I bought the P3 4k shortly before the P4 came out, exclusively to use "Follow Me". It worked ok; it would take a few seconds to respond and the camera wouldn't always move appropriately, but I had some good runs. It usually got to around 33 mph, and I could easily make adjustments to the position in the middle of Following. Switching to "hover" on signal loss and disabling Smart-Return-To-Home solved the major problems I had.

Fast forward to several weeks ago... shortly after a firmware update, I tried it again. At first it worked, but maxed out at 22 mph. Ok, maybe there's a lot of wind? Doesn't really seem like it. Whatever. Then, it randomly flew a few hundred feet away, faced the other direction, and my controls were reversed (push forward on the stick = reverse, pull back = forward). I switched to ATTI and regained control, and flew home. I looked over the logs, not sure exactly what happened but I was getting a lot of signal loss errors (though I was very close to it). Well, maybe I should go with a Pro or a P4 for better signal.

Fast forward again... I was wary of the P4's slower speed in P mode (22 mph-ish), but I saw on the forums you could disable the forward sensors and get it back up to 33 mph, so I finally got it. I tried Follow Me in a field first, and noticed I could no longer control it once Following (aside from very very slowly adjusting the altitude). A pain, but hopefully everything else works. I walked around, it was a little slow to respond as was my P3, but was overall ok. Flying myself in P mode with forward sensors off indeed got to around 33 mph.

I updated the firmware and took it out for a better test on my motorcycle. This time, Follow Me completely maxed out at a whopping 13 mph. It even had a slight tailwind to its advantage. 13 mph? Really? I pulled over a couple times to let it catch up. At least it seemed to know where I was, though the camera no longer swiveled to follow me like the P3 used to.

I gave ActiveTrack a short try- a gimmick that doesn't work great and doesn't work for my purposes. Kinda figured that.

I went back to Follow Me, and as soon as I switched it on, the P4 flew off to follow some mysterious, well, phantom- I watched puzzled for a minute, then switched to ATTI and flew it back. I checked the logs on HealthyDrones and there were no errors.

In the meantime, I've also tried the 3DR Solo's Follow Me. It worked beautifully and flawlessly, immediately responding to my movements. Unfortunately they lied about the "55 mph" max speed, and it maxed out at 25 mph. It's also bigger and harder to transport. My point is, don't blame the Phantoms' problems on my phone's GPS signal or something (plus, my P3 used to work well enough before the P4 came out and we got firmware updates).

My P3 4k and P4 are both bricks now for the purposes that I bought them, and I'm scared to take them out again. Please fix this ASAP or give us an option of returning them. I prefer the Solo's 25 mph and bulkiness to the P4's 13 mph and random fly-aways.

Past posts mentioning some of these issues:
http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... mp;page=1#pid423269 (mine)
http://forum.dji.com/thread-53341-1-1.html
http://forum.dji.com/thread-52688-1-1.html
http://www.phantompilots.com/thr ... llow-me-mode.78953/

Hello drdoubleb, what kind of mobile device do you use for flying the FM mode since the FM mode is related to the mobile devices' GPS signal quality.

Thanks for responding. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5. As I mentioned, I've never had any problems with my 3DR Solo (which I just used today), and I didn't have problems in the past with my P3 until the firmware update. Could be a coincidence but unlikely. I'll try to reproduce the fly-away problem in a safe environment.

Don't forget the other 2 problems of the P4 having a max Follow speed of 13 mph and not letting you change the position while Following...

I attempted to replicate the fly-away problem in a field, but it didn't happen... seems to only occur at the worst possible moment. I wonder if it is a GPS error that should be recognized as a weak signal? Sometimes the P4 and Solo will both say they are waiting for a stronger GPS signal, but maybe the Phantoms sometimes fall for a bad location. Not really sure.

Can we at least get the max Follow speed increased from 13 mph? How about a really nice Follow speed of 45 mph like in Sport mode? If this isn't going to get increased then I really do want to return my Phantom...

drdoubleb Posted at 2016-6-22 11:16
I attempted to replicate the fly-away problem in a field, but it didn't happen... seems to only occu ...

As DJI-Paladin said, the quality of the GPS signal is important. You might try getting a Garmin portable device and tethering it to the Samsung, as the Garmin is a far better GPS receiver than any phone is. And why not try back-dating the firmware on the P3 to see if you can get the original performance back.

Well, the GPS on my phone generally works great, except for the Phantom fly-aways. I went for another run with the Solo that may shed some light on it. After following me about 5 seconds, it stopped and said "waiting for GPS signal" for about 10 seconds and I stopped for it to catch up. I assume my phone didn't have a good lock or lost it for a second. After that, it performed beautifully for 10 minutes straight.

My guess would be that this is when my Phantom would've flown away; maybe my phone loses its GPS and approximates the position by Wifi or cell signal or something, and the Phantom flies off to this position. The Solo seems to be smarter and waits for a good signal. Though the P3 problem I had seemed even weirder.

Back-dating the firmware is a good idea for the P3... never had the fly-away problem before updating, but could be coincidence. Would at least get the speed back.

drdoubleb Posted at 2016-6-22 13:01
Well, the GPS on my phone generally works great, except for the Phantom fly-aways. I went for anothe ...

As a GPS receiver, you phone makes a good phone. And the Solo was telling you just that. Nothing beats a proper GPS receiver, the dumbed-down junk they put in cellphones is not meant for the precision task of guiding the drone.

As I said earlier, try a proper Garmin device. You can tether it to your phone and it will provide good GPS reception and faster positional updates. But don't go out and buy one, see if you can borrow or hire one to try it out.