Folks....

New Spark owner and new to drones, my Spark is less than 1 month old.  I've finally gotten my rig to work pretty well almost all the time.  Now that it does, wow!  What a fun hobby when you are not fighting the system!

One thing I might be misunderstanding.  Seems like I hear folks talking about using an OTG cable vs. wifi to the controller, and how that impacts range.

Now, I understand that OTG is not officially supported yet, so I get that, and even though I bought one, I no longer use it because I have a great connection using wifi from my phone to my controller.

But my question is, it seems that I hear folks talking about how they can get much better range when they use the OTG cable vs wifi.  My understanding is that communication between the Spark and Remote Controller all happens there, and I'm not sure why the communication between the Remote Controller (wifi or OTG) would impact communications between the Spark and Remote.

Thoughts?

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

I have used OTG once, it had no real benefit for me, I thought it might help with better video transmission but it all looks the same to me, your talking about private WiFi from RC to Phone it should work well and it does for me.
You certainly won’t get any extra distance and if some tell you you will they are delusional, if dji bring forth firmware for using OTG it will be to improve video transmission not distance. Your AC is working well without it if your looking for extra distance OTG won’t give you that, if video transmission is ok no need to use otg .

In my opinion you are absolutely right. There is no logical reason why the OTG cable should/could increase the range of the Spark. It can only improve the communication between your mobile device and the RC.  Before the recent updates there was one big advantage for European users who have to operate in the much weaker CE transmission standard. There the use of OTG allowed for easy switching to the longer range 2,4 Ghz band instead of having to use the formerly default 5,8 Ghz band. But with the latest App and Firmware updates this is now also easy without OTG cable.

I think the theory is that turning off the wifi for you phone is one less source of interference on the 2.4ghz band.  Helpful if the intermediate circuits of the RC aren't well shielded.  At max range attempts, the cleaner the spectrum, the better.

OTG helps if your phones cheap wifi transmitter is not as selective as it should be and is blasting the side bands more than it should

I just use the wifi connection and have never used the OTG cable I bought.  I don't need longer range.

Agreed with Gunship9..  Three benefits to OTG cable:

1) The less interference the better at longer ranges
2) If you are connected over OTG, you can shut off your Wi-Fi (save phone/tablet battery) or use it for something else, like connecting to home or public Wi-Fi for Internet connection
3) You just plug in and go. No fiddling in menus for Wi-Fi.

OTG won't help on range.
The only thing it will do is make the connection from the controller to the phone more stable.

I think there is no need to use 2 wifi, if the distance for one of it is only 10cm and you have a cable at hand.
Also it saves Battery, on the Phone and on the controller.
Ok, on the controller is not really true, b/c it is "charging slow" the phone.
As long it works fine, I will continue to use it!

I've also seen no benefit from OTG in the field with several tests.  At this point I don't bother with it anymore.  I think some users prefer it as a crutch, or training wheels placebo.  

RaspPiGuy Posted at 2017-11-1 07:32
Agreed with Gunship9..  Three benefits to OTG cable:

1) The less interference the better at longer ranges

And this is exactly why I prefer to fly with OTG connection. But the issue here was the range question. And those videos boasting with range records becoming possible because of the use of OTG cable are not serious in my opinion.

RaspPiGuy Posted at 2017-11-1 07:32
Agreed with Gunship9..  Three benefits to OTG cable:

1) The less interference the better at longer ranges

Thank you all.....

RaspPIGuy, what you are saying makes the most sense, and could possibly impact the range from the remote to the Spark simply by cutting down interference.  So there may be *some* science behind these claims.

Saving the battery on the phone by turning off wifi and putting on airplane mode (also reduce interference) would be great, as I know using my Samsung Edge 6+ with DJI Go 4 drains my battery pretty darn quick.

Thanks for all the discussion folks, this has been helpful and insightful.

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

Todd in Chicago Posted at 2017-11-1 08:08
Thank you all.....

RaspPIGuy, what you are saying makes the most sense, and could possibly impact the range from the remote to the Spark simply by cutting down interference.  So there may be *some* science behind these claims.

I flew 3 batts, today, 10% battery used.
And, as I wrote, the RC is "usb charging slowly" the phone ;-)

I was curious about this (and was craving some Spark action on a rainy day), so I did some testing in my dining room   One thing I definitely noticed was lag. The video transmission when the phone was connected to the RC over Wi-Fi was about 500ms-1s lagged from reality. When I connected using OTG, the lag was definitely under 500ms, probably around 200ms. So there's that too!  Cheers!

Thank you for bringing us the attention. Since OTG connecting has not been fully tested yet, we don't have this kind of information at the moment. Appreciate your kind understanding.

RaspPiGuy Posted at 2017-11-1 07:32
Agreed with Gunship9..  Three benefits to OTG cable:

1) The less interference the better at longer ranges

If only I could get it work for me I would be glad as I get lot of interefence sometimes when flying even in close range, and I think that would help to let me go a bit further...not that it will extend the range when flying in CEE but helping get the full range of it.

RaspPiGuy Posted at 2017-11-1 07:32
Agreed with Gunship9..  Three benefits to OTG cable:

1) The less interference the better at longer ranges

Agreed this is the main advantage of OTG , its also the only way to connect my DJI googles to the Spark so I know it works well despite DJI saying its untested?

the downside to OTG is you are drain the RC remote battery with you OTG device ;)

m1n1s Posted at 2017-11-5 01:00
Agreed this is the main advantage of OTG , its also the only way to connect my DJI googles to the Spark so I know it works well despite DJI saying its untested?

the downside to OTG is you are drain the RC remote battery with you OTG device ;)

OTG actually does not drain the RC battery although your mobile device might indicate that it is charging.

Wachtberger Posted at 2017-11-5 01:14
OTG actually does not drain the RC battery although your mobile device might indicate that it is charging.

i stand corrected although the icon does show charging........

Wachtberger Posted at 2017-11-5 01:14
OTG actually does not drain the RC battery although your mobile device might indicate that it is charging.

Are you sure about that?

Charged with RC on @100% RC-battf

discharge as soon RC is of

Probably when Phone is on 100%, or RC is on 50 or below, it may look different!
Anyway, it is not much.

S-e-ven Posted at 2017-11-5 02:51
Are you sure about that?

Charged with RC on @100% RC-batt, discharge as soon RC is off

I am flying with OTG since day one and never could notice the RC battery suffering from this although my tablet display indicated that it was charging. That's all I can say. Should there be any electricity flow at all, it must be really little. Maybe someone here has the equipment to measure it.