Does the Mavic Pro actually have a Follow Me Mode where it follows the controller vs. Active Track where you draw a rectangle around a subject and the camera follows that subject?  I have seen posts talking about both modes, but the tutorials that are available so far and even the P4 manual makes no mention of it. Anyone know if it can actually follow the controller?

Yes, the Mavic has Follow Me. And it follows the GPS in your device, not the controller.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-10-19 22:16
Yes, the Mavic has Follow Me. And it follows the GPS in your device, not the controller.

Thank you DJI-Ken. I am excited to see the final release of the users manual to see how to set it up.

FlashGJ Posted at 2016-10-19 22:25
Thank you DJI-Ken. I am excited to see the final release of the users manual to see how to set it  ...

Your welcome, and keep checking your app or website for the manual.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-10-19 10:16
Yes, the Mavic has Follow Me. And it follows the GPS in your device, not the controller.

Hummmm? If what you say is true, then Mavic would stay where it is and not move. If it follows the GPS in your device, i.e. the drone, it won't move. Don't you mean it follows the person who signals for it to follow them or the person, or dog say, that the operator points too on his/her controller screen?
I'm corn-fused as usual.

arives@capecod. Posted at 2016-10-20 00:55
Hummmm? If what you say is true, then Mavic would stay where it is and not move. If it follows the ...

That is Active Track which is a totally different function.
Active Track follows whatever you have the aircraft memorize, Follow me Mode follows you.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-10-19 13:01
That is Active Track which is a totally different function.
Active Track follows whatever you have ...

Tanks for the clarification. Gotcha. Different strokes for different porpoises.

arives@capecod. Posted at 2016-10-20 01:04
Tanks for the clarification. Gotcha. Different strokes for different porpoises.

Yes, the Mavic has all the same features as the P4, plus some extras.

A quick question on active track. When using the spotlight option you no longer control the yaw. Therefore is the mavic now home locked or course locked to the course it was last on. Or finally are all the movements forward back left and right taken relative to the subject?

Follow me mode does not work on my LG G3 phone. I get warning "weak gps signal on your mobile device". Anyone else had this problem using G3 mobile?

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-10-20 01:18
Yes, the Mavic has all the same features as the P4, plus some extras.

Hi Ken, I found that follow me can be dangerous when the phone GPS is reading the wrong location.  Is that even possible for Mavic to followed the controller instead?  I am guessing it isn't possible since controller has no way of knowing it's location.

Follow Me works via GPS, Active Track via the front "3D view cameras".
Active Track is a bit more accurate but can fail if you and the background "blend together" too much. Follow me on the other hand is more stable but is not as precise.

fai58 Posted at 2016-12-10 00:43
Hi Ken, I found that follow me can be dangerous when the phone GPS is reading the wrong location.  Is that even possible for Mavic to followed the controller instead?  I am guessing it isn't possible since controller has no way of knowing it's location.

How is your phone's GPS reading the wrong location?
And yes, the Mavic needs the GPS in your device to follow.
If there's ever any error you can quickly quit any of the intelligent flight modes.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-12-10 00:54
How is your phone's GPS reading the wrong location?
And yes, the Mavic needs the GPS in your device to follow.
If there's ever any error you can quickly quit any of the intelligent flight modes.

I was testing the FollowMe mode couple week ago and while I was walking away from the mavic, it started to drifting to its side and almost hit a tree, luckily I stopped the intelligent mode in time to avoid the crash.  I guess GPS on phone aren't reliable when surrounded with trees and houses, but I was probably 30 feet radius around without any things.  So my point is that we should always check the location of the phone before activate the follow me mode to be safe.

fai58 Posted at 2016-12-10 02:16
I was testing the FollowMe mode couple week ago and while I was walking away from the mavic, it started to drifting to its side and almost hit a tree, luckily I stopped the intelligent mode in time to avoid the crash.  I guess GPS on phone aren't reliable when surrounded with trees and houses, but I was probably 30 feet radius around without any things.  So my point is that we should always check the location of the phone before activate the follow me mode to be safe.

I see, and yes make sure you only use Follow Me with a good GPS signal.

I've tried a couple times to use Follow Me and it's not working as I expect, but perhaps my expectations are too high or result from improper operation.

I understand that when activated, the drone chases the position of the controller via the smartphone's GPS. Position detection should be expected to vary, and maybe quite dramatically, depending on the accuracy of the GPS fix, but in a wide-open area with optimal signal I should expect a fix with a 16-32ft variance in my iPhone 7. This means that I would need to move at least 16 ft in order for the Mavic to then start following me.

What I experienced in yesterday's testing is that it appeared the Mavic did not follow me in Follow Mode -- with the camera trained on me and recording, I can walk 32-ft+ out of the frame and leave the Mavic behind, apparently not moving at all. In review of the footage, the Mavic was indeed moving, but very, very slowly. Upon walking back into the frame, towards the Mavic, the Mavic would suddenly "wake up" and quickly fly towards my position.

Any ideas of what I might be doing wrong, or what might be going on?

Equally concerned with follow me mode.  It doesn't turn to face you if you change direction,  it seems to swoop forwards, overshoot and slow down again. Switching out of follow me throws the Mavic into ATTI mode. Not very good. Useless footage.

Peterg4 Posted at 2017-2-3 11:16
Equally concerned with follow me mode.  It doesn't turn to face you if you change direction,  it seems to swoop forwards, overshoot and slow down again. Switching out of follow me throws the Mavic into ATTI mode. Not very good. Useless footage.

exactly.  what I experienced. switching out of followme mode, lands you in atti mode.. then after some time, it goes back to gps mode.  But if you are not expecting this action, it can be hair raising!  I just don't use it, until DJI addresses this.

The "Follow Me" mode requires a strong GPS signal for the device used with the MAVIC RC controller. iPhone, or iPad that has the GPS capability is not so good, because these devices use what is called "assisted GPS" (fairly inaccurate) rather than a true GPS chip. This is because the true GPS chips at this point have too high power consumption, more than an iPhone, or iPad can accommodate. I use an iPad mini2 to fly my MAVIC. It is a "wifi only" iPad, so it has no GPS capability. I found that that a pocket device called "BAD ELF GPS" is an ideal complement for my iPad. It connects to the iPad over Bluetooth and the DJI GO 4 app recognizes it and uses it in the "Follow Me" mode. It provides a strong GPS signal, much better that an iPhone, or iPad cellular that has the "assisted GPS". I tested the "Follow Me" mode with the BAD ELF and it works well.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-10-19 06:16
Yes, the Mavic has Follow Me. And it follows the GPS in your device, not the controller.

@DJI-Ken, can you confirm that the mavic goes into ATTI mode when cancelling followme?  I have had this happen twice and once it took about a minute to automatically go back to GPS mode.  I just need to know if this behavior is expected?  thanks

fans0fbc2f60 Posted at 2017-2-8 13:56
The "Follow Me" mode requires a strong GPS signal for the device used with the MAVIC RC controller. iPhone, or iPad that has the GPS capability is not so good, because these devices use what is called "assisted GPS" (fairly inaccurate) rather than a true GPS chip. This is because the true GPS chips at this point have too high power consumption, more than an iPhone, or iPad can accommodate. I use an iPad mini2 to fly my MAVIC. It is a "wifi only" iPad, so it has no GPS capability. I found that that a pocket device called "BAD ELF GPS" is an ideal complement for my iPad. It connects to the iPad over Bluetooth and the DJI GO 4 app recognizes it and uses it in the "Follow Me" mode. It provides a strong GPS signal, much better that an iPhone, or iPad cellular that has the "assisted GPS". I tested the "Follow Me" mode with the BAD ELF and it works well.

Glad you found a solution for your GPS-less iPad, but I take issue with your description of Assisted GPS -- all that technology does is leverage nearby cell towers and wifi access points to speed up position acquisition. Your iPad doesn't have a GPS because the wifi-only model doesn't ship with a GPS chip.

As far as position accuracy goes, all the iPhones I've ever owned gave me at best +/- 16ft accuracy, whereas my dedicated GPS would sometimes be able to give me +/- 9ft, which I think is the theoretical maximum, so, in that sense, you are correct that a dedicated GPS device can be more accurate.

In the case of Follow Me mode, I'm not sure that accuracy level makes much of a difference to the real-world performance.

What are you guys measuring your GPS position against?  You should be getting around +/-6ft without WAAS and about +/-3 ft with WAAS on most decent hand held receivers.  
The issue you can have with GPS sets with aGPS or other receivers that will track in weak GPS conditions is that they are opening up large amounts of correlators and the the filtering is allowing it to use pretty much anything it grabs.  For good or bad most hand held GPS now function that way.  That is great if you are compromised or want a quick fix but there is give an take when  you do that.  Quick fix positions typically are noisy as well are inexpensive receivers because of the quality of the components they use especially the antenna size and the way it is mounted.  There is little to no room for a ground plane (which is needed) in something like the Bad Elf or other tiny hand held receivers.  GPS uses a 19cm wavelength  and if you are using a 1 cm antenna as a lot of these do you are really straining to capture the full wavelength.  

superjet96 Posted at 2017-2-9 13:51
What are you guys measuring your GPS position against?  You should be getting around +/-6ft without WAAS and about +/-3 ft with WAAS on most decent hand held receivers.  
The issue you can have with GPS sets with aGPS or other receivers that will track in weak GPS conditions is that they are opening up large amounts of correlators and the the filtering is allowing it to use pretty much anything it grabs.  For good or bad most hand held GPS now function that way.  That is great if you are compromised or want a quick fix but there is give an take when  you do that.  Quick fix positions typically are noisy as well are inexpensive receivers because of the quality of the components they use especially the antenna size and the way it is mounted.  There is little to no room for a ground plane (which is needed) in something like the Bad Elf or other tiny hand held receivers.  GPS uses a 19cm wavelength  and if you are using a 1 cm antenna as a lot of these do you are really straining to capture the full wavelength.

I think that's in meters, so 3 meters = roughly 9ft.

I was looking at feet.  A decent hand held will get 1-2m these days with and with out WAAS.  You are right though 3m on the outside depending on equipment and corrections.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-10-19 06:16
Yes, the Mavic has Follow Me. And it follows the GPS in your device, not the controller.

I could never get it to work
i tried with iPhone 7plus 6 plus and 6
it docent work'
any advice?

fans860f974c Posted at 2017-2-22 21:46
I could never get it to work
i tried with iPhone 7plus 6 plus and 6
it docent work'

Can you post a screenshot of the app when you are in the mode and it says your GPS status.

imo active track should work in conjunction with follow me so it never really loses u

I can never get it to work, active track yes.  It seems its either saying 'weak GPS signal', or once it aquires me (green box) it never activates the mode.  Anyone?

Where do you find "follow me" in the dji go4 app?

I have yet to conduct an experiment but theoretically if the mavic is following the phone under RC control than the Remote is unnecessary. Meaning that instead of lugging the remote with me on say, my bike I should be able to just use the wifi / smartphone control. The question is if the follow me function will still work when I put the phone to sleep in my pocket?

Hi there. I have a question. I like skiing and was wondering how this feature works. And I'm sure there already is an answer out there, but too lazy to search. So, if I start the mode up in the hill, will it follow me anywhere down and will the drone come to me where ever I am down the hill? Or will it fly back to where it started? Thanks.

daverower Posted at 2016-10-19 21:12
A quick question on active track. When using the spotlight option you no longer control the yaw. Therefore is the mavic now home locked or course locked to the course it was last on. Or finally are all the movements forward back left and right taken relative to the subject?

In my expierience with using Spotlight, the control commands are reletive to the Mavic's possition/direction when Spotlight Mode begins.  Those directions are fixed, which ends up getting very confusing when you try to fly around a moving subject.  It does not take long before you have no idea which direction the stick is going to send the Macic off into.  I am trying to figure out how thos "courselock" feature in Spotlight Mode is usefull at all.