I'm writing this post to see if anyone else is thinking the same thing I am. If you live in the wide open spaces part of the country, I'm glad for you. If you live in an area with trees and with Wi-Fi populations I'd really like to hear what your experiences are.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, in Western Washington. Know what we have here? Trees, all over the place. Trees and a near-constant layer of stratus clouds. I’ve got to say that I’m a lot more than upset with the inability of Solo to get a GPS lock. I understand how GPS works, I know that the signals are very weak, and I know that overcast skies and trees make it more difficult to get a lock.
Until recently I sucked up Solo's inability to acquire a GPS lock up to the trees and clouds but I was out with a surveyor using a DJI Inspire 1 Pro. We were in lousy conditions, trees, overcast, all the usual, and he got a lock in less than a minute. Less than a minute!
Why oh why can’t Solo get a lock? I just installed the
GPS isolation plate mod and immediately got better results. If you haven't installed it yet I highly recommend buying it. It's the best $13 I've spent in a long time.
I’m a commercial photographer. I purchased Solo because of the cable cam. The way I work is to spend 95% of my time setting up the shot, and 5% of the time shooting it. I really like MPCC, but you know what I like more? Reliability. Solo is of no use to me if I don’t have a high degree of confidence that I can get a shot when I want it. Which brings me to my second major complaint, the Wi-Fi connection.
More times than not I lose my controller connection at some point in the shoot. Not on every flight, but it happens frequently enough to not trust Solo.
I fly in areas where there are a lot of Wi-Fi signals. That’s not going to change. I need to know that when Solo is connected to the controller it’s going to keep a lock. I don’t fly very far from the controller. A review of my logs shows that the furthest I’ve flown Solo is 1,500 ft. well within the 2,640 foot range. I’ve purchased the FPVLR antenna and that seems to work better, but not perfect.
I NEED a better Wi-Fi lock. If 3DR doesn’t have a solution then I’m going to have to go third party.
Now for what keeps me up at night – photogrammetry.
I’ve done some work with surveyors flying their drone for them (I have a 333 and a pilot license) and am very turned on by the photogrammetry possibilities. Given the current laws I have a market advantage that I’m using to push myself into the market. Site scan really excites me. BUT Solo’s reliability makes me pause. If I had any confidence in Solo’s reliability I would have already bought the annual license.
The way I’m looking at it, purchasing a DJI Inspire 1 Pro and the associated software would be more expensive right now, but has a higher degree of reliability. I’d rather spend more money and get the reliability than to throw more money away to watch Solo RTH halfway through a survey.
3DR is pushing into the commercial space. Speaking as a commercial photographer I have to say that I value reliability much more than I value bells and whistles.
What do you think?
That'll be $0.02 please.
