Welcome DJI Spark Pilot!
Jump in and join our free Spark community today!
Sign up

What would happen if your phone turned off in flight?

Sparksupersonic

Well-Known Member
Join
Oct 16, 2018
Messages
78
Age
58
and what would then happen if you couldn’t get it back on? Would it return to take off point if rth is on on its own?
Could you reconnect with the Spark in flight, or reconnect with another phone?
I have an older iPhone I use, with the lastest ios, that I use sometimes for flying our drone with a cable connection, it sometimes just turns off in really cold weather. But I have my other iPhone with me.
I realize the easy answer is don’t take a chance with iPhone that turns off in cold weather but still raised the ? of what would happen and what you could or couldn’t do.
 
and what would then happen if you couldn’t get it back on? Would it return to take off point if rth is on on its own?
Could you reconnect with the Spark in flight, or reconnect with another phone?
I have an older iPhone I use, with the lastest ios, that I use sometimes for flying our drone with a cable connection, it sometimes just turns off in really cold weather. But I have my other iPhone with me.
I realize the easy answer is don’t take a chance with iPhone that turns off in cold weather but still raised the ? of what would happen and what you could or couldn’t do.

If you are using the remote control, and the light on the RC is green, you are connected and have control of the Spark.

You can fly it without a device but have no telemetry and must keep it in LOS for a safe flight until you get rebooted for the information needed. Just make sure the Go4 app is installed on the devices used. Turn it on, look for the Spark WiFi or connect OTG cable and you're good to go as if you were starting your flight.

If the Spark is out of LOS, depending on your RTH settings, you can push the RTH button on the remote and it should come back.
The same thing should happen if the battery is low or disconnected as long as the Home Point was set before launch.
 
Last edited:
But what would happen if you are flying with the phone only?

I have never flown my Spark without the remote but one of these days I’ll try it just with my iPhone and have wondered what would happen if the phone died. Would it RTH or land if within 20m?

Chris
 
Depends on your settings, if it was close by it would just land. If it was further away it would initiate RTH after a set amount of time.
 
Just make sure before you fly away from you. Your testing are set to return to home if loss of connection. It will come back and land near the take off point.
 
If you are using the remote control, and the light on the RC is green, you are connected and have control of the Spark.

You can fly it without a device but have no telemetry and must keep it in LOS for a safe flight until you get rebooted for the information needed. Just make sure the Go4 app is installed on the devices used. Turn it on, look for the Spark WiFi or connect OTG cable and you're good to go as if you were starting your flight.

If the Spark is out of LOS, depending on your RTH settings, you can push the RTH button on the remote and it should come back.
The same thing should happen if the battery is low or disconnected as long as the Home Point was set before launch.
 
Appreciate it! For some reason I was thinking it had to go through the go4 app. That makes it easier knowing just rth from the remote if I have too. I always update h point before every flight in case.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Derstahlhelm
I actually had this happen just a few days ago. My iPhone was in cold weather and decided to reboot during flight. I have the RTH feature set for cases where I lose signal but often cancel the feature when it starts to initiate and fly the drone home myself so I can control the camera. As luck would have it I had just cancelled the RTH when my phone rebooted. I pushed the RTH on the remote controller while my phone was rebooting. Fortunately my phone came back on-line and I got reconnected to the drone. The drone was still hovering in place and had not started home as I had hoped it would with the remote command to RTH. I had just enough battery left to get it home but was disappointed the remote controller did not start the drone for home. Wanted to test this further but haven't had the chance. For now I will stop cancelling the RTH feature and start the drone home before it ask. If I could control the camera during RTH I would never cancel the RTH.
 
I actually had this happen just a few days ago. My iPhone was in cold weather and decided to reboot during flight. I have the RTH feature set for cases where I lose signal but often cancel the feature when it starts to initiate and fly the drone home myself so I can control the camera. As luck would have it I had just cancelled the RTH when my phone rebooted. I pushed the RTH on the remote controller while my phone was rebooting. Fortunately my phone came back on-line and I got reconnected to the drone. The drone was still hovering in place and had not started home as I had hoped it would with the remote command to RTH. I had just enough battery left to get it home but was disappointed the remote controller did not start the drone for home. Wanted to test this further but haven't had the chance. For now I will stop cancelling the RTH feature and start the drone home before it ask. If I could control the camera during RTH I would never cancel the RTH.
Did you press and hold rth button for some seconds?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sparksupersonic
Did you press and hold rth button for some seconds?
In my moment of panic I'm not sure how long I pressed it. Do you have to hold it down? I will certainly test that to make sure I know exactly how that button functions.
 
I thought you just pressed it too, when worse comes to worse. Perhaps some more testing is required.
 
I too cancel rth when it intitiates because of low battery and prefer to fly our drone back. So I actually did rth from the remote today to just do it and test it and it landed within inches of the h point setting.
But you do have to hold the rth button on the remote a few seconds to initiate rth.
It didn’t do anything when I first pressed it so I held it and it beeped and initiated,
It beeped on the way to h point like it does when it’s landing too.
 
If you are using the remote control, and the light on the RC is green, you are connected and have control of the Spark.

You can fly it without a device but have no telemetry and must keep it in LOS for a safe flight until you get rebooted for the information needed. Just make sure the Go4 app is installed on the devices used. Turn it on, look for the Spark WiFi or connect OTG cable and you're good to go as if you were starting your flight.

If the Spark is out of LOS, depending on your RTH settings, you can push the RTH button on the remote and it should come back.
The same thing should happen if the battery is low or disconnected as long as the Home Point was set before launch.
That's good to know! Thanks
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
14,601
Messages
118,823
Members
18,012
Latest member
Dayanadiast