I'm a P3S owner, and I have 2 main problems with it (which I knew going in):
1. Travel Ease - I have a bag for it, but it's still cumbersome on long trips (I'm going from EC USA to Fiji in January)
2. Lack of Follow Me Mode

I'm thinking about the Spark for ease of use, and I would like to have it to do some quick Follow Me using ActiveTrack when I'm surfing. Here's my plan, let me know if this is feasible:

1. Launch Spark and setup RTH to a spot on the beach, ActiveTrack on me, leave phone on the beach (I surf early in the morning with usually not a lot of people around, in this case, I'll make sure no one is around).
2. Confirm it's tracking and paddle out (roughly 200')
3. Catch a few waves
4. Let if film until it reaches Low Battery RTH.
5. Will it return home and land on it's own?

I'll put down a landing pad for it as well.

Thoughts?

My guess is no it won't.The spark now updates its home point to the sparks position every 15 seconds or so.
I think you will end up with a wet spark.!!

N8m888 Posted at 2017-11-9 07:44
My guess is no it won't.The spark now updates its home point to the sparks position every 15 seconds or so.
I think you will end up with a wet spark.!!

I saw that Dynamic Home has been added which in some cases would be nice, but couldn't I set it to a locked GPS location?

You need the fly more combo and the RC
Otherwise the range will be to short
And as far as I understood, you would not have to worry about dynamic updating the homepoint, as long you don't WANT IT to update every 15m.

Or short: I think, if you leave the phone with a connected RC, you should be fine.
If you find a watchdog, who doesn't mess with your tracking idea but can secure phone and RC and, in case of failure, try to fly the Spark back, that would be a plan, in my eyes

It will work if you have RC.

In this case, the “virtual box” active track will work is 400 meters

With phone, the range is just 100 meters.

Adriano Araujo Posted at 2017-11-9 08:23
It will work if you have RC.

In this case, the “virtual box” active track will work is 400 meters

I frankly think I will stay within 100m, it's really not that far in terms of a paddle. I'll test it out with my P3S.

Hi! I have tried self-tracking during SUP session on river with my phone as a controller so I could always have full control over my drone. Start of tracking on the beach went fine but as soon as I jumped on board Spark had problems to continue recognising me as previously chosen object.  It seems that as you change your "shape" from human to human+board Spark recognition software  gets confused. But when I started tracking when I was on board it went just fine. So... I would guess that your plan will be successful if you put your phone in a water-bag and start tracking from water. Just start it on the beach, save home point, rise it about 10 meters up in the air, wait 10 seconds to record precision landing point, go into ocean and start your mission

Super curious how this goes

fans689cea49 Posted at 2017-11-9 07:59
I saw that Dynamic Home has been added which in some cases would be nice, but couldn't I set it to a locked GPS location?

Dynamic home point is an option that can be turned off.

KrzysiekM Posted at 2017-11-9 09:52
Hi! I have tried self-tracking during SUP session on river with my phone as a controller so I could always have full control over my drone. Start of tracking on the beach went fine but as soon as I jumped on board Spark had problems to continue recognising me as previously chosen object.  It seems that as you change your "shape" from human to human+board Spark recognition software  gets confused. But when I started tracking when I was on board it went just fine. So... I would guess that your plan will be successful if you put your phone in a water-bag and start tracking from water. Just start it on the beach, save home point, rise it about 10 meters up in the air, wait 10 seconds to record precision landing point, go into ocean and start your mission

Yeah, that's the tricky part, I'd rather not take the phone with me. I'll be in waves and I'm on a pretty tiny paddleboard (7'4" - barely floats me), not a big one that is easy to stand on.

From my experience active tracking while road cycling it’s not that great.... If the Spark gets quite close and you change direction it will lose you off screen and never find you. Then it will likely just hover where it is and you’ll have to go back to the beach. If the sun is low this will cause issues in tracking too.

It might work but my guess is you’ll get a 30% success rate. So if you are happy for lots of trial and error go for it and good luck!

The Airdog is designed for your use case but more expensive and only really better on the tracking front. Spark wins on all other fronts.

Loobola 0 Posted at 2017-11-9 13:23
From my experience active tracking while road cycling it’s not that great.... If the Spark gets quite close and you change direction it will lose you off screen and never find you. Then it will likely just hover where it is and you’ll have to go back to the beach. If the sun is low this will cause issues in tracking too.

It might work but my guess is you’ll get a 30% success rate. So if you are happy for lots of trial and error go for it and good luck!

Yeah, I've seen the Airdog, I can't commit that much to it. I got the P3S, thinking I'd trade off with someone every once in awhile kiteboarding or surfing, but it would be really cool to run out at sunset and get a quick video of a few noserides.

I was thinking I could bring my portable USB battery pack out and charge it as well.

The other bonus beyond the tracking is it's size when I'm travelling, I just went to Exuma - Bahamas and couldn't take my P3S because customs won't allow it, but people had no trouble sneaking a Mavic in.