3DR, think I'll throwing in the towel

[twitchyzero]

that is hliarious

yeah it was a great joke, not

care to elaborate?

 

[Bart]

How are people having issues with range? Are you flying out of LOS?

Can you post a video showing your gimbal video problems? Because If you postulate that the solo is capable of perfect or near perfect unprocessed video then isn't the solution to get "your" solo to do that whatever your current issues are?

Legs in the video. You seriously can't figure this one out?

 

[Marich]

This is an interesting thread.
As much as I love modern tech, I still fly my single -channel RC planes, as well as 2 to 8 channel ones. I don't wanna get lazy! Above all its my love of flying itself driving me, NOT auto-piloting (self-piloting) stuff so many depend on nowadays.
The other day I saw a guy flying a modern RC trainer. Looked just like they used to... until I got a close look. It could literally take off and land by itself, and went into a "holding pattern" if the new pilot got disoriented. A chief selling point was its crash proof nature.
Good Lord - when I learned to fly, crashing was considered almost a ride of passage. I didn't have instructors and I ran through half a dozen planes before I even BEGAN to be able to go up and get down again with any certainty of success.
Old timers like me, listen up..
We wuz robbed!

 

[Brebs]

It does feel like the ultimate agenda was to create an open framework on this drone for the price of an APPLE, which in many ways is a better deal considering that most of the IP in apple has always been years old. But now that the J curve on drones is hitting average consumers and the world normalises to the nature of them, 3DR does have a problem in that the physical device needs to be reduced and support for it reduced to move costs into software development and to find markets that way. I get it.. APPS for drones. But there is massive gaps still and other companies such as INTEL now in make this harder again. I am not too sure what the outcome may be, but we are working on a few products for this device, only to perhaps apply them to more cost effective devices later.

My last point I am sure is valuid for a few companies and inventors...

But hey, it is all fun and that's the main thing, way better than 30 years ago getting a kite out of a tree .

 

[EyeWingsuit]

I'd put that question to @EyeWingsuit , I think with his vantage point he could provide a close answer if not an educated answer...but then that would be another topic...start another thread or poll with that question and tag him in your post....

Me personally, I think 99% would like to turn the endeavor into a money machine...you name it as the sky is the limit.

The politic answer is that nearly everyone that I run across (so my cross section is biased) is feeling they want to make a "living" doing this, and 107 will allow it to happen within strict boundaries.

In the Commercial world, 3DR is the absolute owner. Anything with pixhawk wins. Even a DJI 1000 with a pixhawk controller.

 

[JoelNewman]

In the Commercial world, 3DR is the absolute owner.

I have to disagree on this. All of the multirotors I work with commercially (Inspire, S900, and two Aeronavics SkyJibs) run DJI gear because they just work.
Admittedly you do have to be careful with updates (always stay one update behind the latest, never update just before a job etc), but when you get on site and the clients are looking over your shoulder and half the workforce are standing there with smartphones then you want it to start first time.
I would never take my Solo to a client-facing job like that because I don't want to stand around like an idiot for 10 minutes hoping like hell I'm going to get GPS lock. Yeah sure I can do half a dozen mods to fix all of the the little niggles but for commercial work I don't want to spend weeks getting a new aircraft up-to-spec, and I'd hate to think what CASA or my insurance company would think if one of the mods was responsible for an incident.

I am working on ways to use the Solo commercially, but it will never be for video work (the gimbal is still nowhere near as good as a Zenmuse H4-3D) and never for anything time sensitive.
But the capabilities of the Solo and Pixhawk 2 do offer up commercial opportunities if you're willing to think outside the box.

I understand the OPs frustrations, but I think you need to make a choice whether you want cutting edge or reliable, you won't get both in the same product.

 

[EyeWingsuit]

I have to disagree on this. All of the multirotors I work with commercially (Inspire, S900, and two Aeronavics SkyJibs) run DJI gear because they just work.
Admittedly you do have to be careful with updates (always stay one update behind the latest, never update just before a job etc), but when you get on site and the clients are looking over your shoulder and half the workforce are standing there with smartphones then you want it to start first time.
I would never take my Solo to a client-facing job like that because I don't want to stand around like an idiot for 10 minutes hoping like hell I'm going to get GPS lock. Yeah sure I can do half a dozen mods to fix all of the the little niggles but for commercial work I don't want to spend weeks getting a new aircraft up-to-spec, and I'd hate to think what CASA or my insurance company would think if one of the mods was responsible for an incident.

I am working on ways to use the Solo commercially, but it will never be for video work (the gimbal is still nowhere near as good as a Zenmuse H4-3D) and never for anything time sensitive.
But the capabilities of the Solo and Pixhawk 2 do offer up commercial opportunities if you're willing to think outside the box.

I understand the OPs frustrations, but I think you need to make a choice whether you want cutting edge or reliable, you won't get both in the same product.

I understand the perspective of "what I work with..." I don't just work with commercial drones, I run three different branded companies with multiple brick/mortar locations plus two distribution houses. The number of site scan, Solos for ag, Telecom RFQ's that come in weekly are heavily 3DR solo designated. At retail and small scale, no doubt that DJI owns the market by nearly half, although that seems to be rapidly diminishing. Solo has by far the best automated system there is, and it's not just that I feel that way because I own four solo's, I feel that way because of what I hear multiple times a week from my staff and our clients around North America. Just dropped 10 Solos into an Oil/Gas in Alaska, and another 5 into a telecom in Calgary, Albera. We've only gotten in two tethered systems and both went to a business in Las Vegas who by contract, cannot be named but they're being used for portable surveillance.

While small-time shops may not care for Solo and prefer the DJI product, don't for a second think that defines what is happening on the commerce side of the industry. Furthermore, seeing more and more solo being spec'd out in Hollywood calls for camera ops. In maybe two weeks, you'll learn about a big one, whose director specifically sought out solo for some shots that could only be accomplished in an unmanned, non-jib environment, as it's a multimillion $$ one-take. Solo's repeatable automation made it work.

 

[pyrate]

interesting indeed

 

[Bigskyflyer]

There's no need for labeling/stereotyping millennials here...I tried dealing with many of the shortcomings by dumping considerable amount on mods for an entire year.
mediocre range = higher gain antenna, legs in shot, sliders, vibrations in gimbal...no hardware mod is an end-all be-all so I'll rely on post stabilization, balancing weights and filters. I'm sure I'm missing a few more. Trust me, if I wanted instant gratification I wouldn't even have bothered backing Solo, a relatively unknown product at the time of ordering.

I gain nothing from bashing 3DR...I feel my initial post is reflective and honest of my experiences. I would hardly call the headaches perceived....some are subjective sure others are purely objective. If you can put a positive spin to them exiting consumer space, taking away upcoming selling points because they lost lead developers and non-transparent communication and silence on major issues then I'd argue that's blind loyalty.

I have no problem adming 3DR Solo is my first quad. It was promised to be easy, set-up your frames and off you go. I familiarize myself with fly:manual only for emergency purposes during GPS loss.. If you're wealthy or have insurance to cover loss, I'm happy for you but I won't risk flying without GPS. I'm just a hobbyist for photography and now multirotors. If it's a user-error I'll take the responsibilities. I just don't feel Solo is a confident/stable platform.

Members here can criticize the early object avoidance and other nanny features...I'd say better safe than sorry, it's hardly a bad idea having options. Not everyone flying has hundreds and hundreds of flying hours under their belt nor is it a requirement to enjoy this hobby.

Ah yes, I remember the slogan, so easy a monkey can fly it, hardly. 3dr is the one who aimed the solo at the hobbyists as a RTF, worlds first smart drone. It fell very short of RTF and is hardly the first smart drone. There are other manufacturers who left Wi Fi connectivity in the 90's where it belongs and who's GPS is far superior to the Solo's. And now you have to pretty much use an Apple device if you want to benefit from future firmware improvements, smart move on 3dr's part to piss off the many Android users out there. They should have aimed their advertising at people that have the time to tinker and upgrade and that have endless cash. My guess is there are a lot of just hobbyists out there and there are far better choices for them than the Solo. This is not saying that the Solo is a bad bird but it should never have been aimed at hobbyists. It requires a lot of patience, time and money to get it where 3dr advertised it to be out of the box. On top of that 3dr seems to be wanting to put the solo in their rear view mirror and move onto a different market. I wonder where the future proof solo will be in the not too distant future when the hardware will be outdated and parts from 3dr are non existent. It doesn't look like sales of the solo were high enough to warrant 3rd party manufacturers to supply the high dollar parts that will, sooner or later, fail. This is all just an observation from watching 3dr's actions lately. I may be completely off base but this is what 3dr is portraying right now. I hope I am wrong for everyone's sake. So Twitchy, I understand your frustrations and I acted on mine some time ago. I periodically check in here to see if things are improving but it seems they are not. Seems to me that there are not a lot of new members here, just the same die hard Solo guys that will eventually go down with the ship, if or when it goes down. BTW I am 55 years old or young, however you want to look at it.

 

[JoelNewman]

The number of site scan, Solos for ag, Telecom RFQ's that come in weekly are heavily 3DR solo designated.

Well that is good news, and it probably shows that clients are becoming a lot more sensible in what they're asking for. Plenty of the tenders I've seen ask for ridiculous things - ie an intrinsically safe UAV for an LNG refinery, RTK precision on a landfill stockpile, 1cm resolution on a 500km long pipeline etc etc

A fleet of Solos would be fine for an infrastructure company to use internally because timeliness is less of a factor in that situation. But if a client pays me thousands of dollars and flies me to a minesite in West Africa then I need to know it's going to work when I get there.

In maybe two weeks, you'll learn about a big one, whose director specifically sought out solo for some shots that could only be accomplished in an unmanned, non-jib environment, as it's a multimillion $$ one-take.

That sends shivers down my spine, but with enough Solos at their disposal there should be enough redundancy to pull it off. I look forward to seeing the results.

 

[EyeWingsuit]

Ah yes, I remember the slogan, so easy a monkey can fly it, hardly. 3dr is the one who aimed the solo at the hobbyists as a RTF, worlds first smart drone. It fell very short of RTF and is hardly the first smart drone. There are other manufacturers who left Wi Fi connectivity in the 90's where it belongs and who's GPS is far superior to the Solo's. And now you have to pretty much use an Apple device if you want to benefit from future firmware improvements, smart move on 3dr's part to piss off the many Android users out there. They should have aimed their advertising at people that have the time to tinker and upgrade and that have endless cash. My guess is there are a lot of just hobbyists out there and there are far better choices for them than the Solo. This is not saying that the Solo is a bad bird but it should never have been aimed at hobbyists. It requires a lot of patience, time and money to get it where 3dr advertised it to be out of the box. On top of that 3dr seems to be wanting to put the solo in their rear view mirror and move onto a different market. I wonder where the future proof solo will be in the not too distant future when the hardware will be outdated and parts from 3dr are non existent. It doesn't look like sales of the solo were high enough to warrant 3rd party manufacturers to supply the high dollar parts that will, sooner or later, fail. This is all just an observation from watching 3dr's actions lately. I may be completely off base but this is what 3dr is portraying right now. I hope I am wrong for everyone's sake. So Twitchy, I understand your frustrations and I acted on mine some time ago. I periodically check in here to see if things are improving but it seems they are not. Seems to me that there are not a lot of new members here, just the same die hard Solo guys that will eventually go down with the ship, if or when it goes down. BTW I am 55 years old or young, however you want to look at it.

3DR's biggest problem is they suffer from marketing. Their VP marketing seems to know next to nothing about the industry, and seems to care even less. That's easily the most frustrating aspect of the company. You're not terribly off about much of what you say. It actually is (now) a straight out of the box, great flying RTF. Losing android...not a well-thought out move given the sector in the industry they're wanting to capture. It's been a challenge in the last three weeks having that conversation with people who spec'd 3DR as part of a larger solution.

 

[JoelNewman]

3DR's biggest problem is they suffer from marketing. Their VP marketing seems to know next to nothing about the industry, and seems to care even less.

Like releasing Sitescan when it didn't even have GCP support.
I've learnt to be skeptical of marketing in this industry, but that was when I realised 3DR wasn't immune to it.

 

[Brebs]

Well that is good news, and it probably shows that clients are becoming a lot more sensible in what they're asking for. Plenty of the tenders I've seen ask for ridiculous things - ie an intrinsically safe UAV for an LNG refinery, RTK precision on a landfill stockpile, 1cm resolution on a 500km long pipeline etc etc

A fleet of Solos would be fine for an infrastructure company to use internally because timeliness is less of a factor in that situation. But if a client pays me thousands of dollars and flies me to a minesite in West Africa then I need to know it's going to work when I get there.



That sends shivers down my spine, but with enough Solos at their disposal there should be enough redundancy to pull it off. I look forward to seeing the results.

If we had this when I was 3 years at QGC on integrations in GIS it would have helped. Good luck on the trip, don't forget to take all batteries in carry on..

 

[JoelNewman]

Good luck on the trip, don't forget to take all batteries in carry on..

Thanks but no I don't have any travel plans at the moment, that was just an example. But there was one trip to Africa where two 'proper' survey fixed-wings failed on me and I was left with just an Inspire 1 to do training and map an exploration project, an open pit mine, some stockpiles and a quarry. In fact the guys I was training are still using that Inspire - it's lasted months in some pretty harsh conditions, from tropical jungle to the edge of the Sahara. Anyway to bring this back on topic, when I was deciding what drone to take over there to train them up on I would never have considered a Solo because it needs so much TLC.

 

[Brebs]

ahh sorry I read too quick buying end of year hardware Yeah I'd agree, I am developing applications for the Solo at the moment, however the reality here is that any drone with an XYZ and sensors and solid I/O can do what we need, so it is a good test bird. I have flown one is a cyclone (not much rain) and it was pretty solid, dust and exposure on the entire device is an issue for real world stuff like Upstream etc..

Good to be in touch.

 

[franknitty69]

Like releasing Sitescan when it didn't even have GCP support.
I've learnt to be skeptical of marketing in this industry, but that was when I realised 3DR wasn't immune to it.

sitescan uses recap360. recap360 supports gcps. so as long as your sitescan uploaded images are in a360, you can perform registration and set scale in recap360.

and with SiteScan ESRI integration, Drone2Map supports GCPs as well. so i think its safe to say that SiteScan supports GCPs.

 

[JoelNewman]

so i think its safe to say that SiteScan supports GCPs.

I was making the point that it was released before they'd put GCP support in.
It was the first thing that any engineer or surveyor would've been asking - how accurate is it? And they had no answer. There's still no mention of accuracy I can see on any of the marketing. Resolution is not accuracy.

 

[pyrate]

3DR's biggest problem is they suffer from marketing. Their VP marketing seems to know next to nothing about the industry, and seems to care even less. That's easily the most frustrating aspect of the company. You're not terribly off about much of what you say. It actually is (now) a straight out of the box, great flying RTF. Losing android...not a well-thought out move given the sector in the industry they're wanting to capture. It's been a challenge in the last three weeks having that conversation with people who spec'd 3DR as part of a larger solution.

Man that is soo true. Solo could have been launched and received so much better.
Take the latest release. There is some awesome stuff in there. But people do not know how to use it, so they are crashing drones and getting frustrated. What should have been a homerun for 3DR is at best a base hit. The sad part is there are some real dedicated people over there still, not to mention a lot of people who were let go or left. Classic example of top down management and the top is clueless

 

[Don H.]

My dads first RC airplane in the 60s had one single button on the controller. One. Nothing else. You could do everything with that one button lol. It took a lot of flying and learning. Was that 3 rapid button presses to get it to descend? Or 5? You had to actually know everything and couldn't even get up in the air unless you already pretty much did know. Now you just press a button and expect it to do everything.[/QUOTE]


You forgot to mention that you had to wind up the rubber band for the escapement. I believe it was 1 press to turn left, press again to center, 2 press to turn right and 1 to center. Somewhere around here I still have pieces of my dad's old system from the '60s.
It was a Controlaire Mule. A single channel rudder only system. One button and it used 27 MHz as the frequency. That was the first rc I ever got to fly. It was confusing for a me as a kid.
Ahh, the good 'ol days. Thank god for technology.

 

[rcglider]

Nixing Android is why I didn't go to BB and pick up another Solo to replace the ones I returned last year. I absolutely refuse to buy an Apple product just so I can fly the Solo when I have two Samsung tablets and a phone that worked perfectly fine before.

So what's the word? Is 3DR abandoning Android? If not, what is the rumored date to fix the problem?