RIP Skydio 2

[FliesDrones]

I am saddened to report that my Skydio 2 is (probably) no longer for this world. At roughly 3PM EST, while motion tracking about 50 feet off the shore, my drone decided to lose tracking, and failed to RTH. I approached as close as I could (30 feet) and it failed to reconnect to WiFi repeateadly and stayed there until it did a water landing

I'm gonna find a scuba diver buddy and see if we can retrieve it, but I expect a water landing in salt water to be a guaranteed death. This is a word of warning to anyone flying over water, Skydio can have serious connectivity issues ?

 

[kgilbertsen]

I am saddened to report that my Skydio 2 is (probably) no longer for this world. At roughly 3PM EST, while motion tracking about 50 feet off the shore, my drone decided to lose tracking, and failed to RTH. I approached as close as I could (30 feet) and it failed to reconnect to WiFi repeateadly and stayed there until it did a water landing

I'm gonna find a scuba diver buddy and see if we can retrieve it, but I expect a water landing in salt water to be a guaranteed death. This is a word of warning to anyone flying over water, Skydio can have serious connectivity issues ?

Sorry to hear that. How were you connected?

 

[FliesDrones]

Sorry to hear that. How were you connected?

Skydio 2 App over WiFi. The worst part is that the drone didn't RTH, it just stayed there until it tried to do a water landing.

It hovered over the water for 30 seconds before finally running out of battery

 

[kgilbertsen]

Skydio 2 App over WiFi. The worst part is that the drone didn't RTH, it just stayed there until it tried to do a water landing.

It hovered over the water for 30 seconds before finally running out of battery

Frustrating for sure! Hopefully you can recover it and pull data from the card to submit to Skydio, who will replace it! ?

 

[FliesDrones]

Frustrating for sure! Hopefully you can recover it and pull data from the card to submit to Skydio, who will replace it! ?

I doubt I'll get a replacement, the frustating bit is re-ordering and waiting 45 days.

The money isn't the issue, I've long given up on this being a "cheap hobby"

 

[kgilbertsen]

I doubt I'll get a replacement, the frustating bit is re-ordering and waiting 45 days.

The money isn't the issue, I've long given up on this being a "cheap hobby"

Oh, money would definitely be an issue for me. And I'd like to think they'd replace a drone quicker than they'd process a new order, but I don't know about that. Good luck with your search. How deep do you guess it is?

 

[FliesDrones]

Oh, money would definitely be an issue for me. And I'd like to think they'd replace a drone quicker than they'd process a new order, but I don't know about that. Good luck with your search. How deep do you guess it is?

There's boats going through there, but I had a genius idea and used my DJI Mini 2 to force obstacle avoidance down and close to me but I ran out of time before getting it over land. It's probably not deep but I'm not good at that kinda stuff and would rather leave it to someone who knows. I think I'll ask for a future update to attempt RTH when landing is needed (if RTH had turned on there, I would probably saved it)

 

[kgilbertsen]

There's boats going through there, but I had a genius idea and used my DJI Mini 2 to force obstacle avoidance down and close to me but I ran out of time before getting it over land. It's probably not deep but I'm not good at that kinda stuff and would rather leave it to someone who knows. I think I'll ask for a future update to attempt RTH when landing is needed (if RTH had turned on there, I would probably saved it)

Well hopefully you find it quickly and have good luck with Skydio ?

 

[VEGASROBBI]

Skydio 2 App over WiFi. The worst part is that the drone didn't RTH, it just stayed there until it tried to do a water landing.

It hovered over the water for 30 seconds before finally running out of battery

Seems like a lot of odd behavior happens over water.

So when it got "stuck" over the water it only had 30 seconds before a low battery landing? You should have been able to override it. Did it have enough battery to RTH?

I'm wondering if the low battery(if it was) has anything to do with wi-fi disconnect?

 

[FliesDrones]

Seems like a lot of odd behavior happens over water.

So when it got "stuck" over the water it only had 30 seconds before a low battery landing? You should have been able to override it. Did it have enough battery to RTH?

I'm wondering if the low battery(if it was) has anything to do with wi-fi disconnect?

So, I moved about 30 feet into the water and orbited a group of people on a boat.

At some point, the drone disconnected by continued to orbit. I signaled that I had lost control and the boat people moved away (it was about 20 feet away from them at all points) but a flyaway is a real danger. Once the boat moved away, Skydio lost the track on the people, and hovered. I was unable to reconnect for 15 minutes after that until it ran low on battery. Low battery landing hovered over the water (until it really ran out of battery) so the Skydio didn't wanna make a water landing. Whether this is out-of-warranty or not, I think we need real settings for disconnects so we can get RTH to trigger even if the drone is in "hover".

There's a local dive business that does drone retrieval so I'm hoping it will still start but 48 hours of salt water is making it less and less likely.

 

[VEGASROBBI]

Something is fishy here (no pun intended). I didn't know the S2 can orbit an object that doesn't have a GPS device? Am I correct?

Why edit the loiter time from 30 seconds to 15 minutes before the forced landing?

I've run my battery down to RTH but I always override and land manually.

I hope you get it back and determine the cause.

 

[FliesDrones]

Something is fishy here (no pun intended). I didn't know the S2 can orbit an object that doesn't have a GPS device? Am I correct?

Why edit the loiter time from 30 seconds to 15 minutes before the forced landing?

I've run my battery down to RTH but I always override and land manually.

I hope you get it back and determine the cause.

S2 can orbit any object that can be motion tracked, it has different skills available.

Loiter time is the max the battery can do but automated landing kicks in at 2 minutes with obstacle avoidance so it can down but didn't wanna land in the water (+1 for Skydio 2)

Yeah, but wifi wouldn't reconnect, I tried restarting my phone, turning on/off wifi, the drone wouldn't reconnect. It's really a shame, hope the logs point out the issue because it was a weird flyaway/lost link.

 

[FliesDrones]

Warranty will cover this... however for everyone reading along, open your maps and set a Home Point when launching.

If your drone loses tracking, it will stay in hover and not RTH when it loses signal which is a surprise to me.

 

[kgilbertsen]

Warranty will cover this... however for everyone reading along, open your maps and set a Home Point when launching.

If your drone loses tracking, it will stay in hover and not RTH when it loses signal which is a surprise to me.

Excellent! Glad to hear they came through. ?

 

[Deleted member 947]

Shall anyone decide to sell crashed drone...PLEASE let me know. This is just my DIY hobby mixed with flying my S2 drone to HELP Skydio members turn around parts. Best & Thanks.