I have an iPhone 6S and Nexus 6P that I use for my Mavic. I bought the iPhone specifically for this drone because the 6P wasn't a recommended device and I thought the iOS device would be the safest bet.

With the iPhone I've been out as far as about 1100m and the video transmission showed some significant lag, but was still somewhat usuable.

Today I took it out using my Nexus 6P and went the same distance from the same homepoint. At 1100m, pointing the compass towards the homepoint was so laggy that I couldn't orient it. I lost video reception and had to return to home. (This was scary because this is my first drone I wouldn't consider a toy quadcopter)

My question is... What variables effect transmission as far as electronics/phones go?

I know the environment flown in can affect your signal but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm flying around trees, small hills, houses... pretty much just planet earth. I know on paper this thing say it will fly 7,000M but not many of us have the opportunity to slip into another dimension on a retro Pong flat plane universe just to go fly.

Now that I'm looking at the official specs I see it says, "Max Flight Distance: 8 mi (13 km, 0 wind)"

In the real world I thought I could easily achieve at least 2,000-3,500m with little video lag... but was terribly wrong. I'm thinking if I can wrap my head around how video transmission works, I'll be able to determine what a better device would be to use.

Try enabling hardware decoding in the DJI GO app under General Settings on the iPhone 6S. That might help with the video.

The quality of the video being transmitted is dependent upon several variables, most importantly being the quality of the video you are recording and/or streaming.

If your Hardware Decoding is disabled, do turn it on like PimpDawg recommends as that'll offload video decoding from your CPU to your phone's video processor, which can be much more efficient. I'm not sure this option is available on Android devices.

If you are using HD downlink video, then try switching from HD to Normal in your Image Transmission Settings, which requires less bandwidth on the downlink, and if you're viewing on a phone, anyway, I doubt you could tell any difference.

Lastly, there are some other options in the HD settings that let you examine your signal to see if there's any interference going on, and if there is, adjust your bandwidth/transmission quality settings to help compensate.

Hope this helps.

Fwiw, I run Normal quality downlink video on an iPhone 7 with Hardware Decoding enabled and have noticed zero lag at about a 1100m distance, which is about as far as I've flown to date.

PimpDawg Posted at 2017-2-26 13:41
Try enabling hardware decoding in the DJI GO app under General Settings on the iPhone 6S. That might help with the video.

Thanks for the reply. I think I'll try that out.

Ex Machina Posted at 2017-2-26 18:14
The quality of the video being transmitted is dependent upon several variables, most importantly being the quality of the video you are recording and/or streaming.

If your Hardware Decoding is disabled, do turn it on like PimpDawg recommends as that'll offload video decoding from your CPU to your phone's video processor, which can be much more efficient. I'm not sure this option is available on Android devices.

Shortly after posting I tried again with the Nexus. When I wasn't far from home (probably less that 300m). The entire app froze and, because there is no physical home button, I could only restart the phone and press the physical return to home button on the remote (again... scary) I think I'll stick to the iPhone from here on out.

Thanks for the reply... I'll definitely try out some of the tips you've suggested when I find them in the settings. Hopefully reducing the quality affects the range in some way. I really don't think I'll fly it much further than 1100m in the future but was slightly disappointed because one of my goals was to fly to my brother's house about 1.1 miles away.

If you are using HD downlink video, then try switching from HD to Normal in your Image Transmission Settings, which requires less bandwidth on the downlink, and if you're viewing on a phone, anyway, I doubt you could tell any difference.

For posterity, turns out I'm wrong about Normal Mode (AKA Regular Mode on Android) bandwidth -- it's actually higher bandwidth than HD. However, HD Mode appears to require more CPU and isn't usable in 4K and higher frame rates, so Normal/Regular Mode might still be the better tradeoff.