At this moment the drone is having some trouble managing interferences and selecting the proper bandwith/channels, at least in Europe (CE mode). In general the connection is way better than the Mini 2 (signal penetration is waaaay better), but sometimes it bugs and stops working properly. You can fly in an area with 4 bars and then return to the  same spot and lose connection.

I found the Air 2S is losing signal at places where my mini 2 would transmit consistently with 3 bars or so, I remember they did an update on the Mini 2 that improved the signal performance in interference areas... an that's exactly what Air2S needs.

With the Mini 2 you can fly nicely even with 2 bars, but with the Air2S it is flying fine at 5 bars, then 4, and then the connection just cuts and you are left with 1 bar.

For example, this italian guy is losing connection at just 2Km over water and he says that he did 3Km with the Mini 2 and 6Km at the same spot with the Mavic Air 2:



PS: I allways check that my phone is in airplane mode and I point the controller correctly, so no human factor involved.

lots of things causing loss of signal, how you place you RC to receive signal where you fly height , try flying across a suburban housing estate at 11 am in the morning and repeat at 7pm evening when everyone is home and all TV microwave etc are turned on, we’ve all lost signal at 100 ft and it isn’t always clear why it happens, my experience yesterday evening I flew in area I have flown thousands of times and signal preformed really good and in the areas I would normally get shaky downing it preformed perfectly. I haven’t taking it further than 2K but going on first flights yesterday I think it would be no problem where I live.

I nearly always fly at the same area (around 330 flights), so I quickly realized Air2S signal was buggy and underperforming.

I've done 14 flights with the Air 2S and although the signal works fine for the most part and has better penetration, I commonly find situations where I know for sure my Mini 2 wouldn't had any problem.

The moment you get 3 bars on the Air2S bum, screen freeze and RTH.

Also tried to switch the transmission mode between HD and smooth, and dind't find any difference at all (720p screen on my device), in fact I think HD works better at long range than smooth, which shouldn't.

I can't be happier about the Air2S, but it definetelly needs some debug done in certain areas.

Another one, connection droping to 1 bar at just 300 meters and also says with the Mavic Air 2 he didn't had any problem:

Huginn Kenningar Posted at 4-22 14:54
I nearly always fly at the same area (around 330 flights), so I quickly realized Air2S signal was buggy and underperforming.

I've done 14 flights with the Air 2S and although the signal works fine for the most part and has better penetration, I commonly find situations where I know for sure my Mini 2 wouldn't had any problem.

I agree and noticed that as well. At5/4 bars you okay but once you reach the 3 bars red you get a quick disconnect and RTH. I used to fly my zoom in an area by my house and used to clear 5 km LOS but the Air2S only gets up to 2.8km and then complete disconnect and RTH. Maybe a firmware upgrade will fix it.

Look at this similar thread: https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=240922

Same problem for me, at 120m alt it hard to reach 2km... the top i reached is 5km but i had to fly over 120m and to be far from trees... when i loose bar the transmission and picture bugs...

Yeah- don’t listen to “Hallmark007”. He defends DJI no matter what. He’s what people call a “shill”. If there is a real problem, he will deny it and say it’s your fault.

Just so people know, Meanderthal has been banned for life more than a dozen times, for trolling people. He should be ignored at all costs….

Hallmark007 used to tell people that “GPS signals go to your drone from cell towers”. That tells you everything about his credibility.

I've been considering the air 2s, particularly because of its Oc3 signal, so this is an interesting report....

I agree that Oc3 has a few bugs and the signal isn’t anywhere near as good as my Air 2.  I expect this will eventually be fixed by firmware updates.

It's July 2021 and my 2S just stopped working long distance.   My last Mavic Air 2 was great, this 2S isn't performing.   

From my deck,  i could send my MA2 5 miles into the ocean at 400ft.  The 2S RTH. RTH, RTH.  I've done all the forum tricks.... nothing.   

1,200+ Letdown.

* I've turned off Bluetooth
* deleted recent apps on my S9+
* updated ALL firmware etc...

Ps...i sold my S21+Ultra because it wasn't compatible at the time.   I see there is now a beta for Android 12 on dji site.

Any updates on this issue?  I just bought one today and the reception was terrible.  I couldn't get 1.5 miles before signal drop.... So disappointed in this drone already.  I'm going to take back to Best Buy and hope they wave the Restocking fee.  My partner not buying one now either.

djiuser_bAM0pMsGbiqr Posted at 9-9 22:09
Any updates on this issue?  I just bought one today and the reception was terrible.  I couldn't get 1.5 miles before signal drop.... So disappointed in this drone already.  I'm going to take back to Best Buy and hope they wave the Restocking fee.  My partner not buying one now either.

If you are in europe on CE mode just hack de drone and unlock the FCC mode, x4 power output on the 2.4Ghz band and x16 on the 5.8Ghz band, it will solve any long range issue. Dualband/multichannel now works properly and the drone cuts through interference with no problems.

I did this a few months ago and never going back to CE mode again XD

I also recently put the Mini 2 on FCC and the difference is not as significant as with the Air2S (due to it only having two little antennas), but also improved a lot.

I'm a relatively new owner of the 2S and these range discussions had me concerned.  I live in the US so I don't have the CE problem, and was interested in a quick test.  I took it out over a very large lake and was able to get it out 2 miles (3.2 km) and still had 5 bars.  It would occasionally drop to 4, then back to 5.  For my purposes this is plenty far, and it seems I was lucky enough to pick a location with low interference.  It was pretty windy so I didn't want to push the battery... at 60% I hit RTH, no issues at all.

The location was Lake Minnetonka, MN - upper midwestern region of the US.

Huginn Kenningar Posted at 9-10 08:19
If you are in europe on CE mode just hack de drone and unlock the FCC mode, x4 power output on the 2.4Ghz band and x16 on the 5.8Ghz band, it will solve any long range issue. Dualband/multichannel now works properly and the drone cuts through interference with no problems.

I did this a few months ago and never going back to CE mode again XD

Any tips how to hack it for FCC mode?

Łukasz Kunicki Posted at 9-14 09:10
Any tips how to hack it for FCC mode?

https://drone-hacks.com/blog

I have flown my Mini 2 and Air 2S in the same location that has low to no interference, Mini 2 has no issues while the Air 2S gets laggy and drops out.

I can also confirm....O3 is not good as long as there are a lot of bugs in soft...Also A2S have more limited range in CE vs Air2 because of probably bugs in software....or they cut the transmission power from drone in order to save battery ???? Who knows, but clear is only one fact:
O3 SUCKS !