Has anyone else had there spark initiate return to home whilst flying purely in gesture mode without the controller or phone connected.
I had my spark following me while recording video when it froze and then shot up about 8m for a few seconds then went up to 20m and flew across the field back to its home point. Before descending and hovering about 1' above the grass. Luckily this was only a few metres away but I thought it would just land if there were any issues. It scared the crap out of me because when it shot up and rotated I instantly thought it was going to fly away never to be seen again. I pulled the controller out and powered it on in the hope it would connect to the spark and give me a chance to take over but it wouldnt connect. Strange behaviour indeed. I have since changed the max distance to 50m and RTH altitude to 50m and turned on RTH at current altitude in the hope this will keep it close by if anything goes wrong again.

Do you have a flight log, this is interesting would like to see this.

Could you refer the tutorial video and send us the flight log for analysis?

Want to know this as well, following

it happened to me too. I was playing with my spark. I turned it on to follow me with gestures, without any RC or iPhone. When the batteries went low, I saw it fly high (about 20m) and it returned to the start point. I run behind it (why??)!!! And it started to land in the middle of a road (near the start point). Fortunately in that moment, there wasn't any car. But... why RTH when I use it with gestures... and following me??? It must land near me!!!

This just happend to me too.  I was using gesture control while having the Spark track me.  I had waved it up higher and could not get it down.  I could see the battery life starting to wane, so I figured I would wait for it to decend.  All of a sudden like a bat out of hell it took off into the sky. I immediately started to panic for I did not have the remote out and connected.  I wasn't sure if someone hacked into my drone and took control or where it was going.  I was also concerned that it might drop out of the sky being the battery was nearly toast.  

reveldevil Posted at 2017-8-26 18:24
This just happend to me too.  I was using gesture control while having the Spark track me.  I had waved it up higher and could not get it down.  I could see the battery life starting to wane, so I figured I would wait for it to decend.  All of a sudden like a bat out of hell it took off into the sky. I immediately started to panic for I did not have the remote out and connected.  I wasn't sure if someone hacked into my drone and took control or where it was going.  I was also concerned that it might drop out of the sky being the battery was nearly toast.

I immediately ran into my house and grabbed the remote.  By the time I got out, the drone was decending.  I was super lucky because it just missed a tree on its decent and clipped a small branch.  It finally came down far enough that I could grab it and do the emergency shut-off.

After reading this, perhaps this was a bug?  I just updated the firmware (after the fact) so I hope this never repeats again.  With that said, how easy is if for someone to hack into a drone with their own remote control when in gesture mode?  It seems possible for I can start the drone in gesture mode and then take control of it with my own controller right after it.

Thank you for your time and help.

reveldevil Posted at 2017-8-26 18:30
I immediately ran into my house and grabbed the remote.  By the time I got out, the drone was decending.  I was super lucky because it just missed a tree on its decent and clipped a small branch.  It finally came down far enough that I could grab it and do the emergency shut-off.

After reading this, perhaps this was a bug?  I just updated the firmware (after the fact) so I hope this never repeats again.  With that said, how easy is if for someone to hack into a drone with their own remote control when in gesture mode?  It seems possible for I can start the drone in gesture mode and then take control of it with my own controller right after it.

How likely do you think it is that someone was standing around with a remote waiting for you to launch?

Madwand Posted at 2017-8-26 19:50
How likely do you think it is that someone was standing around with a remote waiting for you to launch?

Not likely, but I live in the heart of the Silicon Valley. I'm new to drones, so I have never experienced this type of behavior.  I can't rule out that one of my neighbors heard me playing around with drone and thought they would have some fun.  Perhaps they too have a DJI Spark or some other means to hack into a remote-less device.

With that said, I have read several other cases on this board that seem to have similar experiences.  So I'll take it as a bug in the software.