Hi.

I have an Inspire 2, Mavic Pro and now recently also a Spark.
The flight log / records is a really nice feature, both in terms of post analytics of flight behaviour, stick movement and flight warnings as well as being motivational to see how many hours, meters, locations and flight level I have reached.

The only problem I have, is that several of my flights now and for the next months with the Spark, will be winter time using palm launch, advanced gestures and activetrack mode. That means «offline» flying.

How can post flights be updated to the Flight Records? (Goes for all drones by the way).

Thank you in advance and a happy New Year

Best regards,
Olav Aleksander

Active track without a phone/device?
Afaik you can have always a phone connected.
Which I would have, anyway.
Even in your pocket, if flown by gestures, ect. the distance wont hopefully disconnect the device.

S-e-ven Posted at 2017-12-31 06:41
Active track without a phone/device?
Afaik you can have always a phone connected.
Which I would have, anyway.

Yes, on the Spark, one of the advanced gestures is ActiveTrack with sub function such as Trace and Profile. A phone, when out winter time, normally stops working within minutes because of low temperature, but seemingly the Spark is little affected.

A function I would like, if not available, is offline syncing of the flight log. Is this possible?

OAB Posted at 2017-12-31 07:06
Yes, on the Spark, one of the advanced gestures is ActiveTrack with sub function such as Trace and Profile. A phone, when out winter time, normally stops working within minutes because of low temperature, but seemingly the Spark is little affected.

A function I would like, if not available, is offline syncing of the flight log. Is this possible?

-A phone, when out winter time, normally stops working within minutes because of low temperature, -

You dont have pockets inside your jacket, perhaps?

S-e-ven Posted at 2017-12-31 10:23
-A phone, when out winter time, normally stops working within minutes because of low temperature, -

You dont have pockets inside your jacket, perhaps?

Thank you for the response S-e-ven. I am aware of the limitations of various battery technologies and environmental temperature. Also, phones, especially iPhones seems to shut down very quickly.

I agree that launching the drone with the phone, then enter gesture mode and keep the phone in a pocket can be a solution, but suboptimale. Sometimes, the app crashes as well, and if it disconnects or goes to sleep, the flight is not logged. So the phone must then be on with sleep / screen saver turned off, burning excessive battery to no avail.

The original question remains thus: is it possible to do post flight syncing to update the flight records?

OAB Posted at 2017-12-31 10:54
Thank you for the response S-e-ven. I am aware of the limitations of various battery technologies and environmental temperature. Also, phones, especially iPhones seems to shut down very quickly.

I agree that launching the drone with the phone, then enter gesture mode and keep the phone in a pocket can be a solution, but suboptimale. Sometimes, the app crashes as well, and if it disconnects or goes to sleep, the flight is not logged. So the phone must then be on with sleep / screen saver turned off, burning excessive battery to no avail.

Just a short heads-up on this one:
talked to a very nice guy at DJI support today, and it was concluded that it is not possible to update the flight records after a flight has been executed unless the aircraft has been connected to DJI GO4 app all the time.

So for the Spark, flying in gesture mode, the flight log will become incomplete. If the app or phone crashes, it the flight records will be incomplete.

However, this is a feature that should not be to hard to implement, as it has already been done by other brands in the sports industry, such as Garmin with their new heart rate belts with built-in memory and Stryd Running Power meter.

So the DJI support guy said he would pass on the idea to the development team. Hopefully we'll see this feature in a not too distant future. I guess a feature like this would be useful for all parties, in an event where the flight records / log is important, especially for the DJI Spark and to understand scenarios such as "fly aways" etc., if the drone is recovered afterwards. Then it can be connected to the DJI GO4 app, and "offline" flight records synced post flight to better learn and understand.

OAB Posted at 2018-1-2 14:12
Just a short heads-up on this one:
talked to a very nice guy at DJI support today, and it was concluded that it is not possible to update the flight records after a flight has been executed unless the aircraft has been connected to DJI GO4 app all the time.

Today I took my Sparx out to explore gesture mode without rc  or phone. I could not get the flight log to sync with the app, but I could sync pictures from the sd card. Good to know that having my phone in my pocket would have solved the problem - if I have remembered to link it with Sparx.

My Sparx is only a month old and the firmware is recently updated (.1000), so I guess they haven't included log sync in the latest firmware version - maybe next time?

OAB Posted at 2018-1-2 14:12
Just a short heads-up on this one:
talked to a very nice guy at DJI support today, and it was concluded that it is not possible to update the flight records after a flight has been executed unless the aircraft has been connected to DJI GO4 app all the time.

Today I took my Sparx out to explore gesture mode without rc  or phone. I could not get the flight log to sync with the app, but I could sync pictures from the sd card. Good to know that having my phone in my pocket would have solved the problem - if I have remembered to link it with Sparx.

My Sparx is only a month old and the firmware is recently updated (.1000), so I guess they haven't included log sync in the latest firmware version - maybe next time?