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The Mavic Air 2 was first released on April 27, 2020. It's shocking to realize that we are already in mid-2022 and people are having the same issue of the iPhone starting to overheat, the controls slowly becoming sluggish (the camera doesn’t point up or down until after 20-30 seconds, until eventually, the video completely freezes. Fortunately, I’ve being flying within line of site (LOS) so I can safely bring the drone back, but the whole purpose of all these flying cameras is to be able to record videos and take pictures. Obviously, you can’t do this if the screen freezes on you.
I did a quick Google search, and it seems hundreds of people are having the same problem. It’s been posted in the DJI Forums, on YouTube and on multiple articles all over the web. DJI’s response: Send the drone back so our engineers can troubleshoot the problem. Since I had bought mine “Brand New” in Amazon and I didn’t want my drone to be opened and tinkered with, I decided to run some tests on my own, and if all failed, I had 30 days to return the drone back to Amazon (I don’t think anyone who is buying a brand-new drone wants to send it back to factory to be “repaired”). I have 4 iPhones available to me, so I tested with each one: an iPhone 7, an iPhone 8, an iPhone X and an iPhone 13 Max Pro. I downloaded and installed the latest version of DJI fly (version 1.6.9) and all the firmware updates available to both the Mavic Air 2 and the controller. I double checked if there were any more updates by installing the DJI Assistant 2 for Mavic.
I’ve tried every advice I could find on YouTube and the DJI Forums: · Reinstalled DJI FLY, · Removed the case off the phones, · Took off and remained in the shadows of my house while flying, · Did not fly on hot days but rather late in the evening before sunset, · Turned off the Battery Charge option in the settings of the DJI FLY, · Flew slowly, lowered the frames per second to 30, · Bought a “Sun Hood Sunshade”. · Made sure I have the latest firmware and software updates on both the Mavic and the iPhone. • Disabled on the iPhones the Auto Brightness • Disabled on the iPhones the “Reduce White Point” setting. • Disabled the caches on DJI FLY. • Completely erased one of the iPhones and performed a DFU Restore. The only software installed was DJI FLY.
• No other Apple apps are running. • Made sure the lightning cable was properly plugged in and that there is no lint in the socket.
I tried with the iPhone 7 (128GB) first. As soon as I plug in the remote controller the iPhone starts getting warm. While going through the checklist before taking off it was already hot, however it acquired the satellites without any problems, updated the Home Point and was ready to take off. It flew perfectly for 5 min. Then I get a message on the screen saying: "Mobile device CPU fully loaded. Related Performance will be affected". Sure enough the controls start to become sluggish on the screen but the actual drone was following the commands properly. If I pointed the camera down or up there would be a 45 sec lag. Eventually the screen completely froze, and I was unable to control the drone using the DJI FLY. I had to bring it back visually. When I inspected the video, it had filmed everything, but the screen was not displaying it. It stayed frozen until I closed DJI FLY and opened it again. Next, I tried the iPhone 8 (256GB). The phone started heating and behaving the same way as the iPhone 7, however, I did NOT get the screen warning me that "Mobile device CPU fully loaded. Related Performance will be affected". Nevertheless, the phone got very hot (never displayed the thermometer iPhones usually show when they get so hot it shuts down to protect the circuitry). Eventually the screen froze again, just like it did with the iPhone 7. The same tests with the iPhone X and the iPhone 13 Max pro gave me the same results. At this point I was suspecting that maybe something was wrong with the drone, however, I borrowed a Samsung Galaxy s21 Ultra 5GHz and tested. I had no problems with the Samsung Galaxy phone. I found this to be very weird since by default, the remote controller ships with the lighting cable already plugged in, which indicates that DJI expects that the majority of their users will want to plug in an iPhone. Again, a very unknowledgeable technician (those that are reading scripts on a screen) recommended I send back the drone to DJI so their “Engineers” could check it. I decided NOT to return the drone to DJI but rather to Amazon and try again. I was reluctant to send my BRAND NEW drone opened and worked on and then returned to me as a repaired drone.
Amazon sent me a new one. To keep a long story short: SAME PROBLEM. Repeated all the tests meticulously and every test I did came back exactly as they had come back with the 1st drone. I struggled trying to analyze what was going on. The ONLY thing that remained constant was the DJI FLY software As of now I have tried with 2 different Mavic Air 2 (MA2) and 4 different phones (iPhone 7, 8 and X and 13 Pro Max). It has always worked on the Samsung Galaxy.
In summary: As soon as I open DJI FLY the iPhone, it starts getting warm. Eventually I get the screen saying : "Mobile device CPU fully loaded. Related Performance will be affected" or no message. A delay starts happening on the video, however the actual drone turns, goes up, down, etc. but on the phone screen everything is delayed. Finally the screen freezes. I don’t ever lose control of the drone. The remote controller has worked perfectly at all times. As I mentioned before, I’ve always tested with the drone close and in LOS so fortunately I was able to bring it back and land it
This problem happens EVERY TIME I FLY with an iPhone. i CAN'T ENJOY THE FLIGHT.
I've spent countless hours trying to reason with the technicians at DJI. They are clueless. They follow a script on a screen. They don't use any logic or try understanding anything about the drone or the phone. At some point, when nothing else comes up on their screen, they offer you to send it back so their "Engineers" can take a look at the problem. The problem is not the drone, IT'S THE SOFTWARE DJI FLY. Given that hundreds of people are experiencing this same issue in Google, DJI should address this as a “known issue” with the new DJI FLY software version instead of making us waste hours and hours of our time gathering logs and sending the drone in for “their engineers to evaluate”. For some reason that baffles me, DJI won’t admit it. If they stopped looking at their script screens and bothered to analyze the problem, they would realize that there is no need for me to return the drone since it has already been replaced. It’s not the iPhones either since I’ve already tried with 4 different ones. They are perfectly able to reproduce the problem with any drone and iPhone they have in their repair shop. The only variable left is to look at the DJI FLY code for iOS. It's sad to realize that a company with such a good reputation doesn't have a level 2 support. Nothing I’ve tried has worked so far. I'm returning the drone back to Amazon before my 30 days expire. This is the 2nd MA2 drone I return to Amazon.
I've asked to speak to a supervisor, they always say he/she is busy on another call and will call me back withing 24-48 hours. They NEVER CALL BACK. I'm very frustrated. Can anyone offer any advice?
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