I have spent the last five hours surfing the web and doing a bunch of experiments on this issue.  What's frustrating it DJI never really seems to acknowledge the problem or provide a solution. Most of the posts and videos out there are also not helpful.  (Side rant, WHY WHY WHY do people insist on shooting a 5 minute YouTube video and force me to watch it when  I could've read the important part in 10 seconds???)  Thought I'd put together one post with everything I've learned in hopes of helping others.

I'm on an iPhone X - iOS 15.5.  I do not use a phone case.  Never have.  Mavic Air 2 Pro.  Other users have reported problems on other models of iPhone, iPad, and other drone models (minis and the like).  A number of people also reported that switching to an iPad from their phone made the issue go away.  Everyone reported that this issue started after taking app update 1.4.8.

Symptoms after maybe 2-5 minutes into flight:
- Phone gets incredibly hot
- Battery is drained at an alarming rate
- Screen dims and eventually shuts off
- Video becomes choppy and the entire phone is laggy

Bottom line - the phone is overheating and starts shutting down.  When the screen goes out you can still pilot and the RTH button works but it's a bit unnerving and if you happen to have an obstacle in your RTH path....  Some people reported seeing a screen stating the phone is overheating but I didn't see this.

I hadn't flown my Mavic Air 2 since last August.  Everything was working like a champ before I put it in storage. No issues.  My phone would get a little warm when flying, but it was no more than any other app.  I updated to the latest DJI Fly app 1.6.5(644) (no clue what I had before) and hit the field nearby to do some refresher practice when I hit this issue.  

Here's everything I ended up trying

- I logged in when I went to check my profile and poke around
- Took three firmware updates for my drone
- One firmware update for my controller.

- Three flight DB updates
- Flushed all but my flight data cache
- Turned off cache while recording (not sure what this does but there were some suggestions...)
- Made sure my phone was not charging off the controller
- Played with various app settings

All of the above made zero difference.  What did seem to help:
- Uninstalled my VPN app
- Turned on airplane mode with only bluetooth enabled
- Enabled low power mode on the phone.  Note, this made the biggest difference.  Dug this suggestion out of a YouTube video FWiW.


This got me up to about a 15 minute flight before the screen started dimming and video starting getting too choppy to see.  Screen never turned off but I didn't push it.

One weird thing - if I just fired up the DJI app without the controller connected or my drone on, my phone would still get unusually warm.  Not enough to shut it down as in flight, but the app was clearly trying to do something independent of the controller or drone.  I am imagining whatever the app is doing without the controller and drone is the real issue.  Flying just made the problem go critical.

As a last ditch effort I sync'd my flight data and uninstalled the app entirely and then reinstalled.  Weirdly I didn't need to login again to resync my flight data etc.  Somehow the app figured out who I am.  Which is interesting since all app data is theoretically wiped on removal.  In any case, now my phone doesn't get unusually warm just opening the app, and I was able to drain a battery on a flight without issue.    I hesitate to call this a solve without more flight time, but I'm hopeful and thought I'd share.

Hello there mos70. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. I will forward these information to the designated DJI department for attention. Again, I am sorry and thank you.

Update: I had some time to get out and fly around after my reinstall and get a good flight.  This time I left low power mode off, VPN off (but installed), and I had relatively weak but connected cell coverage.  RC signal at max (kept the drone close).  Outdoor temp was about 80 degrees. Definitely able to get a longer flight in - maybe a solid 15 minutes before my phone started heating up and screen started to dim yet again.  Phone got warmer and video started getting choppy after another 5 minutes of flight but it hung in there.  Usable but annoying.

The uninstall definitely improved things, but an app reinstall is not a complete fix.  I let my phone cool enough to get the screen back and tried again with low power mode.  10 minutes later I was landing again with the same issues.  Didn't seem to make nearly the difference this time.

One other thing I'll note - I live pretty close to municipal airport.  No aircraft were in my immediate area (and I was well below 80 feet) but the manned aircraft warning was going non-stop.  This wasn't the case on my test flight after a reinstall - I did my earlier test off my front porch (same conditions as above) and just let it hover and rotated it to check the camera.  Perhaps the flight tracking kicks up processing power?

Unwilling to choke down $1000+ for the DJI fancy controller (seriously?!!) - I bought a refurbished 8" Android tablet off of Amazon that people claim will run the DJI Fly app.  On the downside I'm out more money and have more to carry hiking.  On the upside I just doubled my screen size and get to remove a dubious app off my phone.  Let's hope it's a fix... Stay Tuned!

I’ve had the same problem but what works for me is after I’m connected to the drone and have camera view I turn on airplane mode.

Fred Fred Fred Posted at 6-22 17:54
I’ve had the same problem but what works for me is after I’m connected to the drone and have camera view I turn on airplane mode.

Thanks!!!! I'll give that a try.

mos70 Posted at 6-22 20:06
Thanks!!!! I'll give that a try.

Ok just make sure that you turn on airplane mode after you have connected to your drone and have camera view as if you don’t it wont connect to the drone and also maybe go on maps and scroll a little bit around so that you can have maps downloaded but anyway hope it works!

Got around to poking at this some more.  The Android tablet was a dud.  Despite meeting the posted Android requirements on the DJI website, DJI Fly didn't run on the version of Android despite it being listed as being supported.  Sent the Android tablet back   Should've checked the app store proper vs. trust DJIs app page with links to app stores.   Trust the Play store requirements.  Play reads the requirements out of the app archive you download and install and is therefore more accurate.

I did some research on iPhones overheating in general.  Seems after every iOS update somebody somewhere has an issue.  Figured I'd give the general path a go.  BACK UP YOUR PHONE before you do this!  The basic script is:
1. Reset all settings.  Settings->General->Transfer or Reset Phone->Reset->Reset All Settings.  No appreciable effect for me other than irritating me as I had to fix all my settings again.  Your mileage may differ.
2. Go into recovery mode and reload everything.  Recovery mode
3. Do a DFU reset

On step 2 my phone got pretty hot just downloading and updating all my apps.  I didn't even need to load the DJI app and try a flight to vote no confidence.  I tried a DFU reset next.   The DFU recovery took just as long as regular recovery mode, and had all the same side effects.  I did find that my phone got warm during when loading all my apps again after DFU recovery, but not as hot. Next time I'd just skip step 2 and go straight to step 3.

Got out and flew today - it's 93F so pretty warm out.  Got a solid 10 minutes of flight before my screen dimmed a little.  Video started getting a little choppy off and on at 20 min but overall it hung in there and I'd say this experience is comparable to where I left off last August.  I tried going into airplane mode once I was connected as well.  Anecdotally my video seemed to be less choppy; going to call this an improvement too.

Best solution so far:  Reset all settings (this is painful if you customized everything).   DFU reset (also painful - getting into DFU mode is a pain and it takes a long time for your phone to re-download all your apps and resync).  Go into airplane mode once your drone is connected.

I'm going to plant a flag and call it victory for now.  We'll see if a bit more flight time tells a different story.

I have the same problem as the top post with iPhone 6 and Djifly app. My solution is to use my wife's old, replaced, Android phone with the Litchi App. No overheating, no battery drain, no choppy video, no messages, and bonuses: (waypoints and follow me/track) The downside is that it doesn't save images locally on the phone for a quick share while still out, but I can live with this. There are no performance issues using this app. The Litchi name is well-known to those who have used DJI drones for a while. It's not free, but not expensive either. In the "olden days", it was used for its excellent Waypoints feature. But since DJI killed the joy - all DJI FlyApp drones won't continue the mission unless connected to the controller - this is not a big deal anymore. It is understandable why DJI did this, for safety reasons, but what is annoying is that the turning in Mission mode it's not smooth anymore. Come on DJI, give Litchi developers a sort of buffer option, that at least 10-20 seconds of the mission is pre-loaded!