensors see the sides else no. If this is like that then we have a 360° like obstacle avoidance. Also in active track avoidance type if this is a rule then it will be much more safe.
I guess will see in a few days

APAS 3.0 will attempt to avoid the obstacle by going left or right or under/over an obstacle - enabling this new feature doesn't make the drone go left/right only in APAS - what if the drone came to a shallow wall - are you saying it won't be able to fly over it?

Obstacle avoidance is where the drone uses optical cameras built into the drone to create a 3D image of the environment to automatically avoid obstacles that the drone can 'see'. This new feature does not avoid obstacles to left and right of the drone - it simply prevents the drone being manually rolled left/right irrespective of the environment. That isn't obstacle avoidance. The Mavic Air 2 does not have side sensors so it is physically impossible for it to see obstacles to it's left/right to avoid.

Very interesting comments. I hope everyone gets the .0330 rollout soon! In regards to the 360degree obstacle avoidance, without side sensorsand top sensors this ain't gonna happen.

RE: 360 degree obstacle avoidance.  

I can't help but think that DJI can actually make that happen in a non-intuitive and somewhat complicated way.  The camera is capable of panning left and right.  If we treat stick inputs as merely dictating how the drone flies with respect to the direction the camera's pointing in (as opposed to how the drone flies with respect to the orientation of the drone), then perhaps the drone can be programmed to fly in an orientation where the front/back sensor is still able to "see" while the camera is made to look like it's moving horizontally left and right.

i.e. right stick right (in mode 2) makes the drone fly to the right; but instead of actually doing that, we can have the drone first yaw clockwise (looking down), have the gimbal pan left as to keep the camera perspective and angle relatively unchanged, and fly forward + right to achieve relatively similar effect.  

Of course... not sure how well this will work as the gimbal can, according to spec sheet, pan +/-100 degrees (but I somehow remember it to be much less?  But if it's actually +/-100 degrees then this is actually quite possible).  And not sure how well this will work if given quick left/right inputs...  And of course, this will look extremely weird when you're controlling the drone by actually looking at it instead of through the camera.

Hello there Felix. Thank you for reaching out and for creating this video for the DJI Mavic Air 2. Interesting video and great work. Thank you for your support and keep on flying.

I just got .340....so it pays to stay up late ;-)

In US and installing .340 right now....

DJI Stephen Posted at 8-9 20:31
Hello there Felix. Thank you for reaching out and for creating this video for the DJI Mavic Air 2. Interesting video and great work. Thank you for your support and keep on flying.

hey thanks again Stephen!

GaryDoug Posted at 8-9 20:32
I just got .340....so it pays to stay up late ;-)

Sweet man one of the first to snag .0340

QuadcopterGuide Posted at 8-13 11:18
hey thanks again Stephen!

Hi there Felix. You are very much welcome and thank you for the reply. Again thank you for the valued support and please stay safe always.

Thanks for the share!