Geebax Posted at 2016-1-10 22:24
Yeah, what are you going to buy? There is a flurry of fancy proposals out there for the 'Phantom Be ...

You are assuming a false paradigm where the consumer will continue to tolerate NOT being able to fly their quad and buy Dji anyway.  The alternative may be no purchase at all.  

Again, why would ANYONE buy a product that doesn't work?

Remember, this geofence bs is voluntary on Dji's part...  They didn't have to do it.

DaGunn Posted at 2016-1-10 15:07
In the United States of America the airspace above our country is the responsibility the FAA and the ...

This is exactly my point too.  

I am a fan of this functionality as an option to the pilot which is default set to off.  But to default on with no opt out...  I don't see how this will survive market forces.

jason_m_bare Posted at 2016-1-11 15:51
This is exactly my point too.  

I am a fan of this functionality as an option to the pilot which  ...

Maybe you should read the half page of posts above yours from Brendan Schulman rather than going on with assumptions ....

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-10 23:05
I'm playing catchup here (sorry for delay).

The unlock is instant via DJI Go when you are flying  ...

Why isn't there an overall opt out?  If there is no government mandate compelling this activity, why force consumers into it?

As I have said a few times, I think the technology is a great idea for folks who would like to switch it on if they are concerned, but why not allow consumers the choice?

Also, you should be concerned for Dji to be exposing themselves to legal liability.  Example, if my drone is geofenced from NFZ's, but it Wanders into one anyway and causes an incident, it wouldn't be much of a stretch for to make the legal argument that the programmer is now liable, not the pilot.

jason_m_bare Posted at 2016-1-11 13:58
It ABSOLUTELY WILL happen when people cannot fly their products.

Listen, all throughout the histo ...

Good Point Jason.

I think I posted this elsewhere - Just include it again in support of your post:

Highly Successful Businesses can go down Overnight if they get things wrong! in a comparative world - Look at what happened to one time world leaders like Blackberry and Nokia, Ericsson! - All these companies once had a great product. They thought they knew what the customer wanted, BUT didn't listen and Failed to implement what the customer Actually wanted. - Customers stopped buying, result = Boom! Business went down.... Simple!

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-11 15:31
"This GEO Fence may actually benefit me a little.  I live near an airport and am not able to fly i ...

Brendan,

Your Comment:  " The goal is to enable operations, not restrict them.  I think the main concern we have heard is how off-line unlocking will work (i.e. without an internet connection), especially for spontaneous flights, and I can say that we are working on various options."

Greatly Puts Me at Ease in the direction DJI is taking Geofencing! - THANKS! for confirming that you are seriously looking at options to address this!

The Big concern among many Semi-Pro Photographers (Like myself) and Pro's (im sure) is Spontanious use of the P3P as a Photography tool - "A Camera that can fly"  - rather then a  UAV flying with a camera. Some the best shots ever taken are via Spontaneous Flights, to Capture "The Fleeting Moment" and almost always in remote locations where Cellular networks are at best patchy if not available.  (I have suggested Caching the authorisation to send it later when a network is available. ) - in due course/time i look forward to an options that enable unrestricted Flights that are Authorised rather then restricting a flight to enable authorization.
Cheers!

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-11 15:32
"If you don't want to do that, then quit flapping your gums on here because it wont' do squat to i ...

Good to see you come on here and answer the members questions.

So, for the million dollar question: If I hate the GEO system, why should I not dump my DJI product and go and buy one from a competitor who does not restrict my use of my aircraft?

Honestly I think most folks would simply rather register their aircraft with the local enforcement authorities and call it a day.  tell me what you need the aircraft Serial number an electronic emitter installed... if we want to define these as aircraft then we need to go all the way with it..  
Geofencing can only be utilized by production drones.... if the FAA wants to implement this,  Then they have to have system to enforce them all.
Registration needs to be at point of Sale so anyone buying a drone has to acknowledge the local laws. regardless of brand name...
Then any bird in the sky needs to have a failsafe way to identify them.
I don't understand the geofence and I don't like it.... to me it seems to be adding extra confusion to what is  destined to be an already confusing system.

Davphys Posted at 2016-1-11 07:32
The unlocking is instant- it is just valid for 3 days.

Ok, my bad!

I would definitely not recommend anyone to buy a Phantom 3 Drone now.  I just got mine two weeks ago and regret buying it. None of the advertising I read prior to buying said I had to get a special unlock permission to fly this in my yard. I will post several reviews on line to warn away potential buyers. DJI should not implement this system!

j30trouble Posted at 2016-1-11 14:52
I would definitely not recommend anyone to buy a Phantom 3 Drone now.  I just got mine two weeks ago ...

J30trouble,
You may be jumping the gun bud!.., Please read Brendan's comments before exhibiting a knee jerk reaction.


Also..., Have A Look At This FANTASTIC! Article & Video interview:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/9 ... ne-safety-interview

j30trouble Posted at 2016-1-10 21:52
I would definitely not recommend anyone to buy a Phantom 3 Drone now.  I just got mine two weeks ago ...

I wouldn't jump ship just yet.. as I said in previous post. I don't think this is going to be the Issue that it is being made out to be. There has to be a medium ground here.  
I honestly don't see DJI implementing this in the extreme manner that some of us are dreaming up,
You don't become a multi billion dollar industry leader making dumb decisions.
Most of us are more open minded to change  if we know our hardware isn't dependent on DJI..
I didn't just spend 6k to be out of luck if DJI shuts down its servers in the next 10 years..  I  and most other folks expect a long term hassle free investment. Ultimately I believe DJI will provide that. The market will demand it.

jason_m_bare Posted at 2016-1-11 12:57
Why isn't there an overall opt out?  If there is no government mandate compelling this activity, w ...

"Why isn't there an overall opt out?  If there is no government mandate compelling this activity, why force consumers into it?"

Because if the industry does not present balanced solutions to safety issues, the government mandate that will be implemented will be terrible for everyone.  

Also, your premise is incorrect.  The existing NFZ is inflexible, while the new one (GEO) allows self-authorization.  We are responding to requests from many users who have authorization to operate in existing No Fly Zones.  

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-11 12:32
"If you don't want to do that, then quit flapping your gums on here because it wont' do squat to i ...

"I'm in charge of GEO, and I'm here.  Sorry I've been tied up with CES lately and didn't check back sooner"

Thank you for participating in this thread Brendan, and for taking the time to reply to a large number of posts.

Your comments have put me at ease with the whole GEO system, Do you have any further information on when Australian zones will be updated/implemented? I noticed that the zones have been removed from both DJI GEO map and Airmap for the time being for Australia and a few other countries like Indonesia ect ect. Were the zones on those older maps including manned NFZ?

Do you have any more specific means of contact for reviewing a current NFZ? or do we just PM/email DJI directly? Is it also worth contacting Airmap?

Thanks in advance

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-11 09:29
"Why isn't there an overall opt out?  If there is no government mandate compelling this activity,  ...

Do you mean that if I get a permission from ENAC (italian FAA) to fly in an itlalian red zone (NFZ), then I need a further permission from DJI to fly there ?   Can a red zone change "color" in DJI map for a single user ?  How ?   In any case I see a legal problem here, because DJI appears to take more power on the italian sky than the italian flight administration itself: a permission by ENAC (or by FAA in US) is useless without a further permission by DJI.

Here my opinion: DJI can paint of yellow the whole world, but should avoid to fix any (red) NFZ, because it is completely unclear how DJI Geofence map can change color according to a special authorization a user can get from FAA (or ENAC in Italy).

I have written to flysafe@dji.com regarding a specific question on NFZs in Italy (which clearly are not NFZ for UAVs), the answer was to write to djisupport@airmap.io, a non-existent email address. Not a good starting point indeed.... Also, airmap.io seems to cover US only, what about Europe ?

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-10 23:05
I'm playing catchup here (sorry for delay).

The unlock is instant via DJI Go when you are flying  ...

What about a person who might be travelling out of the country for two weeks and might not have internet access during that trip (I'm about to be in that situation soon). The initial 3 day unlock will expire and then the perosn will be stuck

Its funny that Lithuania has international airport which is in yellow zone, while the centre of the capital Vilnius has red zone. Are you kidding????

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-11 04:07
Looks like some inapplicable large zones were coded by the airspace provider.  That's why we are  ...

I'm keen to review the current Geofence map and report 'warnings' that I believe are too restrictive or inaccurate - where do I report these please ?

Tautvilas Posted at 2016-1-11 17:25
Its funny that Lithuania has international airport which is in yellow zone, while the centre of the  ...

And Kaunas Airport in yellow. Funny!

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-11 08:29
"Why isn't there an overall opt out?  If there is no government mandate compelling this activity,  ...

I respect the fact you've decided to engage with us on here. Especially that some people have mentioned that DJI don't care about feedback on here, which I thought was madness on a open forum talking about all things Phantom related.

There is a whole spectrum of people on here that agree that this should be implemented, no questions asked and others that are totally against this. Then the middle ground.

I'm in the middle ground, I think that the current platform needs to be changed. My main points of improvement are:

1) Authorisation zones need to be cached, to stop this 'no signal problem', Or at least download them for you area. I.e I don't need the the whole world cached.

2) Pre authorisations need to be extended from 3 days till at least a month (this should be a must) and with the chances of pop up authorisations for airshows etc... then hopefully the user will have signal in that area.

3) could there not be a remember me function? i.e there zone already knows who you are and then the details can be automatically authorised when in the area.

I am also worried about data security in regards to all our personal information being stored, plus what happens in the even of servers going down? Will all drones be grounded.

Final question, will this be a forced firmware update? or if you stay where you are then this can't be implemented.

Many Thanks

Brendan

Morph1 Posted at 2016-1-11 17:42
They already enforced that by updating your DJI GO app without letting you know,
apparently if you ...

Fantastic haha !! I've been sucker punched, lets hope this wrong.

What happens if your using a non GPS device then, will the drone know it's in a Authorisation zone, apart from the already included NFZ. Can't see how the drone it' self will be installed with this function.

Morph1 Posted at 2016-1-11 08:42
They already enforced that by updating your DJI GO app without letting you know,
apparently if you ...

Brendon & the folks at DJI - a couple of thoughts.  I think you all jumped the shark on this by calling it a public beta.  Given the sensitivity, a number of important concepts have been poorly thought through.  Public betas traditionally have been when the software is feature complete, functional and you are looking for edge case problems.  The issue of entire county/city/country regions showing up in yellow shows us how inadequate your database is.  That's a huge flag.  The fact that DJI DOES NOT ALREADY HAVE a clearly worked out system for server failure is another one.

I appreciate your personal involvement here - it can't be fun but I am again disappointed by the technical team at DJI.   The Phantoms have way too many bugs in them for third iteration hardware.  Documentation is barely adequate.  Updates are poorly communicated (a deadly sin IMHO).  In short, there is not a whole lot of reason to trust DJI and a bunch of reasons to be very, very leery of any promises.

The company is going to need to walk the walk for a while.  I've already canceled an Inspire order and know of literally dozens of people who have not bought Phantoms, mostly because of the update and crash issues, not the Geo Fencing.  But DJI is not in a very comfortable place and can do itself grave harm.  I like the Phantoms, like the Inspire but just not trusting enough of the company to continue walking down that path.

Morph1 Posted at 2016-1-11 18:00
not sure, but I just downloaded DJIgo 2.4.3 APK for my new android device, now I will disable the  ...

I forgot to cancel automatic updates

Brendan Schulma Posted at 2016-1-11 05:32
"If you don't want to do that, then quit flapping your gums on here because it wont' do squat to i ...

Hi Brendan,

Thank's for taking time visiting the forum, answering your customers regarding the GEO. Personally I vote for Geofencing, but I hope it will not be a forced update yet in a while, as it does not seem mature yet (mostly the maps itself). I hope all other issues that span all over your products will be fixed first before this gets released.

You wrote: "This is a user forum and has DJI staff allocated to it to help users with their problems, the development people just don't come here."

Well, I think the development people should visit the forum, to see the issues that people have with DJI's products. It might be a wake up call for them and the management. Before you put Geo as a forced update, fix all the issues that are still unresolved in your products (just to mention a few, X5 image quality/focus issues/low bitrate, Phantom vibrations, LB1 iOS app and more).

The quality for the firmwares/softwares must improve. It is ok to release beta firmware/apps, but non-beta should be well tested and functional.

DJI-Patrick Posted at 2016-1-8 06:22
Hi . You will not need a device with a cellular device if you unlock the areas before flight .

You keep repeating that and it is very annoying.  As a lot of others have said, a lot of times you don't know you are going to be there let alone flying there until you get there.  

You also said all yellow areas have cell service.  How do you figure that?  In the two yellow zones near my house, neither have cell service.  In fact, there is more land area here that does not have service than does due to the mountains.  

Geebax Posted at 2016-1-9 23:30
NO! there are none of the experienced and respected members of this forum involved here, and that is a telling point.

I am not so sure you know what you are speaking of.

I live 5 miles outside of a small town and 4 miles from the little airport. I wanted to buy a P3P and learn  to fly it in my backyard. The same as I have been doing for my single rotor heli.
Now all of a sudden the feds say no flying within 5 miles of any airport,when used to be 3 miles. That to me makes it illegal for me to fly in my back yard. But who is going to no or care. I have been doing it for years.
But with DJI authorization it is Okay to fly? I am thinking NOT. The only thing authorization will do is send a signal to the feds that I am flying in the restricted zone. No Thanks.
I had a P3P on order from a local shop. But after 2 weeks it got back ordered. Seeing this GEO mess coming I took the opportunity to cancel my order and wait to see where the dust settles..
Well, thats my 2 cents.

Davphys Posted at 2016-1-11 14:45
Is this an accurate map of the new "no-fly zones" that DJI is implementing?

That is pretty much it.

With the new update it appears GeoFencing has been full implementated. We can throw "beta" out the window.

I understand the inherent need to demonstrate that these devices can enforce some respect for parts of the airspace that could lead to serious problems.   It will take just one terrorist attempt using one of these and we are done.   As a practical matter however, I fly with an iPad Mini 4 that has GPS, but not cell service due to the cost.   When I go out to fly, I may not know exactly where I will set up shop.  I am not sure how I can unlock in real time, unless you can use the app on a smart phone that is not connected to the drone.    I really do not want to connect my smart phone, unlock, then shut down and switch to the iPad to fly.   Just one more impediment to overcome to go flying.....

Just how reliable and accurate is this map? DJI flysafe

I ask because the small municipal airport near my home in Pittsburg, Ks. does not have any sort of no-fly zone marked at all.  It handles business jet traffic.  The Joplin, Mo. airport 35 miles away has daily commercial flights, but is also not marked with a no-fly zone.  A bit farther south is a very small single strip airport south of Neosho, Mo. near Crowder College.  It is marked with a 1-Km no-fly zone.  Can I trust this map?

Wheezer Posted at 2016-1-11 15:36
Just how reliable and accurate is this map? DJI flysafe

I ask because the small municipal airport n ...

Not very accurate.  Like you, I have airports near me that are not marked as no fly zones.  I have no fly zones marked where there are no airports.

nrgwise Posted at 2016-1-11 14:43
Not very accurate.  Like you, I have airports near me that are not marked as no fly zones.  I have ...

Does the FAA maintain a more accurate map?  I remember seeing one, but do not remember where.  If the geofencing map is inaccurate, I foresee lots of problems.

This map looks more complete, but it does not show any restrictions around my local airport either.  It does show a 5-mile zone around the Joplin airport.  https://www.mapbox.com/drone/no-fly/

I can just see this coming, you get authorization to fly in a yellow zone, you are flying around and all of a sudden without notice due to a glitch, a map change or whatever and you are now in a NFZ, the Geofence software takes away control from the pilot and makes the drone land.... right in the middle of a busy street hitting a car, school bus, or whatever causing an accident with or without injuries. I don't think I want to be a part of that scenario!