I just tried my new Mavic Air in the neighborhood and the video got extremely choppy after flying only about 300 feet.
Is that normal? I can fly my Mavic Pro easily almost a mile away when interference starts. The Mavic Air is complaining about interference when I am in the air, about 100ft high and 100 ft away.

Wifi signal is set to Auto.

Anybody having the same experience and/or a resolution?

Thanks

Joe

Hi Joe, the Mavic Air and Pro use different technologies, therefore, the sensitive of interference are different. Please change another open location without interference to see whether it helps.

DJI Susan Posted at 2018-2-2 20:25
Hi Joe, the Mavic Air and Pro use different technologies, therefore, the sensitive of interference are different. Please change another open location without interference to see whether it helps.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried this today and here are the results:
1.Automatic frequency range - 2.8 GHz
The video remains to start being choppy at 200-300m @ 30 altitude. I was standing in open space.
At 350m I lost signal and the Mavic Air did RTH

2. I changed frequency to channel 165 (5.8 GHz( and the video was slightly more stable. But the range did not significantly improve.

So maximum distance was about 365 m. Then I had to return back.

This does not sound right to me and is far below spec.
Please advise

As shown here:

MA does perform as specified. Please note specification DOES state interference free and unobstructed.

(Sub)urban areas are electromagnetically highly polluted areas... and thus in order to fly in these, birds with less interference-prone technologies are required.
But these are a bit too big currently for populated areas so.... endless circle.
I, for one, am also waiting for nice urban bird from DJI (like sub 250g with ocusync or something even better).

eYeSkYeYe Posted at 2018-2-3 16:04
As shown here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LYFa8NzLsc
MA does perform as specified. Please note specification DOES state interference free and unobstructed.

I agree that this video demonstrates some pretty good range... over nothing, just water. Which is certainly ideal range.

I understand that the suburbs are polluted on 2.4 and 5.8GHz and the range is not that far, but less than 200m without the video getting laggy or choppy does not sound too good, especially when comparing with Ocusync.

So I am still wondering whether there is a HW issue or a setting problem that I can address or whether the 200m is the end of the line for the MA in this environment

As far as I know, there are still no range/interference tests done in urban areas.

JoeColorado Posted at 2018-2-3 15:53
Thanks for the suggestion. I tried this today and here are the results:
1.Automatic frequency range - 2.8 GHz
The video remains to start being choppy at 200-300m @ 30 altitude. I was standing in open space.

Just to verify, have you unfolded the front landing gears? Please refer the below picture and confirm.

DJI Susan Posted at 2018-2-8 00:40
Just to verify, have you unfolded the front landing gears? Please refer the below picture and confirm.

Yes, ofcause :-)

i went out yesterday and got the same results.  30m up, 300m out and signal was very bad.  i was not near anything that could cause interference.  it was also too cold to spend time trying a bunch of stuff so I am waiting till i can try again and then i will make my judgement lol

AIister Posted at 2018-2-8 08:47
i went out yesterday and got the same results.  30m up, 300m out and signal was very bad.  i was not near anything that could cause interference.  it was also too cold to spend time trying a bunch of stuff so I am waiting till i can try again and then i will make my judgement lol

I would like to understand if there is a bad batch or wggat is going on

I wrote something about this kind of wifi dropouts (that cause the video choppiness) with the spark. But since the mavic ait is pretty similar it also applies to it. There is also a section on the range limitation: https://grumpylittleengineer.blogspot.de/2018/01/dji-spark-wi-fi-dropouts-speculating-on.html?m=1

Are you on 2.4ghz?  I noticed the latest update indicated an improvement to transmission quality on the 2.4Ghz channel.   Hopefully you'll see that after updating the firmware.

Berg I Imagery Posted at 2018-2-10 07:22
Are you on 2.4ghz?  I noticed the latest update indicated an improvement to transmission quality on the 2.4Ghz channel.   Hopefully you'll see that after updating the firmware.

I tried both 2.4 and 5.8 with little improvement on 5.8

JoeColorado Posted at 2018-2-10 08:38
I tried both 2.4 and 5.8 with little improvement on 5.8

Sorry for the late response due to the holiday. Could you connect with DJI Assistant 2 and export all flight data for analysis? We'll forward to our engineers for analysis. Thanks so much!

DJI Susan Posted at 2018-2-23 04:06
Sorry for the late response due to the holiday. Could you connect with DJI Assistant 2 and export all flight data for analysis? We'll forward to our engineers for analysis. Thanks so much!

Apparently the remote controller was defect (antennas). I sent it in and the controller was exchanged. I will see whether this will resolve the problem

JoeColorado Posted at 2018-2-23 15:02
Apparently the remote controller was defect (antennas). I sent it in and the controller was exchanged. I will see whether this will resolve the problem

Thanks for keeping us posted. If there are any further questions, please contact us anytime.

Is your mobile device Bluetooth on?
Any Bluetooth devices nearby.
Bluetooth uses 2.4ghz and as such will cause interference with 2.4ghz  WiFi.

Viridis Posted at 2018-2-28 04:10
Is your mobile device Bluetooth on?
Any Bluetooth devices nearby.
Bluetooth uses 2.4ghz and as such will cause interference with 2.4ghz  WiFi.

I tested that as well and put my Gear S2 as well as my S8 in airplane mode...no improvement

JoeColorado Posted at 2018-2-23 15:02
Apparently the remote controller was defect (antennas). I sent it in and the controller was exchanged. I will see whether this will resolve the problem

Did you receive your new remote and test it out yet?

I'm curious as I have a similar issue with my MA

New remote. I will try over the weekend when back from business travel

My Mavic Air was sent to DJI repair and they found nothing wrong, now they say might have to send in controller which is what I told them in the beginning. Extremely frustrated with DJI.

Any improvement. Im on my second Air with same results as you

Yes, improvement, but certainly not the level of lightbridge. I got 500m in a densely polluted area. I tried both 2.4 and 5.8 Ghz

eYeSkYeYe Posted at 2018-2-4 00:12
As far as I know, there are still no range/interference tests done in urban areas.

There is :
https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... D534%26typeid%3D534

I had the same issue initially, too. I was worried that something was wrong with the Mavic Air, because the video I recorded on my SD card and then watched on my Mac was very choppy. Then I tried a newer and presumably better Mac at home. Choppy video was gone! So before assuming the worst, try watching your video on a different computer. It might just be that simple. It was for me!

Return before u regret

Older computers will not play 4k videos nicely.

Hi JoeColorado.  Firstly,  OccuSync and Lightbridge HD have separate channels (control channel and data channel for video) which are time division multiplexed.  This results in much faster and more stable transfer rates of data, hence the stuttering.  Wifi isn't really hugely different: it still uses radio waves in the 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz bands, but does have more limited range.   I expect the more expensive Phantom and Mavic Pro also have better, more shielded transmitter / receivers than the Mavic Air (I own one as well as a P4P).  Best thing is to down rate data bandwidth in the Go App settings in areas of significant interference,  and stay at close quarters to the drone, and use 5.8ghz where you can (the higher frequency = wider channels, = faster transfer rates than 2.4GHz which has less than half the bandwidth capability and is a VERY well used, nearly saturated actually,  frequency band used for a lot of modern devices and applications)

Additionally,  JoeColorado... The standard stock antennas fitted to DJI drones are vertically linear polarised dipole antennas...  Useless when you fly directly above as there is an enormous cone shaped blackspot.  You need to fly in front of the antenna front faces, and always have those antennas pointed in the direction of the aircraft.  Before taking off, make sure your antennas on the controller are COMPLETELY parallel and upright, you will get much better performance that way.  On my DJI phantom 4 pro and mavic air, I have upgraded both antenna systems: P4P has circular polarised helical antennas that are QAM multiplexed and amplified (2.4 and 5.8G), and my Mavic Air has a patch panel antenna...  4Hawks Raptor SR.  Easy to fit given patience and care, will void the warranty,  but far superior and reliable and depth penetration coverage and I recommend it

Additionally... The standard stock antennas fitted to DJI drones are vertically linear polarised dipole antennas, omnidirectional...  Useless when you fly directly above as there is an enormous cone shaped blackspot.  You need to fly in front of the antenna front faces, and always have those antennas pointed in the direction of the aircraft.  Before taking off, make sure your antennas on the controller are COMPLETELY parallel and upright, you will get much better performance that way.  On my DJI phantom 4 pro and mavic air, I have upgraded both antenna systems: P4P has circular polarised helical antennas that are QAM multiplexed and amplified (2.4 and 5.8G), and my Mavic Air has a patch panel antenna...  4Hawks Raptor SR.  Easy to fit given patience and care, will void the warranty,  but far superior and reliable and depth penetration coverage and I recommend it.  Mavic Air wifi is all done through a combined channel too... Only one coverage indicator you'll have noticed.

for the mavic air, this choppiness is a very very common issue because the nature of DJI's wifi system.  very poor implementation of error correction and so on and so forth..  DJi cpould correct this all with how wifi is handled but they for reasons we can only guess, dont.

i have tested handful of antennas for the mavic air, what i have found is you really need amplification, even in a quiet open area.. even decent patch antennas and such not great.  

according to my friend that does FPV flying and has spectrum analyzers and stuff he plugged into my ipex connections on the RC board of my Mavic air's remote and loaded tested it and unloaded and done several tests and found mavic air's wifi system seems to be very as he put it very politely "interesting, makes little sense how it responds"   for example, not every channel has the same power output, not every channel likes having antenna load/dummy loads..nor does seem to respond to interruptions very well..  he also mentioned that width of the channel appears almost locked.. will not reduce its width.. it picks a width and sticks to it. the reason this is bad is say it picks 40Mhz width on 2.4Ghz that is overlapping upwards of 3 channels around it..  but if it picked 10Mhz width it wouldn't be interrupting surrounding channels as much trade off is less bandwidth.     and confirmed that auto channel option is entirely broken,  he loaded up all 2.4Ghz width and it still kept picking a random 2.4Ghz channel eventually jumped to 5.8Ghz but picked same channel that his home network uses for 5.8ghz so seems to be either entirely random with a strong 2.4Ghz bias in its randomizer.. or its legitimately coded incorrectly to pick blindly and favors occupied channels.

Slow it down

TheVegeta1974 Posted at 1-24 17:12
Slow it down

+1 - Slowing it down and adjusting settings helped my videos tremendously.  They look much smoother now than when I first started which hasn't been that long.

I took my mavic air to a lake in the adirondacks. My video was soo choppy it ruined my shoot. I dont understand why the video would be choppy when its recording directly to an sd card.