I have the DJI P4 Pro but I bought the F11 Pro 4K just for fun. I wouldn't class the F11 "toy grade". In GPS mode, this drone is stress free...a joy to fly. My videos to phone monitor were stunning...so sharp and brilliant colour and when "screen shared" to my 85" TV, the clarity and colour made my jaw drop. The only things missing are obstacle avoidance and optical flow but that's where the price goes up. This drone is fantastic value with genuine 4K on SD card recording...and 2 axis gimble with EIS gives exceptional smooth, stable video. If you fly in GPS mode you will avoid so many dramas. The technology is there to bring your baby home safely in any scenario. The carry case is also a classy touch.
Usually, this type of quad is for someone who didn't want to spend out big on a DJI. I'm slightly confused about why you have both - other than you seem a bit stressed about all that money being in the air :) It flies nicely and I think the EIS does a really great job. The resulting video looks horrible next to a DJI quad though
Not looking for a camera drone, but still like to watch the reviews, and this was a nice one, thanks. Drone is nice too for that price, but you're right, it's definitely not a 4k sensor, pretty sure it's an upscaled 1080p image. Or it crops the sensor for extra digital stabilisation.
Mate, really helpful video. I have a few questions please. 1) when I land my f11 the motors still keep running trying to hit the grass 2) my drone was stable but all of a sudden it went in one direction and hit a fence, was it due to wind or poor GPS? 3) is there an option to record 1080p can't find it on the app? 4) my propps are scuffed but not proper damaged, when to change them. Really appreciate your answers on these
1 - When landing, I keep my thumb on the throttle down position. When it first lands it keeps spinning, but after a few seconds of the throttle held at zero it disarms. Do you keep that throttle held down all the way? 2 - More likely a GPs glitch rather than the wind, as it seemed to handle gusts quite well. You can get into an area where you'll lose an amount of GPS sats and this can cause the position to update and the quad thinks it's 10m away from where it should be which can end in a rapid maneuver. The app doesn't show actual sat numbers, only a strength indication, but if you are recording the screen you could check back and see if anything dropped. 3 - From memory, No I couldn't see it either. Obviously you can scale down to 1080 in a video editor, but the 4k files do take up a bit more space. 4 - Scuffed it ok, if you are still getting smooth video from them, then it's not a worry.
@@CurryKitten thanks mate for your prompt reply, you have gained a permanent subscriber for life :) Yes I keep the throttle down all the way, sometimes I think it's gonna flip back and I press stop. I'll test your way tomorrow Just a follow-up question please, Is there an app that can show GPS strength in different areas? My app keeps indicating GPS signal weak or lost is it because of my phone or because my backyard doesn't have the coverage? Thanks again mate
A little late perhaps but just saw this. I wonder when your drone changed direction?. I fly non gps and after 15 minutes it triggers the auto return home (low battey) and will attempt to get back to its starting point! Usually it shoots up then head to the starting point but it you're flying low..... to stop the motors it seems to me you have to hit the stop and again then keep pressing it. I found sensors in the front legs, maybe they don't do their job properly on soft ground?
Only just discovered your channel and like your style. Thinking of getting back into drones and have been looking at the F11, That was until i came across the Visuo k3 KF 101. Just a penny for your thoughts if you've come across it. Thanks
I haven't flown the Visuo. Just looking at it, it looks pretty similar to the other stuff that's out there. The problem I have with these - at least just from the specs - is being able to tell the end video quality. This F11 has a really nice stable picture (although the downside was that it was a bit noisy) but if you have a look at a similar drone like the ZLRC Beast ruclips.net/video/o_xV98kqvAg/видео.html&ab_channel=CurryKitten the picture is less noisy, but the image jumps about. Which one will the Visuo go - don't know. So make sure you find someone who's flown it and posted the raw video up on RUclips so you'll at least get an idea of if the video is good enough for what you want.
Thanks for the review, very useful. Any advice on parts for self build of something similar (budget). Needs stability and flight time like this one, but does not need range. We want to use it for security neighbourhood watch purposes, so basically to go up and stable video to ground. Do not need 4k, 1080p is plenty. I will probably try openHD once your drone test of it is in, so I am looking into parts for frame, esc, motors, flight control (something open that can run ardupilot probably). pixhawk seems on the costly side.
lets be honest for the price...its amazing value. If you want a 4k top quality drone then spend an extra £400 ...but when it goes rogue thats a huge a amount of money flying off into the distance lol, great review and new sub added!!
Yes indeed. Different people want different things out of their quads - whilst I would always spend the extra for a really nice camera ship, I also have 50 other quads I could use. So for someone looking to dip their toe in, I think these are a nice gentle intro. I'll show you how they work, and the results and then people will decide if they look ok or not
What do you think about swapping electronic in it for a FC betaflight based and add Fpv camera ? My friend have soaked by water unit and is thinking about doing so instead putting in the bin... Would that make any sense to try and convert this large long flying drone into something better after rover sink? Apparently it is FC board which is boosted in it.. would the motors and GPS at least survived?
Usually, in a fresh water crash, you can save just about everything if you get it dried out properly and nothing got destroyed via shorts whilst it was in the water. I haven't opened this up, so what I don't know is the level of how integrated everything is. Hopefully, the ESCs are separate, and if that's the case then it's fairly easy to add a regular flight controller. It's probably harder to get things like the on/off button working and there's lots of "it depends" about using the existing GPS/compass. But certainly worth a try and an interesting project. I did this with a cheaper brushed quad ruclips.net/video/C1RB6aUfH6I/видео.html a few years ago
@@CurryKitten i know i have seen this but yeah, that particular cheap drone was not the best to do a try with. I thin it is much better and also easier to try and do same thing with bigger drone where like you wrote - ESCs may be separate and room for other electronic is significantly bigger in the fuselage plus you got larger battery and brushless decent motors. I will try I think and buy good F4 based FC to solder all in and with TBS crossfire module in it and decent Fpv camera like DJI It could be a perfect combination of foldable camera drone for far away landscape exploration flying and with protection from atmospheric conditions. I wish somebody did that already. But unfortunately everyone is focused on race drones and acro style flying if it comes to open FC programmable quality builds.
nice work! Your vertical calibration shows the sky, I think it should show the ground accord. to manual. My cam won't move but for a few sec. after start (had a few crashes!). I use mine as a walking exercise and I wish it had a "stay in front of me" instead of "follow me"! As such I fly non GPS. Strangely enough after 15 mins it still triggers the auto rth, a big pain for me (both physical and mental!) So now I'll walk to the park (about 10 mins) land it in the sport oval area then use it till the rth starts and fly it for the rest of the battery over the starting point area until it lands I have tried it near my house to inspect my roof... it was close to a disaster! I think one should always use sport mode else the drone does not seem to cope too well with moderate air currents. if it drifts away it won't come back. I have not use the rth yet. Probably on non GPS mode it won't work? No one seems to mention how quickly it can disappear out of site? But with a dark background, against the sun or two far It is very easy to loose it. It is a fairly large drone comparing to many little ones Yet it can become very small quickly. I can't imagine being able to see it at 500m.
In follow-me mode you can use the sticks and position the F11 where you want, in front, next, behind you. Then it will fly in compass position relative to you. If the drone is in front and you take a left turn it will be at your right. If you take a right turn it will follow at your left. What is can't do is read your mind to know where and when you are going to turn.
@@driewiel Hi D W, thanks for your post. I don't quite understand what you mean. But let's say if I want to go around a sport oval and got my drone 3 meters in front of me and engage the 'follow me' function and start to walk around the oval; will the drone stay 3 m in front of me and turn at all 4 corners of the oval. like if I was guiding it manually? I do understand it can't read my mind but it should read my movement shouldn't it? If what you seem to say is right "the 'follow me' would be more like "stay with me" .... I still have problem with the RTH on low battery regardless of having GPS activated or not. After around 15 mins. It sudenly hit for the stars to find its starting point. This to me is very bizzar because if it can follow, why can't it returne where we are? To complicate things I now can't start it as per instruction but found out that If I start it it will be on GPS mode (its default) and then if I desengage the GPS I can take off (else somehow I could not anymore?) So once I'm in the air I re engage the GPS...But I never know (without my phone) When GPS will be activated! And I believe this is why the Auto RTH can be anywhere and be problematic. My original post is 8 months old and since I had many crashes and repairs! My camera won't move any more although it still works! I am not sure of my drone future at this time, yes more breakage!
@@meeekstubbular OK lets start with the camera not moving anymore. In the app SJF Pro there is a setting PTZ Adjust. At the bottom click on Restore Factory Settings. Restart the drone. I managed to fix my gimbal after it went crazy.
@@meeekstubbular Then the Return To Home. Well the F11 4k can go into toilet bowl! I've had that a couple of times. Not good! I had all the trouble landing it safely. Doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes. I think I will turn off GPS and land it manually next time.
@@meeekstubbular Then the follow-me function. The F11 does a pretty good job in fact. It will fly in compass position north, south, east, west of you. If you change direction it will still be n,s,e,w. I like that. I much prefer it over 'string type' follow-me where the drone after it slides away only follows from behind. You can also use the sticks to change the position and altitude of the drone and it will stay in GPS mode. It even yaws the camera at you while doing so. But the follow-me is not the smoothest. You can see the camera go left right a bit. My cheaper L109 Pro for example is smoother. Only the camera is poor on that thing. The best feature of my L109 Pro however is the return-to-controller (phone) while in or after using follow-me. It automatically updates the home location to where you stopped follow-me. The F11 will always do a return-home to where it took off. Which is not what I want!! I have to race back like an idiot before a truck runs it over! More expensive drones always have that option. Like DJI Mini for example. I wish the Chinese would make a much better app for the F11. Follow-me is GPS. The drone follows the GPS location of your phone. Or controller when it has built-in GPS. But it cannot start taking corners by itself before you! And therefore it cannot fly in front of you all the time on a track. Maybe with really advanced optical active-track like on DJI drones it will be possible in the future. Right now active-track will either follow from behind, or stay in front or next to you in a straight line. The only way to constantly have it in front of you is to use a controller of some kind. This could be a tracking device with gyro like for example the Walkera T210 or Skydio 2. T Those can be operated with one hand.
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but is it not just a custom build of ardupilot? Could be replicated running ardupilot with here link or openhd?
That's a good idea for a build for you, make your own rth drone with its own controller and video app using only open source. I think making sdks to work with ardupilot can be a bit of a pain thouh.
Almost certainly not ardupilot. Although I do notice a lot of these quads use very similar (if not the same) wifi module. I get the feeling there's an off-the-shelf product they all stick in and just customise the app to make a little more like their own. Most of the stuff we fly is fully open source though, so a build using iNav with Open.HD would give you an RTH quad with HD video which is all open source. But right now, they don't recommend you fly off the phone app
Good review matey...footage was acceptable for the price ..range and smooth control, not so much...Lucky you have that big Farmers Field to fly in...🤔😳🇬🇧
It looks like very good drone for it's purpose. Image stabilization is actually crazy good for that price range. I think picture is still much better then at others at that price range(except Fimi A3). Flight time is also great for that price. You didn't mentioned nothing about lag. This is something what is for me very important info. Especially at 5G drones. 400 to 500m range is actually very good, but at what lag. I checked some specs: Image Recognition Follow Me: 3-10M GPS Follow Me: 10-100M So what this numbers means that for GPS Follow Me mode you have to be more then 10m away that works. I don't know if you have been 10m away? I would try again and be in this range numbers. Anyway review. You have a lot of birds there. What they are searching after the tractors, worms? Good luck. (Y)
Yes - the smoothness for me makes the picture. There's no point in having a lovely picture if it wobbles around is there. Fimi is an interesting one, as some of their stuff is a genuine rival for the DJI stuff. Lag wise is about "normal" It doesn't feel vastly different from flying a Mavic, but I do find the control (especially on the yaw) a little oversensitive - you could see me overshooting a few times I did try the follow me a lot of times at various ranges. It just didn't want to come and move towards me at all. In GPS I tried activating from more of a distance, or walking out further... nothing. In visual mode I would walk away and then after moving beyond a certain distance it would just lose the lock - never moved. I'm starting to get the impression that all of these run similar software as none of them seem to work as they should. Birds always following tractors for bugs that get churned up. I've flown in places where there's lots of Red Kites, and even these (which you'd think would be after much larger prey) follow tractors around for bugs
@@CurryKitten Such things as Follow me mode worked 4.5 years ago with Hubsan X4. That not works now is bit of shame. But O.k. I don't use that modes, cos is much more fun just to fly and for that this drone looks very good. About Fimi A3, I see it as semi professional camera drone. Is not as Mavic or even bigger FimiX8 brother with 4k camera. But still Fimi A3 1080 camera is crazy good, I think is even better then Hubsan ZINO(4k). While the price is crazy, is just at about 215$. About SJRC I have to say, is good company. I had some toy grade Syma X5 clone from SJRC and it worked great. It was actually mine first drone. :) Also I some action camera and have very good picture quality. I'm from Slovenia and mine English is so, so. So I rather say just birds, even I see you are from sea side?(it could be a lake, river delta). While names of sea birds are a little hard for me, ofcourse I know hawks, eagles,... but sea side birds,... I can't remember anyone. I'm from inland, even Slovenia is very small, still have about 200km to the sea. And we are not on Euro again. Even half of Europe is there, starting soon. For next weeks will be just footbal, football, football,.... and a lot of beer. ;) Cheers, Skol, Slainte. :)
Why do people never hold the quad above their heads whilst geo calibrating? Surely it would be more accurate? since the user would be rotating the craft down their central vertical axis instead of spinning in an arc/circle when doing it at chest/waist height as seen here.
It doesn't need to be spun around a tight central axis, so it doesn't matter. The main reason for holding up above your head, I would guess, is that you are normally looking for a light to indicate it's done which is often hard to see in the best of cases
@@CurryKitten Hello, no one seems to say how long it takes to get it on GPS after this 'little dance'. Mine stop completely to start this way. So I turn it on, disable the gps and then it will take off with the 2 joysticks down and inward. Then I re enable GPS that may take quite a bit of time b4 being activated, but it flies.
So why is this considered "toy grade" and not at least "hobby grade?" It is superior to the $309 - $400 Mavics and some of them only do 2k. Nobody considers them toy grade because they cost so much (for less). Is price really the defining factor with this toy/hobby/pro grade scale? Shouldn't it instead be features and wind stability regardless of price? It really doesn't get much better than this until you break that $800 price point. At that point it is almost exclusively JUST a better camera. If my budget is between $200 and $400 I would NEVER buy the tiny Mavics to get only 2k video when there isn't any significant wind. Seems like you can get a legit hobby grade drone for about $250 these days. Maybe less if you find one in sale.
There's not a line where something ceases to be toy-grade and becomes hobby-grade, so some of these start to blur the line a little bit. However, this is in no way superior to any of the Mavics - ignore the fact that this does 4k. Having a really good 1080p sensor is much more preferable to something that does a bad 4k. This camera isn't bad, its stabilization is quite good, but the noise and focus on that 4k camera isn't up to scratch at all. Also, the range isn't great and half the modes don't seem to work properly. With that said, one of the reasons I review these types of quads is to give people a proper idea of how they work and the sort of results you get. For me, I look at this footage next to a Mavic and think it's not worth going cheap. Other people seem to think that the results and the operation of these are absolutely fine - so if the footage feels good to them and they are having fun, then I'm all good with it.
I have the DJI P4 Pro but I bought the F11 Pro 4K just for fun. I wouldn't class the F11 "toy grade". In GPS mode, this drone is stress free...a joy to fly. My videos to phone monitor were stunning...so sharp and brilliant colour and when "screen shared" to my 85" TV, the clarity and colour made my jaw drop. The only things missing are obstacle avoidance and optical flow but that's where the price goes up. This drone is fantastic value with genuine 4K on SD card recording...and 2 axis gimble with EIS gives exceptional smooth, stable video. If you fly in GPS mode you will avoid so many dramas. The technology is there to bring your baby home safely in any scenario. The carry case is also a classy touch.
Usually, this type of quad is for someone who didn't want to spend out big on a DJI. I'm slightly confused about why you have both - other than you seem a bit stressed about all that money being in the air :) It flies nicely and I think the EIS does a really great job. The resulting video looks horrible next to a DJI quad though
I started off with a f11 drone and know I fly FPV. Great drone if I could get another I would, the pro to be exactly
Awesome flying and review, Wayne! 😃
Pretty impressive drone! Not bad at all!!!
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Thanks MC - you too!
Not looking for a camera drone, but still like to watch the reviews, and this was a nice one, thanks. Drone is nice too for that price, but you're right, it's definitely not a 4k sensor, pretty sure it's an upscaled 1080p image. Or it crops the sensor for extra digital stabilisation.
Good call - yes there's probably extra cropping going on here for stabilization, so they are probably scaling up and even smaller base image
Actually it's a true 4K photo mode, 2.9 K video.
Mate, really helpful video. I have a few questions please.
1) when I land my f11 the motors still keep running trying to hit the grass
2) my drone was stable but all of a sudden it went in one direction and hit a fence, was it due to wind or poor GPS?
3) is there an option to record 1080p can't find it on the app?
4) my propps are scuffed but not proper damaged, when to change them.
Really appreciate your answers on these
1 - When landing, I keep my thumb on the throttle down position. When it first lands it keeps spinning, but after a few seconds of the throttle held at zero it disarms. Do you keep that throttle held down all the way? 2 - More likely a GPs glitch rather than the wind, as it seemed to handle gusts quite well. You can get into an area where you'll lose an amount of GPS sats and this can cause the position to update and the quad thinks it's 10m away from where it should be which can end in a rapid maneuver. The app doesn't show actual sat numbers, only a strength indication, but if you are recording the screen you could check back and see if anything dropped. 3 - From memory, No I couldn't see it either. Obviously you can scale down to 1080 in a video editor, but the 4k files do take up a bit more space. 4 - Scuffed it ok, if you are still getting smooth video from them, then it's not a worry.
@@CurryKitten thanks mate for your prompt reply, you have gained a permanent subscriber for life :)
Yes I keep the throttle down all the way, sometimes I think it's gonna flip back and I press stop. I'll test your way tomorrow
Just a follow-up question please,
Is there an app that can show GPS strength in different areas? My app keeps indicating GPS signal weak or lost is it because of my phone or because my backyard doesn't have the coverage?
Thanks again mate
A little late perhaps but just saw this. I wonder when your drone changed direction?. I fly non gps and after 15 minutes it triggers the auto return home (low battey) and will attempt to get back to its starting point! Usually it shoots up then head to the starting point but it you're flying low.....
to stop the motors it seems to me you have to hit the stop and again then keep pressing it. I found sensors in the front legs, maybe they don't do their job properly on soft ground?
Only just discovered your channel and like your style. Thinking of getting back into drones and have been looking at the F11, That was until i came across the Visuo k3 KF 101. Just a penny for your thoughts if you've come across it. Thanks
I haven't flown the Visuo. Just looking at it, it looks pretty similar to the other stuff that's out there. The problem I have with these - at least just from the specs - is being able to tell the end video quality. This F11 has a really nice stable picture (although the downside was that it was a bit noisy) but if you have a look at a similar drone like the ZLRC Beast ruclips.net/video/o_xV98kqvAg/видео.html&ab_channel=CurryKitten the picture is less noisy, but the image jumps about. Which one will the Visuo go - don't know. So make sure you find someone who's flown it and posted the raw video up on RUclips so you'll at least get an idea of if the video is good enough for what you want.
Thanks for the review, very useful. Any advice on parts for self build of something similar (budget). Needs stability and flight time like this one, but does not need range. We want to use it for security neighbourhood watch purposes, so basically to go up and stable video to ground. Do not need 4k, 1080p is plenty. I will probably try openHD once your drone test of it is in, so I am looking into parts for frame, esc, motors, flight control (something open that can run ardupilot probably). pixhawk seems on the costly side.
lets be honest for the price...its amazing value. If you want a 4k top quality drone then spend an extra £400 ...but when it goes rogue thats a huge a amount of money flying off into the distance lol, great review and new sub added!!
Yes indeed. Different people want different things out of their quads - whilst I would always spend the extra for a really nice camera ship, I also have 50 other quads I could use. So for someone looking to dip their toe in, I think these are a nice gentle intro. I'll show you how they work, and the results and then people will decide if they look ok or not
What do you think about swapping electronic in it for a FC betaflight based and add Fpv camera ? My friend have soaked by water unit and is thinking about doing so instead putting in the bin... Would that make any sense to try and convert this large long flying drone into something better after rover sink? Apparently it is FC board which is boosted in it.. would the motors and GPS at least survived?
Usually, in a fresh water crash, you can save just about everything if you get it dried out properly and nothing got destroyed via shorts whilst it was in the water. I haven't opened this up, so what I don't know is the level of how integrated everything is. Hopefully, the ESCs are separate, and if that's the case then it's fairly easy to add a regular flight controller. It's probably harder to get things like the on/off button working and there's lots of "it depends" about using the existing GPS/compass. But certainly worth a try and an interesting project. I did this with a cheaper brushed quad ruclips.net/video/C1RB6aUfH6I/видео.html a few years ago
@@CurryKitten i know i have seen this but yeah, that particular cheap drone was not the best to do a try with. I thin it is much better and also easier to try and do same thing with bigger drone where like you wrote - ESCs may be separate and room for other electronic is significantly bigger in the fuselage plus you got larger battery and brushless decent motors. I will try I think and buy good F4 based FC to solder all in and with TBS crossfire module in it and decent Fpv camera like DJI It could be a perfect combination of foldable camera drone for far away landscape exploration flying and with protection from atmospheric conditions. I wish somebody did that already. But unfortunately everyone is focused on race drones and acro style flying if it comes to open FC programmable quality builds.
I do have a few of these types of quads - so perhaps I'll crack on open and see how it looks for a conversion
I would love to see a video of an electronic rebuild of one of these drones, I am going to ride this one until it dies and do that with it.
nice work! Your vertical calibration shows the sky, I think it should show the ground accord. to manual.
My cam won't move but for a few sec. after start (had a few crashes!).
I use mine as a walking exercise and I wish it had a "stay in front of me" instead of "follow me"! As such I fly non GPS. Strangely enough after 15 mins it still triggers the auto rth, a big pain for me (both physical and mental!) So now I'll walk to the park (about 10 mins) land it in the sport oval area then use it till the rth starts and fly it for the rest of the battery over the starting point area until it lands
I have tried it near my house to inspect my roof... it was close to a disaster! I think one should always use sport mode else the drone does not seem to cope too well with moderate air currents. if it drifts away it won't come back.
I have not use the rth yet. Probably on non GPS mode it won't work?
No one seems to mention how quickly it can disappear out of site? But with a dark background, against the sun or two far It is very easy to loose it. It is a fairly large drone comparing to many little ones Yet it can become very small quickly. I can't imagine being able to see it at 500m.
In follow-me mode you can use the sticks and position the F11 where you want, in front, next, behind you. Then it will fly in compass position relative to you. If the drone is in front and you take a left turn it will be at your right. If you take a right turn it will follow at your left.
What is can't do is read your mind to know where and when you are going to turn.
@@driewiel Hi D W, thanks for your post. I don't quite understand what you mean. But let's say if I want to go around a sport oval and got my drone 3 meters in front of me and engage the 'follow me' function and start to walk around the oval; will the drone stay 3 m in front of me and turn at all 4 corners of the oval. like if I was guiding it manually? I do understand it can't read my mind but it should read my movement shouldn't it? If what you seem to say is right "the 'follow me' would be more like "stay with me" ....
I still have problem with the RTH on low battery regardless of having GPS activated or not. After around 15 mins. It sudenly hit for the stars to find its starting point. This to me is very bizzar because if it can follow, why can't it returne where we are?
To complicate things I now can't start it as per instruction but found out that If I start it it will be on GPS mode (its default) and then if I desengage the GPS I can take off (else somehow I could not anymore?) So once I'm in the air I re engage the GPS...But I never know (without my phone) When GPS will be activated! And I believe this is why the Auto RTH can be anywhere and be problematic.
My original post is 8 months old and since I had many crashes and repairs! My camera won't move any more although it still works!
I am not sure of my drone future at this time, yes more breakage!
@@meeekstubbular OK lets start with the camera not moving anymore. In the app SJF Pro there is a setting PTZ Adjust. At the bottom click on Restore Factory Settings. Restart the drone. I managed to fix my gimbal after it went crazy.
@@meeekstubbular Then the Return To Home. Well the F11 4k can go into toilet bowl! I've had that a couple of times. Not good! I had all the trouble landing it safely. Doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes. I think I will turn off GPS and land it manually next time.
@@meeekstubbular Then the follow-me function. The F11 does a pretty good job in fact. It will fly in compass position north, south, east, west of you. If you change direction it will still be n,s,e,w. I like that. I much prefer it over 'string type' follow-me where the drone after it slides away only follows from behind.
You can also use the sticks to change the position and altitude of the drone and it will stay in GPS mode. It even yaws the camera at you while doing so.
But the follow-me is not the smoothest. You can see the camera go left right a bit. My cheaper L109 Pro for example is smoother. Only the camera is poor on that thing.
The best feature of my L109 Pro however is the return-to-controller (phone) while in or after using follow-me. It automatically updates the home location to where you stopped follow-me. The F11 will always do a return-home to where it took off. Which is not what I want!! I have to race back like an idiot before a truck runs it over!
More expensive drones always have that option. Like DJI Mini for example. I wish the Chinese would make a much better app for the F11.
Follow-me is GPS. The drone follows the GPS location of your phone. Or controller when it has built-in GPS. But it cannot start taking corners by itself before you! And therefore it cannot fly in front of you all the time on a track.
Maybe with really advanced optical active-track like on DJI drones it will be possible in the future. Right now active-track will either follow from behind, or stay in front or next to you in a straight line. The only way to constantly have it in front of you is to use a controller of some kind. This could be a tracking device with gyro like for example the Walkera T210 or Skydio 2. T
Those can be operated with one hand.
The footage doesn't looks like 4k ??
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but is it not just a custom build of ardupilot? Could be replicated running ardupilot with here link or openhd?
That's a good idea for a build for you, make your own rth drone with its own controller and video app using only open source. I think making sdks to work with ardupilot can be a bit of a pain thouh.
Almost certainly not ardupilot. Although I do notice a lot of these quads use very similar (if not the same) wifi module. I get the feeling there's an off-the-shelf product they all stick in and just customise the app to make a little more like their own. Most of the stuff we fly is fully open source though, so a build using iNav with Open.HD would give you an RTH quad with HD video which is all open source. But right now, they don't recommend you fly off the phone app
Good review matey...footage was acceptable for the price ..range and smooth control, not so much...Lucky you have that big Farmers Field to fly in...🤔😳🇬🇧
Thanks - I think I have about another month there before I have to find a new home
@@CurryKitten I have a similar problem TBH...meantime, they're concreting over England...It needs to stop...🤔🇬🇧😳🙄
It looks like very good drone for it's purpose. Image stabilization is actually crazy good for that price range. I think picture is still much better then at others at that price range(except Fimi A3). Flight time is also great for that price. You didn't mentioned nothing about lag. This is something what is for me very important info. Especially at 5G drones. 400 to 500m range is actually very good, but at what lag.
I checked some specs:
Image Recognition Follow Me: 3-10M
GPS Follow Me: 10-100M
So what this numbers means that for GPS Follow Me mode you have to be more then 10m away that works. I don't know if you have been 10m away? I would try again and be in this range numbers.
Anyway review. You have a lot of birds there. What they are searching after the tractors, worms?
Good luck. (Y)
Yes - the smoothness for me makes the picture. There's no point in having a lovely picture if it wobbles around is there. Fimi is an interesting one, as some of their stuff is a genuine rival for the DJI stuff. Lag wise is about "normal" It doesn't feel vastly different from flying a Mavic, but I do find the control (especially on the yaw) a little oversensitive - you could see me overshooting a few times
I did try the follow me a lot of times at various ranges. It just didn't want to come and move towards me at all. In GPS I tried activating from more of a distance, or walking out further... nothing. In visual mode I would walk away and then after moving beyond a certain distance it would just lose the lock - never moved. I'm starting to get the impression that all of these run similar software as none of them seem to work as they should.
Birds always following tractors for bugs that get churned up. I've flown in places where there's lots of Red Kites, and even these (which you'd think would be after much larger prey) follow tractors around for bugs
@@CurryKitten Such things as Follow me mode worked 4.5 years ago with Hubsan X4. That not works now is bit of shame. But O.k. I don't use that modes, cos is much more fun just to fly and for that this drone looks very good. About Fimi A3, I see it as semi professional camera drone. Is not as Mavic or even bigger FimiX8 brother with 4k camera. But still Fimi A3 1080 camera is crazy good, I think is even better then Hubsan ZINO(4k). While the price is crazy, is just at about 215$.
About SJRC I have to say, is good company. I had some toy grade Syma X5 clone from SJRC and it worked great. It was actually mine first drone. :) Also I some action camera and have very good picture quality.
I'm from Slovenia and mine English is so, so. So I rather say just birds, even I see you are from sea side?(it could be a lake, river delta). While names of sea birds are a little hard for me, ofcourse I know hawks, eagles,... but sea side birds,... I can't remember anyone. I'm from inland, even Slovenia is very small, still have about 200km to the sea.
And we are not on Euro again. Even half of Europe is there, starting soon. For next weeks will be just footbal, football, football,.... and a lot of beer. ;) Cheers, Skol, Slainte. :)
Odd, the issues you had. A few other reviewers all had no problems with follow me mode, couple others also getting 1000m
So which is better mjxrc bug 16 pro or this
This.
You have a weird way of calibrating the compass...
Why do people never hold the quad above their heads whilst geo calibrating?
Surely it would be more accurate? since the user would be rotating the craft down their central vertical axis instead of spinning in an arc/circle when doing it at chest/waist height as seen here.
It doesn't need to be spun around a tight central axis, so it doesn't matter. The main reason for holding up above your head, I would guess, is that you are normally looking for a light to indicate it's done which is often hard to see in the best of cases
@@CurryKitten aah thankyou 😊👍
@@CurryKitten Hello, no one seems to say how long it takes to get it on GPS after this 'little dance'. Mine stop completely to start this way. So I turn it on, disable the gps and then it will take off with the 2 joysticks down and inward. Then I re enable GPS that may take quite a bit of time b4 being activated, but it flies.
What's the bitrate of the video file saved on SD?
I think I mention this in the video, but according to Quicktime it's 42.03Mbit/s at 30fps at 4k
It's consistent with what I've seen (~42Mbps). I wish we could set this higher.. 60-100Mbps, or choose 1080P/2K@60FPS
So why is this considered "toy grade" and not at least "hobby grade?" It is superior to the $309 - $400 Mavics and some of them only do 2k. Nobody considers them toy grade because they cost so much (for less). Is price really the defining factor with this toy/hobby/pro grade scale? Shouldn't it instead be features and wind stability regardless of price? It really doesn't get much better than this until you break that $800 price point. At that point it is almost exclusively JUST a better camera. If my budget is between $200 and $400 I would NEVER buy the tiny Mavics to get only 2k video when there isn't any significant wind. Seems like you can get a legit hobby grade drone for about $250 these days. Maybe less if you find one in sale.
There's not a line where something ceases to be toy-grade and becomes hobby-grade, so some of these start to blur the line a little bit. However, this is in no way superior to any of the Mavics - ignore the fact that this does 4k. Having a really good 1080p sensor is much more preferable to something that does a bad 4k. This camera isn't bad, its stabilization is quite good, but the noise and focus on that 4k camera isn't up to scratch at all. Also, the range isn't great and half the modes don't seem to work properly. With that said, one of the reasons I review these types of quads is to give people a proper idea of how they work and the sort of results you get. For me, I look at this footage next to a Mavic and think it's not worth going cheap. Other people seem to think that the results and the operation of these are absolutely fine - so if the footage feels good to them and they are having fun, then I'm all good with it.
I think your problems stem from using a crApple iphone! Other reviewers don't have problems using android phones! 🤣
I can only base a review on my own experience. If they'd have said "some stuff only works on Android" then I'd have used an Android device
@@CurryKitten I know! Lol. It's just banter!