so here are my observations after 2.4 update (iOS).
waiting for the new User Manual reflecting new fucntionalities, but from what I've experienced so far, it's not all as we expected :
(1) RTL
- as already discussed, in your settings you can now select
Return to launch point, or Return to Me and for each of these 2 options you can select action by Solo taken when it reaches given location : either Land or Hover.
part of the RTL settings is the "Rewind" function where you have options to Enable or Disable rewind and to if Enabled you set max distance for Rewind which is between 0m to 100m.
So now the bad things about these new extra options :
a) upon pressing "Return Home" button on controller, Solo goes always into Rewind mode even when that one is disabled in my settings, and even when disabled and with previously set Max Rewind distance to 0m, Solo still goes into Rewind mode for about 5-10 seconds before it finally switches to Return to Home mode.
I don't know why this is, but it can lead to some unexpected behaviour - for example, you launch Solo in the air and lets say you hover 5m above your launch point, then if you press Return to Home (even with Rewind function disabled and Rewind distance set to 0m), Solo starts "rewinding" back for 5-10s, meaning it will retrace its flight up that point therefore flying into the ground (where the launch point was). Bad !
b) When selecting in settings Return to Me and Hover as the action after Return, we all assumed that Solo would come back to last known location of the Controller/Tablet and we assumed that in this mode "My" location is being updated dynamically. This is not the case. Solo doesn't register "My" location dynamically, it only registers "My" location for return If and only If I press the "Return to Home" button, only at the exact point in time when I press "Return to Home" button, Solo will register your current location as the new Home and flies to that location, so if you have in the meantime moved somewhere else (ie. driving car because I was doing Follow me smart shot), Solo will not come to me, unless I stop the car and press Return to Home again (after it went to back to Fly mode).
And remember that every time you press "Return to Home", Solo starts its "Rewind" procedure as explained above, even when that function is disabled in settings. (it looks bit silly actually, as you can imagine, your are in Follow me mode, Solo is following you and you press Return to Home, Solo puts on "brakes" and starts flying in reverse direction because it's "rewinding for 5-10 secs" then it finally starts returning to you, but in the meantime you have moved somewhere else and it doesn't know your new location, unless you press Return to Home again in which case it starts reversing because it goes again into Rewind mode). Bad !
c) When choosing "Hover" as an action to take after arriving to Home location, I didn't know at what altitude it would actually Hover and what actions it would take for example during loss of signal, or when battery goes flat.
Now I know - it will simply fall from the Sky (it will not attempt to land). Bad !
Altitude at which it arrives to Home point is your current altitude, unless you were under your Return to Home altitude in which case it first goes to whatever your Return to Home altitude is set in the settings, and it just sits there until the battery goes flat and falls down from the sky unless you land it before that actually happens.
As an example - your Return to Home altitude is set to 40m, you are currently flying at 20m altitude and you hit Return to Home, Solo will go up to 40m and come above the location exactly where you press the Return to Home button and it will sit at 40m above that location and do nothing else even when you reached critical battery level (10%), it will not attempt to land, if you leave it like that the Solo will eventually fall down from the sky when the battery goes flat (I didn't actually run the test this far, but I waiting till 5% and Solo was still at 40m high up, not attempting to land even then and I waited until 3% battery and then had to bring it down myself and landed with 1% left).
Ok, fine, you are still in control and you can land whenever you want, however if you lose Radio Signal for whatever reasons (controller battery goes flat, wi-fi interference - both of which I have experienced in the past) then Solo will simply stay at the current altitude (in this example 40m) and will sit there until battery goes flat and then I assume will just fall down from the sky. Bad !
d) Failsafe, not working as we assumed it would be with the new Return to Me mode. I was not brave enough to take a chance and switch of my controller when in Return to Me mode with action selected as "Hover" for the obvious reasons described above, so I changed the action to "Land" but left "Return to Me" mode. I launched the Solo, took Solo some 100m away and 20m high up and I walked another 100m away from Solo. Then I switched off my Controller. Solo did NOT come to "ME", it returned to the launch point actually and landed because my action was selected as "Land". The reason being - Solo doesn't know your new location unless you press Return to Home on controller, but when you switch off the controller then obviously you cannot then press Return to Home button, so in this case, the function is actually useless, or simply it's not there.
So obviously I don't want to test what would happen if my action selected was "Hover" in this scenario, but I can all but assume that in that case Solo would come to original launch point (instead to my location) and it would hover there at 40m or higher and if I didn't manage to regain the signal then Solo would eventually fall down from the sky when battery goes flat. Bad !
e) Launching without GPS lock, again here we assumed we could now safely launch with no GPS as Solo would regain new home point for return because we assumed this is updated dynamically, well it's not. You can only create new "Home" by pressing Return to home button on your controller and not in any other way.
2) Zipline smart shot
not much to say here, it works as advertised, except the "Altitude lock/unlock" option does not work.
There are 2 options you can set in your settings for Zipline : you can lock or unlock your altitude (there is on/off option) but either selection makes no difference. I assumed when altitude is unlocked that while flying in line I could manually adjust altitude, this doesn't work (as somebody above me already pointed out).
second option is to lock your target with camera - when locked then camera is locked to your target as you fly by; when unlocked then camera is pointing where you last left it, and in this case you can control tilt and yaw.
You press "A" button to lock the direction (that's where the camera is pointing) and then same as with Orbit or MPCC you have get arrow to click (for "play") and then controls << || >> (fly forward, pause or fly reverse/back) appear on your screen.
3) Pano - I'm quite pleased with this new smart shot.
3 options :
a) Cylinder
- it takes 8 shots
- you can select under options your Pan Angle (default is 220 degrees) and more importantly you can specify under options FOV of your lens ! very good ! so if you have an after market lens then you are just fine
b) Hemisphere
- it takes 15 shots, there are no options to set/change
c) Video Pan
- it takes video as the Solo is slowly turning around
- under options you can select Yaw Speed and again you can specify your lens FOV.
for a) and b) above you need to be in Photo mode, for c) you need to be in Video mode.
It would be good if anyone could verify my observations so far or otherwise report if you find something new or contradicting to what I'm reporting here.
Due to the behaviour mentioned above, I think it may be the safest for now, to leave your Return to Home set to "Launch" point and definitely action taken after arrival to home point as "Land".
