Well don't want to twist the knife or anything but you can't really blame DJI for this. Surely you knew about it before buying the Mini?

If you live in a no-fly zone that's literally NO FLYING ZONE and it doesn't matter if you're going to fly it under 15metres or not. In a no fly zone you can't fly even at 1cm and that's that for most countries.
The reason you can't fly it inside is because the craft still knows it's inside the red zone. It doesn't care or know if it's in or out of a building, just if it has gps or not.
You can still do all the necessary setups without flying it in your house and then venture out to allowed flying site so just do that?

Sell the mini, get the new Zeno 2 for the same price if you don’t mind about the weight of the drone. No geofencing, 4K at 60 FPS and Active Track and 33 minutes flight time. Problem solved.

Dirty Bird Posted at 1-18 07:31
The point he is making is the total restriction is onerous & rather ridiculous.   Let's say it limited altitude to 10 meters.  Let's face it, any manned aircraft flying at 10 meters has a lot bigger problem to worry about than a small drone.

Yes I got the point, but it can't be a surprise feature for a DJI owner/buyer... If it is, then someone has really neglected their homework.

There are no such things, nor should there be, as "you can fly a little" -zones. The legislation is usually yes-or-no and that's a good thing so there's no grey areas.
It should be pretty obvious why f.e. airfields are geofenced. It's a great precaution AND it prevents inviduals, who should have nothing to do with drones in the first place, to do their mischiefs somewhere else. DJI is doing us all a favor by implementing forced geofencing so it limits said sorry-ass inviduals of ruining this great hobby/job from everyone.
It should also be obvious why military bases, jails, other authoritary areas, big corporate areas etc. usually are no-fly zones and OP said he's living near a military airbase -> double no-no.

Limiting altitude to X in red zone, could theoretically allow low altitude espionage and other misconducts as well as opening the possibility of something going *TILT* and a runaway drone hurdling through a busy airport runway. The easiest prevention is to ground the craft at no-fly zones.

The second thing are the technical limitations, like I said previously, the drone has no way of knowing if it is inside or outside, so DJI literally can't allow you to fly inside while in no-fly zone.

I'm in no way a DJI fanboy or a rule-lover, but I do realize why everything can't always be made to satisfy everyone.

What if you just use the controller without your phone indoors? I've seen videos of flying without the phone. I just don't know if geofencing is still in effect in such situations or if it is the app that does it.

the geo fencing is inside the aircraft, not the phone app, I have flown mine indoors just fine, until I go under a sky light, and boom, the warning comes up, it will hoover where its at, I can go forward, left and right and Yaw, but it will not ascend or desend,Tim

fans7e30011f Posted at 1-18 08:48
the geo fencing is inside the aircraft, not the phone app, I have flown mine indoors just fine, until I go under a sky light, and boom, the warning comes up, it will hoover where its at, I can go forward, left and right and Yaw, but it will not ascend or desend,Tim

Interesting. So DJI stores a global map of no-fly zones in the aircraft  itself? Seems like that would require a fair amount of internal storage. Luckily, I'm just in a yellow zone because of heliports, so it flies just fine in my house.

I fly at home with no GPS signal, so wouln't it be possible to fly indoors even in restricted zone?

virtual Posted at 1-18 09:53
I fly at home with no GPS signal, so wouln't it be possible to fly indoors even in restricted zone?

Actually had to test it just now and...yeah Mini doesn't have a clue where it is with 0 satellites.
Funny cause I've flown it inside with 3-5 satellites and while it doesn't get gps lock I think it still gets the rough position, since I've had active map and zone notifications even inside... Have to investigate more with time.

Nigan, this might be silly question, but you do know that you have to manually unlock non-gps flight from the status menu everytime you start to fly inside?

Dirty Bird Posted at 1-18 11:38
I have no problem grounding drones directly over the property of airports, military bases, jails, etc..  I'm fine with a reasonable perimeter.  The issue is there is no need to completely ground drones beyond that reasonable perimeter.  5 mile radius NFZs are ridiculous, IMHO.  There is no logical reason a drone can't fly 20-30' above the ground outside of the perimeter any more than there would be to ban flying a kite.  Aircraft are not flying 20' off the deck a mile or two outside airports.

Cell phones can theoretically be used to commit acts of espionage.  Motor vehicles can theoretically be used to mow down pedestrians or be loaded with explosives.  This is Gatwick-level hysteria & why we wind up with reactionary overreach by government.

Well then you and OP need to complain to your designated government organ in charge of your laws. The safe perimeters and zones are implemented to DJI's geofencing according to local laws, not by DJI's "ridiculous standards".
F.e. in Finland national laws state that main Airports have a 1km radius NFZ. Outside 1-3km you can fly at the height of natural obstructions or in some cases 15m over them. Over 3km you can fly 50m heigth and outside the airport etc. and with special permission flying outside of those regulations is possible and DJI allows us to fly drones exactly like that. Hardly seems ridiculous IMO?The whole geofencing as a concept started because of some morons flew their drones in an idiotic places.

I'm not trying to paint a picture of terrorist acts or anything, just saying that I can't blame DJI if they're complying to regional laws?
Also it doesn't matter how low the drone is flying, if it is flying there's always the possibility of something going wrong and causing some Final Destination level issues .
And yeah, drones probably won't kill anyone, but injuries and material (or immaterial) damages can grow to exponential heights...

Just can't see why someone absolutely HAS to break the rules and cause harm to the whole community.
We already have hundreds of runaway Mini's leaving plastic and battery's worth of harmful waste all over the world, just waiting for some greenpeace girl to find them and cause a major PR-issue, so why not just fly the drones where they are supposed to be flown?

Dirty Bird Posted at 1-18 12:39
Breaking the rules doesn't mean you have harmed anyone.  It just means you broke the rules.  The thing about rules is when they become onerous & unreasonable they become ignored.

Isn't that exactly the reason why geofencing is needed...*facepalm*

Hi All
I have that same problem that in the past i could fly in a area and now i cant.
We live on a farm just outside town. there is a small airstrip and gets a plane maybe once a month.
I use the photos for erosion control ect and have photos that i took in the past.
Now i cant get close to the areas as i fall in a big blue zone. This was not the case last year.

How can i fix this problem?
Thx
Ott

djiuser_ObvkP4FRuZDd Posted at 2-26 22:05
Hi All
I have that same problem that in the past i could fly in a area and now i cant.
We live on a farm just outside town. there is a small airstrip and gets a plane maybe once a month.

You can unlock blue restriction zone in application or via Dji web interface https://www.dji.com/ru/flysafe/self-unlock (you must be authorized and have up-to-date app and firmware).
Red zones cant be unlocked...

Dronehiker Posted at 1-18 07:23
Sell the mini, get the new Zeno 2 for the same price if you don’t mind about the weight of the drone. No geofencing, 4K at 60 FPS and Active Track and 33 minutes flight time. Problem solved.

Yes, in my case I think that is what I plan to do ...

Be careful though, the Mini is small, light and makes less noise.
With the new regulations to come, this "MM" has many advantages in this sense!

Hence indeed that Dji playing "security perfectionists" ... is totally stupid. It's ONLY Marketing!
In the USA they become rigorous towards Drones ... ok ... while we can buy weapons "between salads and potatoes" ? LOL ;)