Fellow Spark users - Don't risk using the Quickshots with only your phone as a controller!
What Happened
Using my Iphone 6s Plus as the controller, I initiated one of the Quickshots "Rocket", where the spark is meant to fly above you and present a bird's eye view of your surroundings. I assumed everything was safe because the GPS signal was green and a return point had been set.
After ascending between 20-30 meters, the spark had lost connection with the phone but the spark kept going higher, I'm estimating it reached between 45-55 meters, at this point everything on my phone was grey, it said disconnected and I could not control the drone or initiate the RTH. I would assume that if the spark had lost connection using the Rocket feature, it would stop ascending and instead go back to its original starting position, but the drone started to quickly fly away, 40-50 meters behind me and started to hover above traffic.
It then slowly began to descend, and I could not get on the road quickly enough since there was a tall barrier. One car had avoided it, but the bus behind it had slowed down slightly but quickly sped up again and crashed into the drone. By then I had jumped the fence and went to retrieve the drone, with God's blessing it didn't fly further or decided to disappear somewhere.
The spark had scratches around the body, mostly on the propellers, rotors, a little bit on the gimbal, and a little dent on the top. Luckily the camera didn't get any scratches. After the crash, the drone doesn't seem to be staying in place very well, and now struggles to get a GPS signal. I had a close call using the "Dronie" setting, because the drone almost crashed into a light-post flying backwards but i managed to press "X" on time and had it stop. If I had lost signal I wouldn't have been able to do anything...
I bought my spark in Guangzhou, China, and have already contacted my retailer. After sending him the video he was terrified and said this needed further investigation by DJI. I will be seeing him next Wednesday after my trip to Macau. Hopefully DJI will sort out these problems, since I believe most of the users won't op for the more expensive package with the R.C. and expect the presets to work out of the box.
I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else, don't use the Quickshots until DJI has sorted these bugs. please keep safe!
What Happened
Using my Iphone 6s Plus as the controller, I initiated one of the Quickshots "Rocket", where the spark is meant to fly above you and present a bird's eye view of your surroundings. I assumed everything was safe because the GPS signal was green and a return point had been set.
After ascending between 20-30 meters, the spark had lost connection with the phone but the spark kept going higher, I'm estimating it reached between 45-55 meters, at this point everything on my phone was grey, it said disconnected and I could not control the drone or initiate the RTH. I would assume that if the spark had lost connection using the Rocket feature, it would stop ascending and instead go back to its original starting position, but the drone started to quickly fly away, 40-50 meters behind me and started to hover above traffic.
It then slowly began to descend, and I could not get on the road quickly enough since there was a tall barrier. One car had avoided it, but the bus behind it had slowed down slightly but quickly sped up again and crashed into the drone. By then I had jumped the fence and went to retrieve the drone, with God's blessing it didn't fly further or decided to disappear somewhere.
The spark had scratches around the body, mostly on the propellers, rotors, a little bit on the gimbal, and a little dent on the top. Luckily the camera didn't get any scratches. After the crash, the drone doesn't seem to be staying in place very well, and now struggles to get a GPS signal. I had a close call using the "Dronie" setting, because the drone almost crashed into a light-post flying backwards but i managed to press "X" on time and had it stop. If I had lost signal I wouldn't have been able to do anything...
I bought my spark in Guangzhou, China, and have already contacted my retailer. After sending him the video he was terrified and said this needed further investigation by DJI. I will be seeing him next Wednesday after my trip to Macau. Hopefully DJI will sort out these problems, since I believe most of the users won't op for the more expensive package with the R.C. and expect the presets to work out of the box.
I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else, don't use the Quickshots until DJI has sorted these bugs. please keep safe!
