How to decrease RC power consumption during flight ?
is there any setting we can change while connecting to mobile to decrease power consumption ?
If RC becomes low battery during a flight what is the best to do in this case ?

Hi, thanks for reaching DJI Forum. There is none yet of an option to decrease remote control battery consumption during flight. If the remote battery gets low, the app will notify you to return to home and beeps. Thank you.

DJI Gamora Posted at 2018-8-12 06:20
Hi, thanks for reaching DJI Forum. There is none yet of an option to decrease remote control battery consumption during flight. If the remote battery gets low, the app will notify you to return to home and beeps. Thank you.

So there is no option like connecting external power bank to RC ?

Amjad1983 Posted at 2018-8-12 06:33
So there is no option like connecting external power bank to RC ?

Hi, there is an option to connect the remote control to power bank but this will not decrease the power of your remote control.

DJI Gamora Posted at 2018-8-12 06:38
Hi, there is an option to connect the remote control to power bank but this will not decrease the power of your remote control.

you mean i can connect my RC to power bank  during flying my drone ?  how ?

Amjad1983 Posted at 2018-8-12 07:50
you mean i can connect my RC to power bank  during flying my drone ?  how ?

Hi, just to clarify. Are you trying to decrease the power of your remote control based on your original post? Or are you trying to have an option to use an external power bank for charging?

@ Garmora......I think his thought was if he could "on the fly" decrease the RC's power consumption, the RC's battery would last longer HOWEVER, not having that as an option, the alternative would be to run the RC in its flight mode  with an external battery thus, extending the RC's flight mode run time via a larger external battery .

@ Amjad.....No, once the RC is plugged into a external USB power source ,  it will automatically switch the RC out of fight mode and over into internal battery charge mode. Question though, my RC's (Spark, Air and Pro) all seem to last for maybe 8 hours or better, how is it your RC is needing that much extra run time?   Maybe you have a defective RC battery if it drains that fast.......

North Idaho Guy Posted at 2018-8-12 08:11
@ Garmora......I think his thought was if he could "on the fly" decrease the RC's power consumption, the RC's battery would last longer HOWEVER, not having that as an option, the alternative would be to run the RC in its flight mode  with an external battery thus, extending the RC's flight mode run time via a larger external battery .

@ Amjad.....No, once the RC is plugged into a external USB power source ,  it will automatically switch the RC out of fight mode and over into internal battery charge mode. Question though, my RC's (Spark, Air and Pro) all seem to last for maybe 8 hours or better, how is it your RC is needing that much extra run time?   Maybe you have a defective RC battery if it drains that fast.......

yeah exactly you got my point
My RC   battery   does  not  survive more than 2  hour .
I newly bought my MA  since 1 month so thats why i dont know the exact duration for RC battery to survive , i become afraid to lose my RC power during next flight so that i am obsessive to fully charge my RC battery after each flight .
what is the best to do regarding this now ?

Maybe a few others can comment on average length of time their Remote Control will run before needing to be recharged?
2-hours sounds a little short.

Never really timed the battery duration of my RC, but 2 hours is approx. 6 batteries on the Mavic.

if rc battery becomes low during flight it is best to go home immediately. On mavic pro low rc battery kicks in at 15%. this happened to me recently and i did not make a note of how much time it took to run flat - perhaps about 3-5 min. i then allowed the rc battery to run flat to see what might happen. i expected it to land but instead it hovered 5 m above ground. Fortunately i was able to get 3% back into my rc battery and land then drone safely. Any time you hear beeping sounds it is always best to go home.

Any body sure about the average time normal RC battery can run?  

North Idaho Guy Posted at 2018-8-12 08:11
@ Garmora......I think his thought was if he could "on the fly" decrease the RC's power consumption, the RC's battery would last longer HOWEVER, not having that as an option, the alternative would be to run the RC in its flight mode  with an external battery thus, extending the RC's flight mode run time via a larger external battery .

@ Amjad.....No, once the RC is plugged into a external USB power source ,  it will automatically switch the RC out of fight mode and over into internal battery charge mode. Question though, my RC's (Spark, Air and Pro) all seem to last for maybe 8 hours or better, how is it your RC is needing that much extra run time?   Maybe you have a defective RC battery if it drains that fast.......

Are you sure that RC for MA can operate for 8 hours?!
Here in DJI support link they mention it can operate for 2.5 hours
https://www.dji.com/support/product/mavic-air

It depends. If you are using an Android device, the RC will try to charge it and it drains the RC pretty quick. I ran into this when I first started flying with my Droid Turbo. What I did to get around this was to connect  one of my batteries to the RC and then use the bottom port of the RC to connect to my Android. So the battery charges the RC and the RC charges my phone. When the last few firmware releases finally resulted in me not being able to use my Droid Turbo anymore, I bought a CrystalSky which (even though it too is an Android device) which doesn't seem to have the problem.

If you're using an IPhone device, this doesn't happen (or at least you can configure it not to charge from the RC).

Amjad1983 Posted at 2018-8-12 10:56
Are you sure that RC for MA can operate for 8 hours?!
Here in DJI support link they mention it can operate for 2.5 hours
https://www.dji.com/support/product/mavic-air

No, not sure, never timed it but, as I said, it "seemed" like it was around 8 hrs but, perhaps because I break my between time flights up more, it seemed longer.


Maybe more like somewhere around 8-20'ish mins broken up pro flights tops I guess I'd get.........so it's around 3 hrs total by the math then and would be more realistic if I think a bit harder about it........Sorry for the over exaggeration, I don't fly flight after flight, one battery to the next too often, so I'm not too certain of the exact numbers and I haven't really tested for those exact numbers.

The manual/DJI would be your best resource as it sounds you've found..........  

But, as the previous poster mentioned, do note as I've also noted,  that a/my android will back charge itself from the RC battery unless the android is booted up while connected to the RC. Not sure if that's relevant to your situation however.

I fly 4 batteries each time with MA. The RC ca fly around 3 times (12 batteries) before recharge. I recharge when one green and one blink.

Remember to turn off RC after landing. Only turn on before takeoff.

It must be nice to have so many batteries that you run into remote control battery dying. I have 3 batteries and I usually charge the set twice before I even bother charging the remote control. So, after 6 batteries, I charge the remote along with the batteries. I think the remote lasts longer than 2 hours, but  it will depend on what you're doing? If you are constantly on the control sticks doing acrobatics or something, I can imagine it'll run out sooner.

Amjad1983 Posted at 2018-8-12 09:50
Any body sure about the average time normal RC battery can run?

You should be able to deplete at least 10 batteries.  I am saying this because I am flying almost everyday with one fully charget battery and I charge the RC once every two weeks.

I think this is one of android cons that it depletes the RC battery during flying to charge the phone
I wish we can find a solution to stop this depletion like IOS