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Does the Folow-Me (GPS) works ok?
2011 11 2018-1-17
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Adriano Araujo
First Officer
Flight distance : 731565 ft
Brazil
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Fellows,
  
  
I am a Spark owner, and the feature I most wish to come to the little drone is GPS Follow Me.
  
  
Active track works Ok, but the farthest the drone is from me, the more likely it will lose me – about 30/100ft is the limit. Farther than this active track is useless.
  
  
And… here would be great to have Follow Me.
  
  
So I ask you guys: Does it works ok? Is it trustable?
  
  
I saw some videos on youtube with mixed results. Some works great, some don´t.
  
  
One thing I´ve noticed was a kind of (what I call) pulse effect. The footage is not dead smooth. Is like the drone go-stop-go-stop-go-stop.... Annoying.
  
So, afterall, you who uses it. Would it worth change the spark (and buy a Mavic) for that specific feature?

Adriano.

2018-1-17
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A CW
Captain
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United Kingdom
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Yep, the 'follow me' intelligent flight mode is very different to Active Track and is not available to select on the Spark.
I have used follow me on the Mavic and Phantoms. The advantage of it is that it creates a tether to the GPS module in the device and is therefore not reliant on lighting conditions and what the subject is wearing being distinguishable to the environment etc. - unlike Active Track which is.
The disadvantages are that it obviously follows the device you are using and not a subject via it's camera sensor - it should really be called 'follow my device' rather than 'me'. So you have to carry your device with you to be followed which makes footage look unnatural when your subject has an RC in their hand.
Your device also needs a GPS module built into it for follow me to work so WiFi only devices are not compatible with follow me. Anything that breaks the tether between the drone and device will also render follow me useless and it will stop following such as if you walk into a woodland with tree tops between you and the drone.
The movements of the drone are also more erratic and less controlled than Active Track. I only use it for the drone to follow over head when walking to a different flight location during flight.
Follow me was introduced with the Phantom 3 series in 2015 and Active Track upgraded it in the original Phantom 4 in early 2016 so it is regarded as an older version of Active Track.
No, I definitely would not trade in my Spark for a Mavic solely based on that flight mode option but I would for many other reasons...
2018-1-17
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Woe
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Totally agree
2018-1-17
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Jos A
Captain
Flight distance : 73209 ft
Netherlands
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follow me works only on spark with a hacked app (mavic flightmodes inc  waypoints , followme.terrain follow etc)
2018-1-17
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A CW
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Jos A Posted at 2018-1-17 11:26
follow me works only on spark with a hacked app (mavic flightmodes inc  waypoints , followme.terrain follow etc)

Is it on Litchi for the Spark do you know?
2018-1-17
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Adriano Araujo
First Officer
Flight distance : 731565 ft
Brazil
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A CW Posted at 2018-1-17 11:31
Is it on Litchi for the Spark do you know?

This function on Litchi only works on Android (and i have iOS) :-/
2018-1-17
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A CW
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Adriano Araujo Posted at 2018-1-17 11:46
This function on Litchi only works on Android (and i have iOS) :-/

Same here and don't recall it being there on my iPhone 7+ before I sold my Spark. Thanks for letting me know. So ther than hacking apps it looks like you'll need a Mavic.
2018-1-17
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Jos A
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Flight distance : 73209 ft
Netherlands
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If you use LItchi you do'nt have the mavic flightmodes, i mean deejayeye-modder 4.1.15 modded app, you have to make it by yourself if you want to use it and @ your own risk. (look on youtube or google)
2018-1-17
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A CW
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Thanks Jos. I’ll pass on using a hacked app but I’m sure others will be interested. I use DJI GO 4 with my MPP and that has all the flight modes I need - inc Follow Me. I only used litchi on my cheaper drones but have since deleted the app after selling them (P3P and Spark).
2018-1-17
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StanfordWebbie
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Flight distance : 178018 ft
United States
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And one other thing to keep in mind for both modes:  The quad will take short cuts if you happen to do a turn while it's tracking you.  I saw someone doing it while riding in a speedboat.  The boat rounded a sharp  curve in the shoreline, and the drone tried to cut over at an angle to again get behind the boat.  The only problem was the tall tree at the shoreline  . . .
2018-1-17
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DJI Thor
Administrator
Flight distance : 13602 ft
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Basically, the best distance for the drone and the tracking subject is 5-15 meters (16 to 49 ft), if the drone loss to recognize the target, the active track may not work. And for Follow Me, its performance is subject to the GPS accuracy of the mobile device, if you are in a place with good GPS signal both on your mobile device and the drone, you can activate the FM mode.
2018-1-17
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Jos A
Captain
Flight distance : 73209 ft
Netherlands
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Also very important to set your device in gps only
2018-1-18
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