Waxwings
 lvl.2
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I have only been a pilot for a short time, probably 3 months to be exact. I purchased a Phantom 3 advanced and like all the pilots I came across were excited by the prospect of flying and the movies and pictures we could now take from far above. When I bought my Phantom there was already firmware preloaded in the quad and I purchased a Ipad mini 2 to complement my drone. I remember my first flight vividly, and although I was fearful of all the things I needed to know and keep track of while flying.. within minutes I had a feeling of confidence and control. My first flight was successful and all operations of the drone worked exactly like they were supposed to, I tested the beginner mode, the return to home function, the parameters I set for the flights and each worked exactly as described. Confidence seemed to be a built in function of the machine, and I could not be happier. That all changed in the blink of an eye..I awoke one day to a message that my firmware was outdated and needed to be upgraded on both the aircraft and the transmitter and then again on the DJI go app. I did not hesitate for even one moment and updated each in turn only to find issues where the Go app showed that these downloads did not register, there was no information as to what the firmware upgraded to in the about screen in the app and I could not start the motors although I was getting a video link and a constant notification that I had poor connection and that the aircraft was not safe to fly . I immediately went to our blog only to find many other owners with the same issues. It took me two days to finally find the magic combination to get it all to finally sync and work in harmony. I was elated at this point wondering what advancements were made and how they would improve a experience that I felt was already amazing. I must say at this point that this was not to be, but was rather a backslide, although I was able to achieve flight the video signal and the range of the quad were dramatically reduced. I fly the same path each time from my back yard and the 2500 feet I was able to fly previously was decreased to 1500 and all the while losing video signal. Nothing had changed, except the firmware. Again I went back to the blog finding so many reports of the same issues, and then found out that since I had a advanced quad was not able to downgrade my firmware but was now relegated to keep the firmware that was causing the issues. I read report after report of pilots with drones that lost signal in mid flight and crashed, drones that flew away with no warning, drones diving into water, drones that refused to return to home and a host of other issues. I searched all the blogs and found a pilot that had successfully regressed his advanced phantom using some kind of back door method that DJI said could not be done and I was able to regress back one step however this was not the original firmware I had when I started and was still buggy and did not really improve my unreliable video or my distance issues. I have been told that it is impossible to regress back to my original firmware. I watched as report after report came through asking for help from DJI only to be told that this must be a hardware issue and that the drone should be sent to DJI for diagnosis which when you stand back and look at the situation is ludicrous since many reported that the issues started a few minutes after the upgrade. It dose not take a rocket scientist to figure out the correlation but DJI continued to use the same play with each of their customers. I am dismayed with DJI's handling of this issue, about their lack of transparency, their unwillingness to take responsibility for the issues as well as their unwillingness to allow their customers to downgrade to any firmware that the customer feels is in their best interest to download. I have lost much of my confidence in this company as a result of their handling of this situation as well as the confidence I had enjoyed in flying my drone. I had hopes to grow with this company, to upgrade to better and more expensive drones as my experience and expertise increased however I now feel that DJI has not lived up to the expectations of a world class company. The recipe for success is a simple matter...be transparent in your dealings...take responsibility when something is not right...allow a regression to firmware that has been tried and tested...make any harm that has been experienced by faulty firmware whole....that's how you not only keep your customers but prevent them from ever wanting to go anywhere else. |
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lvl.4
