Hello, I've never had an automatic flight drone, but I've had several totally manual (and sensorless) ones. One thing I've done in the past, with a camera drone, was take off from the lawn, have the drone fly to my living room window on second floor, fly inside through the window, and land on the kitchen table. And vice versa. But the video quality was totally unusable (no gimbal, no stabilization, signal drops and so on).
Now that I'm getting a Mini 2, I would like to do it again with it, but I'm wondering if it can be done, after reading some horror stories on flyaways and signal loss...
I mean, if I take off from outside, then get inside, it will loose GPS signal; will it simply start drifting a bit (acceptable) or will it loose control?
And if I do the opposite, take off inside, and then go out, it will then lock on satellites; will this disrupt its stability?


Thanks,
Cristian

Without gps signal the drone uses the bottom sensor to maintain stability. That means of course you need to have enough light.
Take in consideration that without gps the flight hight is 3 m. Don't think that is a problem in house.

When the drone retrieves the necessary gps satelites, it will automatically be able to fly higher.

I did not use the mini2 in house, but at the point of takeoff at my property I have no gps signal. At that point I can fly 3m high. Fly a bit further onto the open terrain. At that moment I get the confirmation the home point is set and can go higher. I did not notice any unstability when the drone goes from visual to gps.

JohnDG Posted at 11-3 05:54
Without gps signal the drone uses the bottom sensor to maintain stability. That means of course you need to have enough light.
Take in consideration that without gps the flight hight is 3 m. Don't think that is a problem in house.

OK, thank you. So this means that it uses a visual sensor to maintain position, I did not know that. How does it calculate height? With another sensor on the bottom? Or does it "remember" the barometric altitude?

If the height limit is 3m, when I get out of the window (about 6m high),  will it drop down do 3m until it locks the satellites? Or will it keep its altitude?


This reminds me of another thing I wanted to ask: is there a document somewhere describing in some detail all the technology that's in the Mini 2? Sensors, processors, operating system, and so on?

Cristian

It works fine.  Just be sure if you're going from inside to outside, you land, get satellites, update homepoint, then take off and fly.

If you are flying from outside to inside make sure you set signal loss mode to hover or descend. If it stays in RTH mode and you loose connection it will smash into the ceiling.

Quaxo76 Posted at 11-3 05:58
OK, thank you. So this means that it uses a visual sensor to maintain position, I did not know that. How does it calculate height? With another sensor on the bottom? Or does it "remember" the barometric altitude?

If the height limit is 3m, when I get out of the window (about 6m high),  will it drop down do 3m until it locks the satellites? Or will it keep its altitude?

Hi,

All height limits uses the takeoff height as reference, so it will not drop down when its gets a GPS lock.

The moment the GPS icon turns into white than the HomePoint is set, so probably not above a good place to fly to and land in case of a RTH.
So fly from indoor to outside, fly to and hover above a good landing spot and update the HP (while hovering) to current position.

But watch our for a sudden climb when your drone measures an obstacle below the drone passing a window frame ect.Bottom sensor is working always...

cheers
JJB

hunterws Posted at 11-3 06:13
https://youtu.be/fieuvaqPsms
It works fine.  Just be sure if you're going from inside to outside, you land, get satellites, update homepoint, then take off and fly.

Thanks for the video. I had in mind something like that, except starting with a fly-in to my house, in throught the window, through the house, then land.
I'm not sure I understand what tou mean about the home point. Of course starting from inside, there's no home point detected; you mean as soon as I get out, let it acquire GPS and set a home point to be used in the event of loss of signal? Does it have to land to do that? Couldn't it just hover while acquiring the satellites?

EDIT: JJB replied while I was typing this, with a good answer to these very questions. Thanks.
What is the height that it keeps from the ground, using the bottom sensor?

Tuxtard Posted at 11-3 06:16
If you are flying from outside to inside make sure you set signal loss mode to hover or descend. If it stays in RTH mode and you loose connection it will smash into the ceiling.

Thank you, I had not thought about that. I don't expect to loose the signal, since I would be flying it from the balcony next to the window, and then following it inside, but a loss of signal can always happen nonetheless, so this is a very good advice... I'd just have to remember to set it back to RTH!

Quaxo76 Posted at 11-3 07:37
Thanks for the video. I had in mind something like that, except starting with a fly-in to my house, in throught the window, through the house, then land.
I'm not sure I understand what tou mean about the home point. Of course starting from inside, there's no home point detected; you mean as soon as I get out, let it acquire GPS and set a home point to be used in the event of loss of signal? Does it have to land to do that? Couldn't it just hover while acquiring the satellites?

if height below drone < 0.5 meter it will fly up.

Check this : Hover at 100 feet, Sport mode, apply 100% stick down and keep it down all the time!
See that the drone reduces vertical speed down when in bottom sensor range. drone will stop at 0.5 meter for a while, after that it will enter a forcelanding. (stick all the time 100% down)

The height at wich the drone hovers for short moment is the height for flying up if drone sees obstacle below the drone. (so flying below that height)

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 11-3 07:47
if height below drone < 0.5 meter it will fly up.

Check this : Hover at 100 feet, Sport mode, apply 100% stick down and keep it down all the time!

OK, so if I fly indoors, I suppose it will go up and down if I fly over tables, chairs, couch and so on... Does it only do that with large objects? Because a friend of mine has a mini 2, and I remember going right under it while it was hovering, and putting my hand under it to feel the wind, and it didn't go up at all. I also lightly tapped it around to see how it would react to disturbances, and it never went up, it actually came back to its exact spot whenever disturbed...

Quaxo76 Posted at 11-3 09:53
OK, so if I fly indoors, I suppose it will go up and down if I fly over tables, chairs, couch and so on... Does it only do that with large objects? Because a friend of mine has a mini 2, and I remember going right under it while it was hovering, and putting my hand under it to feel the wind, and it didn't go up at all. I also lightly tapped it around to see how it would react to disturbances, and it never went up, it actually came back to its exact spot whenever disturbed...

good question. it does fly up if the surface below the drone is 'seen', really small object guess not.
But if you fly over a flat table than it should fly up...sensor is at the rear of the drone.

well   just give a try,  love to see the video  ;-)

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 11-3 10:32
good question. it does fly up if the surface below the drone is 'seen', really small object guess not.
But if you fly over a flat table than it should fly up...sensor is at the rear of the drone.

I will post the video, but don't hold your breath... I still have to actually receive the drone, then I suppose I'll have to get used to it before trying such stunts...

Quaxo76 Posted at 11-3 07:41
Thank you, I had not thought about that. I don't expect to loose the signal, since I would be flying it from the balcony next to the window, and then following it inside, but a loss of signal can always happen nonetheless, so this is a very good advice... I'd just have to remember to set it back to RTH!

This is why I just fly it out, land it to save battery while getting GPS lock, which will update home point.

""you mean as soon as I get out, let it acquire GPS and set a home point to be used in the event of loss of signal?""  Yes, this.

After that, fly with a normal return to home, until it's time to go indoors, then set to hover or the like.

Quaxo76 Posted at 11-3 10:40
I will post the video, but don't hold your breath... I still have to actually receive the drone, then I suppose I'll have to get used to it before trying such stunts...

Get it, worst case scenario, you have to get new batteries.  If there are no cracks, rubs etc , and the gimbal is hanging and happy, shell out the cash .... IF the deal is still there!

hunterws Posted at 11-3 11:12
Get it, worst case scenario, you have to get new batteries.  If there are no cracks, rubs etc , and the gimbal is hanging and happy, shell out the cash .... IF the deal is still there!

OK, it's still there, but now I have another option: another one, "used" but never even activated (unwanted gift apparently), the whole fly more combo, for the same price of the other one; but this has the usual 3 batteries instead of 4, and it has no care refresh.
So: - unused drone, 3 batteries, no care refresh;
or - about 45 hours used drone, 4 batteries (unknown status but stated to be good), 15 months of care refresh;
Which one, since the price is the same?

Also, for the used one, the owner is willing to let me see it in flight. Besides obvious damage, cracks, vibration or noises, is there something obvious I should check?

So long as it has never been registered (to a dji account), you can still get care refresh.   Plus, those batteries are brand new, I'd go with the unused one.  

One thing to note aside from what's already been mentioned, sorry if i missed it, flying through doorways etc can cause buffeting and may make the flight unstable, just bear that in mind..

Hello there Cristian. Good day and thank you for posting these information. Just a friendly reminder that DJI do not recommend flying your DJI Mini 2 drone indoors as the environment indoors may have interference and caused an incident and also during low light condition as the vision sensors may not work properly. DJI suggest to choose an outdoor open area where the GPS is good, no magnetic interference, to fly the drone and check if all the functions are normal. Thank you and fly safe always.

Afterthought ... you know, you can block the bottom sensor carefully with a piece of electrical tape to do fly-throughs where you don't want it to avoid anything.