If you fly in all modes including sports mode, the Mini 3 Pro will always stay about 7 -10 inches above the ground.

If you try to go lower than that it says LANDING.

Is anyone aware of a way that you can hover it 2-3 inches above the ground?

I have even tried to fly it at 3 feet off the deck and then when I fly over a table that is 3 feet tall it will JUMP up a foot in sports mode.  So, it is always avoiding downward even with sensors off.  Sensors off looks to just be the forward and backwards sensors.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Hello there Joe Dawson. Good day and thank you for reaching out. I am sorry to say that we do not have the option to disable the Downward Vision Sensor of the DJI Mini 3 Pro on the DJI Fly application for safety purposes. Thank you.

DJI Stephen Posted at 6-14 19:39
Hello there Joe Dawson. Good day and thank you for reaching out. I am sorry to say that we do not have the option to disable the Downward Vision Sensor of the DJI Mini 3 Pro on the DJI Fly application for safety purposes. Thank you.

For safety purposes?

It would improve safety in some situations to be able to disable the downward sensors and also give users a lot more control.

Switching to sports mode seems to disable the downward camera.

Temp cover them is an option

DAFlys Posted at 6-14 22:50
Switching to sports mode seems to disable the downward camera.

Switching to sports mode seems to disable the downward camera.
No
The VPS is still operating when the drone is in Sport Mode.
It's the forward obstacle sensors that are disabled when in Sport Mode.
Stick to posting other people's videos and don't post things you don't understand.

Labroides Posted at 6-14 23:08
Switching to sports mode seems to disable the downward camera.
No
The VPS is still operating when the drone is in Sport Mode.

Lets see,   in normal mode whilst hovering I can reach under the drone and it will react to my hand and increase height,  if I set sports mode it doesn't do this and lots me take hold of it,  obviously something got disabled.   

DAFlys Posted at 6-14 23:11
Lets see,   in normal mode whilst hovering I can reach under the drone and it will react to my hand and increase height,  if I set sports mode it doesn't do this and lots me take hold of it,  obviously something got disabled.

Maybe the camera is disabled, but the downward distance measuring sensors stay active

DAFlys Posted at 6-14 22:50
Switching to sports mode seems to disable the downward camera.

I checked and Sports mode disables only the forward and backward sensors.

DAFlys Posted at 6-14 23:11
Lets see,   in normal mode whilst hovering I can reach under the drone and it will react to my hand and increase height,  if I set sports mode it doesn't do this and lots me take hold of it,  obviously something got disabled.

That is interesting... In Sports mode if fly low over a table it will automatically raise up so it is not disabled in the way I want it disabled I guess.

DJI Stephen Posted at 6-14 19:39
Hello there Joe Dawson. Good day and thank you for reaching out. I am sorry to say that we do not have the option to disable the Downward Vision Sensor of the DJI Mini 3 Pro on the DJI Fly application for safety purposes. Thank you.

In Go 4 we could disable it to allow us to conduct close landings or control the drone all the way to the ground.  Having it auto land from as high as they have it now means that it will often get blown 3-4 inches in a direction as it comes down.  This means if your landing on a small surface you may not end up landing where you thought you would.

With my very old Mavic Pro I can land with much more precision than I can with a Mini 3 Pro.

Giving people options is not a safety thing it is just another example of how the Fly app is still not as good as the Go 4 app was.

You can temporarily cover the sensors with tape, or turn off the appropriate parameter (It is necessary to know secret knowledge).

DJI Stephen Posted at 6-14 19:39
Hello there Joe Dawson. Good day and thank you for reaching out. I am sorry to say that we do not have the option to disable the Downward Vision Sensor of the DJI Mini 3 Pro on the DJI Fly application for safety purposes. Thank you.

Hi Stephen,

Why do you never react seriously on experienced remote pilots?

Downward sensor is operative flying at baro heights higher than the sensor range....
If sensor is/get dirty or foggy in flight than at out of bottom sensor range height a ForcedLanding gets active when i want to lower the drone   NOT a very safe situation i guess!!

When i fly with any speed low and the ForceLlanding gets active than i crash my drone if i do not react very quick   NOT a safe situation !!

Do you know any pilot who want to land a DJI drone with 10 m/s of speed in any direction ??

Many more situations where the downward sensor is the cause of a crash or unsafe situation....

SO  give your remote pilot the option to disable the bottom sensor, this with a prompt on the screen that flying without the sensor active can be a risk....

And, if you give advice for FlyApp users how to fly over water, than your link to an old DJI video in wich you can disable the bottom sensor, its a old GO4 video.
cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 6-15 02:20
Hi Stephen,

Why do you never react seriously on experienced remote pilots?

I second this, it should not try to land when moving in any direction...

JJB* Posted at 6-15 02:20
Hi Stephen,

Why do you never react seriously on experienced remote pilots?

I believe that I am a seasoned RC Pilot. Given that I fly Helicopters and scale fixed wing prop and Jets.

I suspect that DJI are concerned about people crashing their drone more often if this option was available.

Can you explain what you mean by this? It does not make much sense to me.

Downward sensor is operative flying at baro heights higher than the sensor range....

At my flying field I go barreling up the ground at speed "Sports Mode" from the lowest ground elevation. The Field has a slow rise in elevation. The downward sensor will keep the drone from crashing into the ground. This would be a significant issue if it did not, and catch many drone pilots unaware.

JJB* Posted at 6-15 02:20
Hi Stephen,

Why do you never react seriously on experienced remote pilots?

I do not understand what you are saying here.

The statements depict why you do want the bottom sensors to be active.????????

When i fly with any speed low and the ForceLlanding gets active than i crash my drone if i do not react very quick   NOT a safe situation !!

Do you know any pilot who want to land a DJI drone with 10 m/s of speed in any direction ??

Many more situations where the downward sensor is the cause of a crash or unsafe situation....

Joe Dawson Posted at 6-15 02:05
I checked and Sports mode disables only the forward and backward sensors.

How low do you want to go. It gets me down to about a foot and a half.   
Here's an example,  I didn't want to go lower with only one hand to fly and one to film.

bjr981s Posted at 6-15 03:36
I believe that I am a seasoned RC Pilot. Given that I fly Helicopters and scale fixed wing prop and Jets.

I suspect that DJI are concerned about people crashing their drone more often if this option was available.

Hi,

Experienced guy here too   ;-)  

A DJI drone flying at 100 meters height (or any height > bottom sensor range)  doesn`t need a bottom sensor to be active.
If active and all is working oke, than no problem ofcourse.
But if the sensor measures false height (fail/dirt/fog/ect) than when lowering height the drone enters automatically a landing mode....not what any pilot wants to happen.
Simple solution ; user option to disable the bottom sensor.
cheers
JJB

bjr981s Posted at 6-15 03:40
I do not understand what you are saying here.

The statements depict why you do want the bottom sensors to be active.????????

Hi,

When i fly with any speed low and the ForceLlanding gets active than i crash my drone if i do not react very quick   NOT a safe situation !!
Few pilots have lost their drone by flying low and want to get even lower.Flying at 0.5 meter height (bottom sensor height) than first lowering by RC down input has no effect.
Shortly after this drone will enter autolanding wich can only be cancelled by short 100% UP stick!
If not noticed in time  drone will crash!


Do you know any pilot who want to land a DJI drone with 10 m/s of speed in any direction ??
This want to fly lower is done ofcourse often with forward flight....why is in that situation the autolanding possible??
Try this yourself flying full speed forward....be very quick to cancel the landing!

In autotrack the remote pilot cannot lower the craft lower than 0.5 meter, why not do the same for normal flying with speed in any direction?
As said, no remote pilots wants to land a drone with any speed (not talking about 0.1 m/s speed etc)  in any direction.

Try to fly up a slope with some speed with OA disabled (or mini1, SE, mini2) ; only flying real slow than the bottom sensor can keep minimum height of 0.5 meter, going faster it will crash into the slope.

Bottom sensor is very usefull for the safe landing protection! Try this : Hover in Sport mode at 50 meter or so; full RC down stick and keep stick down all the time, really all the time!
When drone descends fast, when in range the descend is slowed down to zero at 0.5 meter, shortly after drone will do an autolanding real slow and nice
THIS is why i need the bottom sensor thus autolanding to be active!!

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 6-15 04:28
Hi,

Experienced guy here too   ;-)  

Flying low and close to objects can yield some really good footage, how low well as low as you can go without crashing wit OA on you have some insurance, so flying at 100m bottom sensor have a place on all craft. And if your flying 100m over open ground sensors on or off make little difference.

Having a choice is probably the best option, but there have been plenty of accidents when no sensors were on . In fact I would say there were more accidents when sensors were off rather than on. So yes for more experienced flyers it can help to have the option, but not always for beginners or inexperienced users.

hallmark007 Posted at 6-15 04:39
Flying low and close to objects can yield some really good footage, how low well as low as you can go without crashing wit OA on you have some insurance, so flying at 100m bottom sensor have a place on all craft. And if your flying 100m over open ground sensors on or off make little difference.

Having a choice is probably the best option, but there have been plenty of accidents when no sensors were on . In fact I would say there were more accidents when sensors were off rather than on. So yes for more experienced flyers it can help to have the option, but not always for beginners or inexperienced users.

Hi,

Flying low and close to objects can yield some really good footage, how low well as low as you can go without crashing wit OA on you have some insurance, so flying at 100m bottom sensor have a place on all craft. And if your flying 100m over open ground sensors on or off make little difference.

True, if bottom sensor is measuring 'nothing' flying > its range. With false height indication it will be difficult to get the craft down normally.
Agree with having a choice (as i said) ; let the user decide to disable sensor off (by deafult always ON), disable with a user prompt on the screen.

Plenty of accidents?  Downward sensor cannot be disabled on FlyApp drones, disabling OA or flying in sport mode does not disable this sensor

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 6-15 04:48
Hi,

Flying low and close to objects can yield some really good footage, how low well as low as you can go without crashing wit OA on you have some insurance, so flying at 100m bottom sensor have a place on all craft. And if your flying 100m over open ground sensors on or off make little difference.

There have been many accidents with turning off Bottom OA. Yes it was in Go4 but it had nothing to do with the APP. So just to say having the option to turn off won’t stop accidents happening.

see this > https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... D556%26typeid%3D556

Typical example ; 4 times an unwanted autolanding due to the incorrect bottom sensor false height value.

If only there was an option to disable the bottom sensor....


cheers
JJB

DAFlys Posted at 6-15 04:14
How low do you want to go. It gets me down to about a foot and a half.   
Here's an example,  I didn't want to go lower with only one hand to fly and one to film.

I want to be 1 inch... It is not for flying... It is for landing... I want to be able to hover one inch above the area I am landing so I know when I am landing on a edge of something that I am in the exact right place.  If I do it from a foot up the wind may blow it left or right many inches and then not land on the right spot.

On the GO 4 app if you turn off this option (see red arrow)you can lower the drone as low as you want and only when you touch down will it say landing.
So you have control all the way down. Sadly this is on the GO 4 app along with many other options still not found on the DJI Fly App.

This is not a safty thing this is a missing option in the new Fly App.

Joe Dawson Posted at 6-15 10:19
I want to be 1 inch... It is not for flying... It is for landing... I want to be able to hover one inch above the area I am landing so I know when I am landing on a edge of something that I am in the exact right place.  If I do it from a foot up the wind may blow it left or right many inches and then not land on the right spot.

In that case.  Hover in the air with OA turned off. Reach under the drone and take hold and flip to turn off the motors.  

DAFlys Posted at 6-15 11:09
In that case.  Hover in the air with OA turned off. Reach under the drone and take hold and flip to turn off the motors.

I am in a wheelchair so that isn't as easy an option so I always land on any raised surface around.  Sadly many are small areas that require some level of skill to land on that you can not easily judge from 1 foot above.

Joe Dawson Posted at 6-15 11:23
I am in a wheelchair so that isn't as easy an option so I always land on any raised surface around.  Sadly many are small areas that require some level of skill to land on that you can not easily judge from 1 foot above.

In one place I fly a lot I sit on a wall,  in high winds I bring the drone up to me,  switch it sports mode and then reach my arm out and take the drone and flip it to kill the motors,  all done and I dont need to get up.   Its very convienient and as the mini3 doesnt have long legs theres no risk of the props touching the ground.  

DAFlys Posted at 6-15 11:45
In one place I fly a lot I sit on a wall,  in high winds I bring the drone up to me,  switch it sports mode and then reach my arm out and take the drone and flip it to kill the motors,  all done and I dont need to get up.   Its very convienient and as the mini3 doesnt have long legs theres no risk of the props touching the ground.

I understand... With my disability this is not a practical option.

So I was disappointed to see this feature missing from the DJI Fly app that existed in Go 4 app on my older DJI drones.

DAFlys Posted at 6-14 23:11
Lets see,   in normal mode whilst hovering I can reach under the drone and it will react to my hand and increase height,  if I set sports mode it doesn't do this and lots me take hold of it,  obviously something got disabled.

No it doesn’t for me just checked sensors still send drone upward, they don’t seem to send it up as much in normal mode for some reason but they are still on.

JJB* Posted at 6-15 07:22
see this > https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... D556%26typeid%3D556

Typical example ; 4 times an unwanted autolanding due to the incorrect bottom sensor false height value.

Im slightly mixed up here, are you saying it was the OA bottom sensor that caused the forced landing  or VPS and which should you be able to turn off ?

The problem is, whilst one is moving forwards or any direction for that matter at the and you try to get lower to the ground, it will automatically initiate Landing once it goes past that landing height. this is what we don't want to happen, its the same with the mIni 2,  

A good example is, going down a slope, whilst moving forward hugging the ground, you're pulling down on the left stick to keep hugging the ground but it will keep on initiating landing and if you are not quick enough to pull up again, ouch....  therefore, at the very least, auto-landing should be disabled whilst the drone is moving in a horizontal motion, only land when stationary.

Bashy Posted at 6-15 17:34
The problem is, whilst one is moving forwards or any direction for that matter at the and you try to get lower to the ground, it will automatically initiate Landing once it goes past that landing height. this is what we don't want to happen, its the same with the mIni 2,  

A good example is, going down a slope, whilst moving forward hugging the ground, you're pulling down on the left stick to keep hugging the ground but it will keep on initiating landing and if you are not quick enough to pull up again, ouch....  therefore, at the very least, auto-landing should be disabled whilst the drone is moving in a horizontal motion, only land when stationary.

Yep it is a safety problem if anything!

hallmark007 Posted at 6-15 12:18
No it doesn’t for me just checked sensors still send drone upward, they don’t seem to send it up as much in normal mode for some reason but they are still on.

Odd.  This is my new way to hand catch.

hallmark007 Posted at 6-15 12:20
Im slightly mixed up here, are you saying it was the OA bottom sensor that caused the forced landing  or VPS and which should you be able to turn off ?

It describes the problem with my drone. The lower sensors have problems, so I have trouble descending. When trying to descend, the drone starts a controlled landing. I would be very happy if the application had an option to turn off the VPS. I'm still trying to figure out what the problem is, but the disable option would have helped me a lot, but unfortunately it doesn't.

hallmark007 Posted at 6-15 12:20
Im slightly mixed up here, are you saying it was the OA bottom sensor that caused the forced landing  or VPS and which should you be able to turn off ?

VPS for mini2 is only the bottom sensor, for other drone VPS has more sensors.
This case about a MA2, vision system more sensors ; only the bottom sensor is used for landing protection (landing protection height = 0.5 meter for DJI drones)
So only the bottom signal is used for this and if triggered will make to drone go into an autolanding.

False reading of the bottom sensor (false measuring 0.5 meter of height) AND 100% stick down will force the drone into an autolanding. Even flying at 120 meters baro height. (or fly low and wanted to fly even lower with full speed...)

So in this case if the remote pilot can disable the bottom sensor he could lower the craft in a normal way.
For drones wich has more sensors than only the bottom sensor ; keep all sensors alive but disable only the bottom sensor by an option in the menu.

As said in previous post ; DJI does disable this landing protection in the autotrack mode ; you cannot fly manually lower than 0.5 meter. (message on the screen)
So why not disable this also when drone flys with speed (no one want to land a drone with 10 m/s)
And why not have an option in the menu to disable automatic this landing protection when baro height > range of bottom sensor ?

DJI shoud give us remote pilots more options. If one is against it ; don't use the options.

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 6-15 23:12
VPS for mini2 is only the bottom sensor, for other drone VPS has more sensors.
This case about a MA2, vision system more sensors ; only the bottom sensor is used for landing protection (landing protection height = 0.5 meter for DJI drones)
So only the bottom signal is used for this and if triggered will make to drone go into an autolanding.

It isn’t about one being against, its about the experience. I understood this was all posted on the mini 3 forum, so was applying my question to that.

There was once an understanding that if VPS was turned off it would be safer flying over moving water , but my experience was not like this moving water could confuse the drone but no vps could also cause problems.

I would prefer the option but it will only serve a certain amount of users and could cause problems for others. Maybe warnings when switching it off might help.

worlock Posted at 6-15 21:30
It describes the problem with my drone. The lower sensors have problems, so I have trouble descending. When trying to descend, the drone starts a controlled landing. I would be very happy if the application had an option to turn off the VPS. I'm still trying to figure out what the problem is, but the disable option would have helped me a lot, but unfortunately it doesn't.

As somebody who flies off boats I also would like the option, but I have experienced turning it off with P4 pro, then not remembering I had it turned off and had a couple of hard landings. But yes some kind of option could be better.

hallmark007 Posted at 6-16 01:53
It isn’t about one being against, its about the experience. I understood this was all posted on the mini 3 forum, so was applying my question to that.

There was once an understanding that if VPS was turned off it would be safer flying over moving water , but my experience was not like this moving water could confuse the drone but no vps could also cause problems.

Flying low above streaming water will sometimes confuse the bottom sensor, effect is a drone wich starts to wobble around and/or loose height.
In those situation is it better to have the sensor off (if possible)

Ofcourse it is better not to fly that low above streaming water in the first place.

Flying with a disabled bottom sensor is only tricky when you try to land your drone as it will not land controlled smoothly. Or if you try to fly low and lower, it will not stop at the landing protection height of 0.5 meter. Probably more situations where it can be risky, but for normal flying at some height, no problems at all.In the GoApp it is still possible to disable "landing protection", so DJI reaction that it is dangerous for FlyApp users....(silly to say this)

But if you aware of this then no problem to fly without, so make it option and experienced users can use it.

cheers
JJB

hallmark007 Posted at 6-16 01:56
As somebody who flies off boats I also would like the option, but I have experienced turning it off with P4 pro, then not remembering I had it turned off and had a couple of hard landings. But yes some kind of option could be better.

The same then can easily happen if you revert from flying a drone with landing protection to flying the likes of a P3, fortunately I throttled up in time to prevent the landing but it was a close thing.