Mavic Air 2 Question
Hello,
I see there is a Beta of Dronelink for support or future full support for the Mavic Air 2. I have not purchased a drone yet, but I was looking into the Mavic Air 2 for use with Industrial Archeology photos as well as mapping of different sites. Some will be in the woods with hills, mountains, and deserts. It looks like whatever the issue was with the Beta for Mavic Air 2 is still around in the latest SDK (not sure what the issue is), but as I assume this will eventually be fixed, how usable would this drone be for this? While I am reading the Mavic Air 2 does not support waypoints for fully autonomous mapping missions, with Dronelink would this be possible? Does the controller need full connectivity the whole time to the Mavic Air 2 for any type of mission like this, or can you push this from Dronelink to the drone and have it do it's work without connectivity the whole time? Assuming again the Mavic Air 2 issues will be worked out, are there a list of features available that you get using Dronelink with the Mavic Air 2 vs the Mavic Pro or other drones for example? I know overall features depends on your subscription of Dronelink, but I guess my concern was more in regards one drone over another drone to help decide which one to purchase.
Comments
6 comments
We are not going to release the next version until the issues are resolved.
Do you mean for your particular use case? That depends on quite a few factors and is a really broad question. If you mean is this drone better or worse than any other DJI drone, it really just depends on your technical requirements.
Dronelink makes waypoints possible via virtual stick (learn more).
Any virtual stick applications needs to maintain connection, as virtual stick is just like a human pilot flying with the sticks (learn more).
From a Dronelink standpoint, the features depend more on your plan and less on the drone. For differences in the hardware, you should consult DJI's website and spec sheets.
The 'virtual stick' article explains a lot, I appreciate the link. One of the articles state that you were looking into being able to upload the mission to the drone, that would probably eliminate some of the requirements for needing to use the 'virtual stick' if you lost connection to the controller, are there plans to implement that in the near future, or is that a lower priority item?
I know you aren't the one to provide tech specs on different drones, but I wasn't sure if the feature list of your product was different depending on the drone since you product offers short comings which are not available in the drone.
Last question is regarding mapping software. I am assuming dronelink doesn't actually do 3d mapping but would rather tell the drone to take the photos. Do you have a list of all of the mapping software which the data can be exported to? I just want to explore all of my options before I actually purchase a drone to make sure I am purchasing the right one. Thanks!
We call this onboard compatibility, and we will probably work on it sometime in 2021, but even if we do, drones such as the Mavic Mini (and probably Mini 2 and Mavic Air 2) do not currently support uploading waypoints in the DJI SDK. There is no known work-around for this, other than virtual stick.
Dronelink does not unlock hidden hardware features, if that is what you mean. For example, you cannot take 48mp photos with a Mavic 2 Pro. That features is only available on the MA2.
You can upload images taken with Dronelink to any map processor. We currently have an integration with Pix4D.
Jim, I'm also a new MA2 owner, android dude, and someone who really wants to use dronelink. I have been following all your posts and it appears you are doing everything you can to make it work sometime in the future... but I do have to ask a couple of clarifying questions...
First, can you tell us whether the SDK is, in theory, providing you with the system calls you need? In other words, if DJI fixes their SDK to work as advertised, will you be able to finish the port? Or is there a feature you need that somehow DJI won't deliver?
Second... I have seen a lot of people ask here on the forum and you are patiently answering. So, the question is, for all of us reading, is there someone or some department at DJI we can put pressure on, on your behalf? I for one would have no issue letting DJI know their customers aren't happy with thier SDK
On the Android side everything appears to be working (from a DJI SDK standpoint). The issue now is actually with Google Play and we will definitely be able to get around it eventually.
As far as more pressure, I am actually the first software developer to ever work with their SDK and I work directly with the SDK teams.
Thanks Jim. I spent (mumble) years in the software/chip world before retiring, and I know that sometimes the SDK takes a back-seat priority to efforts that can sell more product (in this case, drones) for a company. I just wanted to make sure you were getting what you needed.
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