No longer option to Hover or Land on lost signal in DJI Go4 app

Heckmaniac · Jan 7, 2019

There used to be an option to select "Hover" or "Land" instead of the default RTH in the DJI Go4 app. This could be used if you wanted to fly the drone from point A to point B and land. Problem is when you drop altitude to land there may be an obstacle blocking signal (tree line or building or terrain), causing signal to drop - the drone automatically will return to home (RTH). Which by the way is a great feature in itself, but in this case defeats what I'm specifically trying to do, which is land in a different location. The option was there a few months ago, but noticed it disappeared earlier in December. Has anyone noticed or found a way to get it back?

Richard Ruckert · Jan 8, 2019

I don't have an answer.

I'm curious as to why you want to land at a location other than the home point

graywoulf · Jan 8, 2019

I wouldn't want my Spark to land somewhere else where I could not actually see the landing. Sounds very risky to me unless you have someone at the landing sight that could monitor the landing and report back to me. But if that is what you want to do then you might want to take a look at Litchi. I think it will do that. Good luck with that.

Heckmaniac · Jan 8, 2019

graywoulf said:
I wouldn't want my Spark to land somewhere else where I could not actually see the landing. Sounds very risky to me unless you have someone at the landing sight that could monitor the landing and report back to me. But if that is what you want to do then you might want to take a look at Litchi. I think it will do that. Good luck with that.

Appreciate the reply and concern, and yes, I have a partner at site B communicating with me via speakerphone as it lands (only about 1200 ft out) so in VLOS up until last few feet before landing (terrain causes loss of signal) - so were all safe here - just trying different things to keep it interesting. That said it doesn't address my question about the feature going missing and if anyone has found a way to get it back. I have not tried going backwards in the releases - never done before, so somewhat unsure what I'm doing on that.

graywoulf · Jan 8, 2019

Sorry that I couldn't answer your question. I did not know that feature even existed to be honest.

Troy · Jan 8, 2019

On your display there is the RTH button and the land button . Once you push the land button won’t it finish the given command even if the signal is lost as it plans on landing and shutting down

Spark 317 · Jan 8, 2019

graywoulf said:
Sorry that I couldn't answer your question. I did not know that feature even existed to be honest.

I don't think it's an option on the Spark.
Perhaps another DJI drone maybe?

I checked the owners manual, page 13, and didn't see any options for a setting to hover.

Heckmaniac · Jan 8, 2019

Spark 317 said:
I don't think it's an option on the Spark.
Perhaps another DJI drone maybe?

I checked the owners manual, page 13, and didn't see any options for a setting to hover.

Thanks for checking - I can confirm it was there and I did use it with my spark a few months back.

Heckmaniac · Jan 8, 2019

Troy said:
On your display there is the RTH button and the land button . Once you push the land button won’t it finish the given command even if the signal is lost as it plans on landing and shutting down

I'm thinking if your far enough away and signal is lost it will override and RTH - but good thought though, I'll have to test it and see - thanks!

Chips · Jan 12, 2019

I seem to remember HOVER and LAND being options for signal loss too. Have to look again if they are not there but I set to RTH as that seems the logical thing to do. HOVER and LAND are risky as hovering out of sight may go on till the battery is empty and it drops out of the sky and LAND could bring it down in the middle of a highway. Both are scenarios I really worry about. Maybe DJI removed them for those reasons.

Heckmaniac · Jan 13, 2019

Agree - but if using 3rd party app flying waypoints - you program drone to complete mission even if signal lost - then once mission is done setting to land with signal loss would land exactly where I want it (RTH would defeat that).

netfolks2000 · Jan 13, 2019

I live in a rural area and sometimes I've thought it would be nice to fly to the back of my property, land the drone, and then drive back there to fly more from that point. I have done that with the Mavic but will see if the Spark can fly down the hill, issue a land command and turn off the controller, to see if it completes the landing.

Heckmaniac · Jan 13, 2019

Sounds good, let me know if it works.

lmel2005 · Jan 14, 2019

Hover and land on signal loss is useful, when drone flies under tall trees, power lines etc.
It prevents drone from crashing on the obstacles above, in a case of a disconnection (otherwise it will ascend to rth altitude automatically and crash).

netfolks2000 · Jan 27, 2019

OK, I did try this today, folks. I flew out into the pasture, clicked a LAND command, turned off the controller. The Spark started landing, paused and decided it had to go way up high to my predetermined RTH height and flew home. I think one of you mentioned that I should change what it should do when signal is lost to HOVER. That would use lots of battery while I drove to the pasture, just hovering until the battery were low and land. My goal was to land and then i'd travel to it and re-launch. That does not seem, so far, like an option.

Heckmaniac · Jan 29, 2019

netfolks2000 said:
OK, I did try this today, folks. I flew out into the pasture, clicked a LAND command, turned off the controller. The Spark started landing, paused and decided it had to go way up high to my predetermined RTH height and flew home. I think one of you mentioned that I should change what it should do when signal is lost to HOVER. That would use lots of battery while I drove to the pasture, just hovering until the battery were low and land. My goal was to land and then i'd travel to it and re-launch. That does not seem, so far, like an option.

Thanks for confirming - and yes just hovering could be an issue, but landing on signal loss would have been my goal in very specific situations. DJI Go4 used to let you change the default to your preference (so it's definitely something they could do), but have since removed that option for the SPARK at least.

Gavieboydgi · Jan 29, 2019

lmel2005 said:
Hover and land on signal loss is useful, when drone flies under tall trees, power lines etc.
It prevents drone from crashing on the obstacles above, in a case of a disconnection (otherwise it will ascend to rth altitude automatically and crash).

Haven't they taken gimble calibration away as well

pmshop · Jan 29, 2019

Gavieboydgi said:
Haven't they taken gimble calibration away as well

Still there, used it this morning with current DJI GO App

nilanjan118 · Feb 12, 2019

Heckmaniac said:
There used to be an option to select "Hover" or "Land" instead of the default RTH in the DJI Go4 app.

Yes, under Advanced Settings there used to be 3 options to choose from as to what the AC will do in the event of a loss of RC connection -
1. RTH
2. Hover
3. Land
Was surprised to find this totally removed from the latest version of Go4.
So is it safe to assume that the AC will do an RTH when RC connection is lost and it is the default setting which cannot be changed?
Just want to be sure that I am not overlooking something.

pmshop · Feb 12, 2019

nilanjan118 said:
Yes, under Advanced Settings there used to be 3 options to choose from as to what the AC will do in the event of a loss of RC connection -
1. RTH
2. Hover
3. Land
Was surprised to find this totally removed from the latest version of Go4.
So is it safe to assume that the AC will do an RTH when RC connection is lost and it is the default setting which cannot be changed?
Just want to be sure that I am not overlooking something.

Yes, RTH will initiate on loss of signal.