3DR, think I'll throwing in the towel

[PdxSteve]

All we know for sure is Android will not be getting all of the same features that ios will starting with 2.4 and it seems we will be waiting weeks in between ios and android versions now instead of hours or days. The only thing they've officially said is they are working on 2.4 and it will be out "in several weeks" but won't have all the same functionality.

 

[PdxSteve]

If you really want to use solo to its full capability, it seems you will need both and Apple and Android device.

Android won't have augmented reality or features that use an altimeter (even if your device has an altimeter), like follow me up a mountain. Who knows what else they will leave out going forward.

Apple does not have Tower or any decent mission planning app and has not announced plans to bring it.

 

[pyrate]

been addressed by 3DR
answer is yes and no
I am convinced we will see 2.4.0 on android with zip line, pano and new follow me features but without the geo fense or augmented home point.
When is anyones guess

Even if android solo was never updated again. I can accomplish a lot with a working Multipoint Cable. The crashing issues were addressed with a firmware update.

But I will caution anyone who is waiting for perfection. Dont get a solo if you think it will never have challenges.
You can listen to the white guys who swear their DJI outperform solo and grab one of those, just dont gripe when reality sets in.

In my experience now with customs, Yuneec's and solo. There is not a more capable out of the box solution than solo for the money.

 

[Lastduik]

D

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.

Don't worry about pyrate he's a knob head

 

[pyrate]

Well since we are assigning labels your a bit of a drama queen for an Aussie

 

[v3rlon]

I think the first couple of responses nailed it. Where can you go to get better?
Solo isn't perfect, but neither are DJI or Yuneeq. What major upgrade has either of them offered to their line that didn't involve a new drone? I think the DJI warranty is something like "we guarantee you will be able to buy a brand new one as long as you have available credit." Their customer service pledge is about the same.

The software upgrades on solo are huge, but it sound like you want the parachute.
Where's the official DJI parachute? And you were concerned about $$$. DJI doesn't exactly give things away.

They do have optical flow, but that doesn't solve everything either. Witness the DJI vs Typhoon 'see we can crash the other guy's drone vids.'

 

[pyrate]

exactly
I was watching some H stuff, shameless how they stole Multipoint Cable
Now they have to add Zipline and Pano to keep up

 

[Kelly Schrock]

- "open-source" nature is questionable

Thank you for reading.

Lots of points you made here, but I want to explore the one I quoted above. Tell me how the open-source nature of the software is "questionable". Go ahead and tell all of the developers of Pixhawk, APM, Mission Planner, APM Planner, Tower, DroneKit, et al how what they do is "questionable" relative to what, say, DJI does. I'm sure they want to know.

 

[Les]

Shit. All I saw was free tshirt, now I feel ripped off!
Other than that, no problem.

 

[Rex Barlow]

'Made for Solo' accessory I'm interested in was the optical flow and parachute. 3DR doesn't want to bother with optical anymore and instead will rely on AR & Geofencing as a major selling point (lol more in a bit). It's gone community-based and still in very early stages. Parachute still unreleased and probably $$. I wait for these two. I am very disppointed but hope they will do.

 

[dronesquid]

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.

From someone who works full time in entertainment, I can tell you 100% that if a production has more than pennies to spend on a shoot, they are using a heavy duty octocopter with a 5d or a red, with experienced pilot/camera op crew. No production with any money is going to use a Solo.

 

[PdxSteve]

From someone who works full time in entertainment, I can tell you 100% that if a production has more than pennies to spend on a shoot, they are using a heavy duty octocopter with a 5d or a red, with experienced pilot/camera op crew. No production with any money is going to use a Solo.

Newer movie called 13 Hours has several scenes filmed with Solo/H4Black

From Todd Harper on FB earlier today: "For those who did not already know. SOLO was used to film several sequences in this film. I highly recommend everyone watch it and try to figure out which ones are SOLO and which are via the more typical cinematography methods. Secondly, this shows that SOLO and GoPro's are more than capable of filming high quality content for major motion picture production."

 

[franknitty69]

From someone who works full time in entertainment, I can tell you 100% that if a production has more than pennies to spend on a shoot, they are using a heavy duty octocopter with a 5d or a red, with experienced pilot/camera op crew. No production with any money is going to use a Solo.

the budget on 13 hours was a few pennies shy of $50 million and solo was used. i guess Michael Bay and oscar winning DP Dion Beebe don't know what they are doing.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Much to the dismay of the boom operators union. Unless they've taken that on as a new skill set...

 

[twitchyzero]

Thanks for all the responses so far.

Can we please try to keep the discussion on track? My criticisms do not apply to enterprise as I've no experience there. We're talking about Solo in the consumer space, its strengths, shortcomings but more importantly the company's communication and transparency, or lack thereof.

They do have optical flow, but that doesn't solve everything either. Witness the DJI vs Typhoon 'see we can crash the other guy's drone vids.'

if 3DR can't deliver optical flow, that's fine. It was only sold as a concept at launch. But in substitution they should deliver on GF and AR, on both mobile platforms. If you announced something, execute it. Don't leave us hanging in oblivion as second-rated plebs after Apple users. Lead dev fired/quit? Find a new one and get what we were promised out, Android coding isn't rocket science if I'm not mistaken.

Exiting consumer space? Tell us what happens to the current owners with Solo's future. Give us some reassurance. Silence only hurts your reputation.

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

Yep, fly without them! /s

I'm sticking with 4K because that's what the competitors been putting out since last year (mind you Solo was more $$ than the competitors then). I should not have to trim critical timeline of my video/crop any more resolution than de-fisheyeing. I've already modded my legs with sliders, I'm not hacking up my Hero4 Black for the Solo.

Again, I'm not expecting everything to go right on new releases/out of the box. But for what's being repeatedly touted as a stellar company by so many of multirotor community they should have the support to bring it up to snuff.

 

[pyrate]

you can shoot 4K without legs too
you have to mod the gopro lens, but that has nothing to do with solo
solos documents from the start said to shoot medium FOV to avoid legs.
Even without the lens mod people have shot 4K with solo and no legs
it was very slow passed video

 

[twitchyzero]

If you really want to use solo to its full capability, it seems you will need both and Apple and Android device.

Android won't have augmented reality or features that use an altimeter (even if your device has an altimeter), like follow me up a mountain. Who knows what else they will leave out going forward.

and that's a incredibly sad if 3DR is going to keep it that way. Not saying they've done that yet, but nothing is more frustrating than a company which come out say "may be you should get this device instead" when you've already have a perfectly working phone/tablet since Solo launch. Tower being absent on iOS is unfortunate but it's always been that way.

Currently none of Android's follow me modes account for elevation change? Which modes of follow-me in Apple does if the device has altimeter?

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.

yep sounds like 3DR is to blame. They launched all these new features without documentation to inform us how to use them safely.

 

[pyrate]

man you just are on a bash 3dr rant.
I'm out

 

[twitchyzero]

you're more than welcome to stay if you continue contributing to the dialogue/discussion/rant instead of posting merely your reactions.

 

[EyeWingsuit]

Newer movie called 13 Hours has several scenes filmed with Solo/H4Black

From Todd Harper on FB earlier today: "For those who did not already know. SOLO was used to film several sequences in this film. I highly recommend everyone watch it and try to figure out which ones are SOLO and which are via the more typical cinematography methods. Secondly, this shows that SOLO and GoPro's are more than capable of filming high quality content for major motion picture production."

wait'll you see the footage captured with the Solo. Pretty intense. A hex/octa couldn't have done it in the tight confines.

From someone who once worked full time in production on the camera side; only a fool would suggest that production wouldn't use the tool that fits the call. I was using GoPro's on shows like IceTruckers before half the people in the world knew what a GoPro was. And when Hollywood did learn of GoPro, all the low-level measurebaters spent zillions of words on internet forums telling me that I was stupid because the GoPro didn't do 4:4:4 uncompressed HD blah blah blah... A creative is a creative. Tools either aid or inspire creativity.