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Skydio 2 Questions

GarthH

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Hey guys,

A few questions...no one may know the answers but thought I'd put them out there.
  1. Do you think crashes will be an issue with a pair of the props below the drone as well as the battery being exposed? The frame certainly looks like it will withstand abuse better than the fragile arms of the Mavics.
  2. Is hand-launching and landing easy to do, considering the bottom facing props?
  3. I lost my Mavic Air over a lake due to a sudden loss of power (most likely battery dislodged mid-flight). Do you think securing the battery with magnets will prevent batteries being easily dislodged due to sudden movements or wind gusts?
  4. Anyone knows whether the Skydio app will allow for waypoints?
  5. When are the first shipments expected? I read it was sometime this month. Interested in some real reviews.
G.
 
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Think it might be awhile yet before you will get any unbiased
reviews .
Boy you want to know a lot before anyone has one. lol
 
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There are many Youtube videos already out there that address most of these questions.

I must say all the Skydio reviews so far have been very positive.

I have not heard anything about waypoint missions however.
 
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Only a two Waypoint Cable Cam, at least to start; I asked.
 
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As for #3, magnets anywhere close to a multi rotor UAS is a big NO! It will interfere with the magnetometer (aka compass). This can lead to a toilet bowl effect when the compass and GPS have a disagreement about the aircraft’s heading.

Velcro straps are a much safer option for battery retention safeguards.
 
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I heard Skydio 2 has done away with the compass and depends on navigation skills for heading.

I was skeptical at first about the battery being mounted with magnets however those who reviewed it say the battery is very secure. I imagine in a crash the battery will release leading to less damage.
 
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As for #3, magnets anywhere close to a multi rotor UAS is a big NO! It will interfere with the magnetometer (aka compass). This can lead to a toilet bowl effect when the compass and GPS have a disagreement about the aircraft’s heading.

Velcro straps are a much safer option for battery retention safeguards.
No compass in the bird as VR said, so no problem. Think they got this far without thinking that through. MIT guys that have been working on Drones and autonomous flight for years know a whole lot more about this than we ever will.
 
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Lack of a compass my be a good thing. Many failures of DJI drones have been caused by compass faults or proximity to large metal objects which confuses the compass.
Heading can be calculated from GPS positions as you fly.
 
If the cameras do a 3d map of it surroundings pretty sure with that and gps heading shouldn’t d be a big deal
 
Not that I doubted anyone’s word, but I found nothing in the specs to say one way or the other about a compass/magnetometer so I wrote an email to Skydio. In their response they confirmed that the Skydio doesn’t use one and is therefore not affected by large metallic (ferrous) objects and uses only GPS and vision for orientation and navigation.

This should be a real boon in areas for mapping construction sites and in areas where GPS signals are weak or unreliable the vision can take over. I am looking forward to more real world evaluations of the S-2’s abilities.
 
Not to mention guys taking off from steel reinforced concrete, roof of a car, steel pier, opens up a lot of possibilities.
 
Is hand-launching and landing easy to do, considering the bottom facing props?

From the S2 beta tester videos I have seen thus far, it's easy. Just orientate the drone so that the camera is facing away from you for takeoff/landing. This place the top facing props closest to you, which is a safer position (less chance to nick your hand wrist) and is what Skydio recommends. This is also how I takeoff/land my Spark, *** end towards me.

The latest email from Skydio and shared on Youtube said the ship date will be late November and continuing into December.
 
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I was one of the Beta Testers for the SD2, I had tested out the R1 for them about a year ago but it reaaly didn't work for my use. They asked me to try out the SD2 a few months ago and I had it for 2 weeks in Sept. Unfortunately I had some big work projects that limited my time flying it. I found the hand launching and recovery pretty easy. Like Pappy said it's best to grasp it from the rear as the front props are facing downward. If it's tilted when you release it the drone will dip in the direction of the tilt, it's best to let it pull itself out of your hand rather then just releasing it. It's landing is very predictable, walk up behind it and basically stick your hand out palm up. If you're like me it's easy to trip over something walking up because your eyes are locked on the drone.

The APP that we were provided didn't do waypoints, you can pull up google maps in the app (terrain or map) and tell it where you want it to go. Better be way zoomed in or the drone will attempt to fly off somewhere possibly miles away depending on how precise your finger is. Because of the autonomous capabilities and the commercial push I wouldn't be surprised to see waypoint capability added in an update. The other thing I read was Skydio has made the API available to developers, no telling where that might lead capability-wise.

The battery attachment didn't present a problem, if the drone hits something pretty hard I suspect the battery will come loose but by that point it doesn't really matter the drone would likely come down from an impact like that. The thing to remember is this drone should never hit anything and it does that very well. It's good enough to fly inside a room. The drone's frame is machined titanium and it feels solid and sturdy, no flex.

You must plug the charger into the drone with the battery attached to charge it, supposedly there's a dock being developed to address that.

Here's my impression of the SD2; you could literally give it to a 6 year old and they'd be able to fly it without crashing and be decent at it in a little while, it's very easy to fly, when you aren't worried about crashing it's easier to become comfortable with the controls and try more stuff. When it's tracking you it's kind of unnerving, it's intelligence is obvious and it sticks to the subject very well. When you guys fly yours tracking you for the first time you're going to think I'm glad it isn't armed and after me.

I'm far being a good pilot and I had no problem flying with the app or controller. The Beacon was the feature that most interested me, my other drone is a staaker that uses wrist band type tether. IMO the dual GPS technology is the only consistently reliable tracking method, especially if there's any speed. I had zero tracking issues with the SD2, for any of the faster tracking I used the Beacon, mainly because my testing was limited and I wanted to really test that feature out. Using the beacon it tracked me for literally miles at speeds up to 35mph. If there was 2 things I could change, it would be a 30 min battery and 45 mph top speed. A tall order with the SD2s frame size. My Staaker will do that but it's a larger aircraft with no avoidance.

I liked it enough to put my $$ down the first day it went on sale. Later after I posted a YT video a chinese guy offered me $2K for the one I ordered, I politely refused.
 
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I was one of the Beta Testers for the SD2, I had tested out the R1 for them about a year ago but it reaaly didn't work for my use. They asked me to try out the SD2 a few months ago and I had it for 2 weeks in Sept. Unfortunately I had some big work projects that limited my time flying it. I found the hand launching and recovery pretty easy. Like Pappy said it's best to grasp it from the rear as the front props are facing downward. If it's tilted when you release it the drone will dip in the direction of the tilt, it's best to let it pull itself out of your hand rather then just releasing it. It's landing is very predictable, walk up behind it and basically stick your hand out palm up. If you're like me it's easy to trip over something walking up because your eyes are locked on the drone.

Thanks for the feedback!

How was your experience with the controller and what type of range did you get?

What do you think of the quality of the video/photos compared to the DJI lineup?
 
I was one of the Beta Testers for the SD2, I had tested out the R1 for them about a year ago but it reaaly didn't work for my use. They asked me to try out the SD2 a few months ago and I had it for 2 weeks in Sept. Unfortunately I had some big work projects that limited my time flying it. I found the hand launching and recovery pretty easy. Like Pappy said it's best to grasp it from the rear as the front props are facing downward. If it's tilted when you release it the drone will dip in the direction of the tilt, it's best to let it pull itself out of your hand rather then just releasing it. It's landing is very predictable, walk up behind it and basically stick your hand out palm up. If you're like me it's easy to trip over something walking up because your eyes are locked on the drone.

The APP that we were provided didn't do waypoints, you can pull up google maps in the app (terrain or map) and tell it where you want it to go. Better be way zoomed in or the drone will attempt to fly off somewhere possibly miles away depending on how precise your finger is. Because of the autonomous capabilities and the commercial push I wouldn't be surprised to see waypoint capability added in an update. The other thing I read was Skydio has made the API available to developers, no telling where that might lead capability-wise.

The battery attachment didn't present a problem, if the drone hits something pretty hard I suspect the battery will come loose but by that point it doesn't really matter the drone would likely come down from an impact like that. The thing to remember is this drone should never hit anything and it does that very well. It's good enough to fly inside a room. The drone's frame is machined titanium and it feels solid and sturdy, no flex.

You must plug the charger into the drone with the battery attached to charge it, supposedly there's a dock being developed to address that.

Here's my impression of the SD2; you could literally give it to a 6 year old and they'd be able to fly it without crashing and be decent at it in a little while, it's very easy to fly, when you aren't worried about crashing it's easier to become comfortable with the controls and try more stuff. When it's tracking you it's kind of unnerving, it's intelligence is obvious and it sticks to the subject very well. When you guys fly yours tracking you for the first time you're going to think I'm glad it isn't armed and after me.

I'm far being a good pilot and I had no problem flying with the app or controller. The Beacon was the feature that most interested me, my other drone is a staaker that uses wrist band type tether. IMO the dual GPS technology is the only consistently reliable tracking method, especially if there's any speed. I had zero tracking issues with the SD2, for any of the faster tracking I used the Beacon, mainly because my testing was limited and I wanted to really test that feature out. Using the beacon it tracked me for literally miles at speeds up to 35mph. If there was 2 things I could change, it would be a 30 min battery and 45 mph top speed. A tall order with the SD2s frame size. My Staaker will do that but it's a larger aircraft with no avoidance.

I liked it enough to put my $$ down the first day it went on sale. Later after I posted a YT video a chinese guy offered me $2K for the one I ordered, I politely refused.


Based on your username and what you said about tracking you for miles at speed I get the impression that you may be filming yourself riding bikes or motorcycles? If so how did that work for you? I plan on using mine to film me and my boys on our bikes. I had two DJIs (A spark and a mavic pro) and tried to do that with those and it was a total failure. sold both of them. I'm hoping that I have more success with the Skydio 2. I'm in the first delivery batch so really looking forward to getting mine... hopefully in the next few weeks?
 
Thanks for the feedback!

How was your experience with the controller and what type of range did you get?

What do you think of the quality of the video/photos compared to the DJI lineup?
I really can't compare it to the DJI, the 2 times I was out with one it was someone else's and I never saw the video. My comparison (benchmark) is a H7B which take some nice video IMO. The SD2 seemed to be pretty close to that quality which is ideal for me because I mix Gopro with the drone's footage. I didn't do a test to see how far it'd go on the controller, it wasn't mine and I sure didn't want to risk loosing it. SD says it's 2 miles, from what I've seen their specs have been right on, I don't think they would off it's guarantee if they were exaggerating something as important as that. Sorry I really couldn't help you with those questions.
 
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Based on your username and what you said about tracking you for miles at speed I get the impression that you may be filming yourself riding bikes or motorcycles? If so how did that work for you? I plan on using mine to film me and my boys on our bikes. I had two DJIs (A spark and a mavic pro) and tried to do that with those and it was a total failure. sold both of them. I'm hoping that I have more success with the Skydio 2. I'm in the first delivery batch so really looking forward to getting mine... hopefully in the next few weeks?
Filming MCs is about all I use a drone for and that was the main thing I wanted to test. Past experience told me if you want a drone to follow something at speed over varying terrain and up and down hills autonomously, gps to gps tracking is the only thing that works consistently, especially when the subject is sometimes going 30+ mph. The beacon does that, you can't look at a phone screen in direct sunlight while riding a motorcycle. It's pretty much impossible to control a drone safely that way.

This was my test of it's follow capability. Unfortunately there wasn't many trees where I was so the avoidance wasn't taxed to hard but after a mile or so I quit looking for it in the sky and just rode. That's what I was hoping for and it did it nicely.

 
Ridefreak I agree GPS to GPS follow is not only required for high speed follow but safety. Don't forget the pressure sensor (baro) in the device for accurate altitude separation.

 
Ridefreak I agree GPS to GPS follow is not only required for high speed follow but safety. Don't forget the pressure sensor (baro) in the device for accurate altitude separation.

The Anafi tracks nicely, the difference between it and the Mavic is huge in that regard.
 

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