I have the RC Pro with Mavic 3 Classic.
Part of my pre flight checklist is to put my iphone 8 into airplane mode after ensuring home point is correctly established on the map on the RC pro.
After the flight has ended I like to synchronize the logs and download them to Airdata. However the RC Pro always has a hard time reconnecting to the iphone hotspot.
I turn off iphone airplane mode and ensure hotspot is on. I swipe down on the RC Pro screen, locate wifi settings and it cannot see my iphone. The iphone is in my favourites but it says not connected. I turn wifi on and off in the RC Pro and iPhone and eventually they reconnect but I am not sure what action causes the reconnection.
Is there a way get the RC Pro to more quickly reconnect to my iphone hotspot please?

I have a similar issue, but with the RC for the Mini 4. I need to hop on and off the wifi for unlocking zones in a congested area and I've had issues reconnecting to the wifi. The issue you face is likely that the hotspot network doesn't show when you want to reconnect and turning the wifi on and off doesn't seem to do anything - it feels like a total fluke when it comes up eventually. The good news is that I have a solution which works every time.

Set your hotspot to a relatively simple password which you're able to reenter with ease.

When attempting to reconnect to the hotspot, go to the known networks and delete your iPhone hotspot. When you search for new networks, your iPhone hotspot will show.

The next time you need to connect, you'll have to forget it and then reconnect. Hence the simple password input.

Hope this helps.

Thanks CloudVisual, but that is a pain in the derrière. Your symptoms are the same as mine. It connects fine on startup, I wonder why  it has so much difficulty when reconnecting. The question is, is it an iPhone issue or a Mavic issue, only the Gods in China know?

Ralphhuttonthompson Posted at 2-19 14:27
Thanks CloudVisual, but that is a pain in the derrière. Your symptoms are the same as mine. It connects fine on startup, I wonder why  it has so much difficulty when reconnecting. The question is, is it an iPhone issue or a Mavic issue, only the Gods in China know?

It's likely an iPhone hotspot issue. The iPhone seems to change something minor between uses and some devices fail to recognise it as a known connection. You may see that it'll say "Ralph's iPhone (3)" there's something in the naming which adds a (2), (3), (4) etc etc to the SSID.

Thats exactly what I see under known networks Ralphs iPhone (2). Quite a pain. Thanks for the followup.

I have a DJI RC Pro with a Mavic 3 Pro so this may not apply...

I too connect to my iPhone SE Hotspot when using Drone Deploy and FlightHub, but I do not put my iPhone into 'Airplane' Mode, and haven't had issues with my RC Pro disconnecting from the hotspot.

Putting one's iPhone into 'Airplane' Mode will lower the power consumption on the phone of course, but maybe there is some type of issue caused by disabling the iPhone radio/antenna (Airplane Mode) which affect the hotspot connection.

Or then again, it may be an issues with your phone or RC Pro.

Putting the phone into Airplane mode is just habit from operating drones for a decade now, when disconnects did occasionally occur. On some forums it was suggested that the mobile wifi could interfere with the RC/Drone connection, so I've continued to do this just out of caution. I suppose I could just leave the phone in the carrying case & step 20 or so feet away. Maybe with Occusync it's not considered an issue anymore. Not sure where DJI stand on this today?

Like usual, this one is the fault of Apple. It's called MAC address randomization. It will generate a random MAC address when responding to a probe request, when an RC is scanning for the hotspot to connect to. Once you connect however, the iPhone will use it’s real MAC address as it's identifier. Hotspots like your home Wi-Fi router have a single MAC address that is static. That's why devices recognize it and connect immediately. iPhones hotspots appear different to client devices because they make up a new MAC address all the time.

Thanks John, interesting. I assume thats some sort of security scheme?

Ralphhuttonthompson Posted at 2-19 18:07
Thanks John, interesting. I assume thats some sort of security scheme?

Privacy is the main reason. Every device with wifi enabled is easily trackable because it's constantly blasting out who it is and recent networks it has connected to, hoping that one of those networks answers back. iPhones do the same but with MAC address randomization the phone blast out recent connections but it will appear as a random device saying it. I can see the point of doing this for making a client connection. But for mobile hotspots it doesn't make much sense because of obvious reasons.

Hello, there. We're sorry to hear about this situation. May I confirm if this phenomenon only happens on the hotspot of your device? Does the DJI RC Pro connect normally to a router when in use? Also, please confirm if the firmware of your DJI product is updated. I hope to hear from you.

Johnnokomis Posted at 2-19 16:34
Like usual, this one is the fault of Apple. It's called MAC address randomization. It will generate a random MAC address when responding to a probe request, when an RC is scanning for the hotspot to connect to. Once you connect however, the iPhone will use it’s real MAC address as it's identifier. Hotspots like your home Wi-Fi router have a single MAC address that is static. That's why devices recognize it and connect immediately. iPhones hotspots appear different to client devices because they make up a new MAC address all the time.

Didn't know that was the reason, but makes total sense. Thanks for adding some technical knowledge to what I believed to be the cause!

Ralphhuttonthompson Posted at 2-19 15:33
Putting the phone into Airplane mode is just habit from operating drones for a decade now, when disconnects did occasionally occur. On some forums it was suggested that the mobile wifi could interfere with the RC/Drone connection, so I've continued to do this just out of caution. I suppose I could just leave the phone in the carrying case & step 20 or so feet away. Maybe with Occusync it's not considered an issue anymore. Not sure where DJI stand on this today?

From a professional and logical point of view, I think you need to reassess your preflight checks.

Your checks are outdated and actually put you in slightly more danger.

The Occusync is VERY reliable and if you've got preflight checks, it's likely you're flying to the letter of the law, which means that you'll not be flying far away or beyond VLOS, so signal isn't much of an issue for you.

Secondly, you've put your phone in Airplane mode.. That's your emergency line cut off. If you have an incident or someone needs to contact you urgently, you're either uncontactable or you've got extra steps to get your phone back online.

From a risk evaluation point of view, you've lessened your likelihood of weakening your drone signal at the expense of cutting yourself off from the outside world. If you have a 2 way radio on you, then I can assure you that these are MILES worse than mobile phones for interference.

Gamora, thanks for your response, this seems to be only a problem connecting to my iPhone hotspot, it connects to the home network immediately. All the drone & RC PRO sw/firmware is up to date.

My 2 cents worth - use a 4G/5G dongle, not your phone. Theyre far more reliable, connect much faster than the iPhone hotspot and don't rely on yuour phone's battery.
I have a Netgear 5G Nighthawk that I shove in my pant's pocket or under my landing pad.