Pilot 2 is overall a decent flight app for mapping. As we all know, it falls short in most other catagories. In my quest for making the most out of this intentionally handicapped bird, I try to see what all is out there that might make up for DJI's need to cripple their own product. I haven't found a listing of what all apps are compatible with the M3E online. I'll list the ones I know of and if anyone knows of one I'm missing please comment. I'd love to try it out. Thanks

Working
DroneLink
Drone Deploy
SkyeBrowse
Hammer Missions

Not Working Yet
Litchi

I very much like the mapping aspects of the Pilot 2 app. Namely for the functionality in safety systems that the 3rd party apps do/may inhibit from working properly like obstacle avoidance and anything else they may have either forgotten or simply don’t fully understand.

The real magic is in using WebODM for all the processing. It really lets you customize the processing and doesn’t cost a STUPID rip-off amount of money. I’m retired and have NO interest in making money with my M3T… but these companies offerings for “Enterprise” drones is a total ripoff, even if doing it full-time for a living. If DJI made a normal consumer or whatever lame classification they want to make believe it fits into, I would’ve bought it. But the only thermal option is on an “Enterprise” drone as if ONLY an industry would find any use for it. And the Autel stuff is sorta lame and definitely not as robust.

Adding to that, I find each of the 3rd party offerings lacking in 1 or several areas, as well.

*I’ve got WebODM on a high-end iMac Pro and it processes images for 3D modeling at an approximate rate of 3 hours per 1000 images. It has a few sweet plugins like DroneDB for easy sharing. WebODM also allows you to measure lengths, heights, volumes, etc.  It does everything and then some… just some FYI in case you didn’t know.

DRONE-flies-YOU! Posted at 10-20 22:56
I very much like the mapping aspects of the Pilot 2 app. Namely for the functionality in safety systems that the 3rd party apps do/may inhibit from working properly like obstacle avoidance and anything else they may have either forgotten or simply don’t fully understand.

The real magic is in using WebODM for all the processing. It really lets you customize the processing and doesn’t cost a STUPID rip-off amount of money. I’m retired and have NO interest in making money with my M3T… but these companies offerings for “Enterprise” drones is a total ripoff, even if doing it full-time for a living. If DJI made a normal consumer or whatever lame classification they want to make believe it fits into, I would’ve bought it. But the only thermal option is on an “Enterprise” drone as if ONLY an industry would find any use for it. And the Autel stuff is sorta lame and definitely not as robust.

I would agree that Pilot 2 is the best app for mission planning. At least from what I've tried. My biggest complaint is being restricted to only having it on the RC. DJI could maintain the app, keep it updated for modern versions of Android and have it for download like how it used to be. Pilot 2 has issues running on anything higher than Android 10 partly because the app's API level is only a 29. As of today, Google requires an app to be at minimum a level 33 for new apps to be on the Play Store. This is one of the reasons DJI Fly and others were pulled from the Play Store years ago. DJI is one of the worst at maintaining an application. Only 17% of Android users are using Android 10 and below and these statistics are from 5 months ago so it's even lower now. DJI's newest RC 2 is still being shipped with this fairly dated OS because DJI is the way they are.

DroneLink is in second place, them along with Litchi and others have been able to plan a mission from a phone or PC and I love that feature. Things like obstacle avoidance, onboard way points, tracking and others that are missing are all at the fault of DJI. Developers can only implement what DJI allows in their API. DJI flight apps have more capabilities because they don't have the same limitations as third party devs.  Litchi was cool when I was just starting out but the GUI hasn't changed, maybe ever..? It looks like a kid focused interface and not for any kind of serious Enterprise user. You have to install the Amazon App store junk just to have it. I've had to buy it 3 times now, first on an iPad, then my Android phone and most recently on the RC Plus through Amazon. It reminds me somewhat of a Windows 98 theme here in 2023.

I mainly shoot photo and video with my drones. I started playing with photogrammetry on the side. So when I wanted to upgrade drones I thought the M3E would take care of all 3 things. I couldn't have been more wrong. It does great for the task I use drones for 10% of the time.  The other 90% of my uses are useless. I refuse to buy a second Mavic 3 for photography because that's exactly what DJI wanted people like me to have to do. I'm too stubborn to let DJI win so I do what I can with what I got.  

You can also use UGCS with Pilot 2, though not app as such on the rc pro   There is a litchi beta actually you can use available, though limited functionality vs the legacy app.

Axelz Posted at 10-22 02:04
You can also use UGCS with Pilot 2, though not app as such on the rc pro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_bTn4hvt0U.  There is a litchi beta actually you can use available, though limited functionality vs the legacy app.

Their beta for Litchi Pilot is full and from the description sounds VERY basic. As in waypoints only. Blame majority of this on DJI's newer Mobile SDK V5. It's a whole new animal compared to V4, and not really in a good way. It's very feature stripped and limited in functionality. Much like the M3E itself.

OA does seem to work now with third party apps after the latest SDK update from DJI.  I confirmed it works in Dronelink at least.

Also, came in handy for me this last weekend.  

Appreciate the list @johnnokomis!  I have had SkyeBrowse on the list of things to try for a while now.  Have not heard of Hammer Missions yet.  Going to check them out!

Johnnokomis Posted at 10-23 22:17
Their beta for Litchi Pilot is full and from the description sounds VERY basic. As in waypoints only. Blame majority of this on DJI's newer Mobile SDK V5. It's a whole new animal compared to V4, and not really in a good way. It's very feature stripped and limited in functionality. Much like the M3E itself.

yes it's very basic no way near functionality of the older app for the legacy drones.