We are pleased to announce the release of iDroneCtrl 1.2.0 for iPhone and iPad. The iDroneCtrl iOS app works with our iDroneLink™ lighting accessory for iPhone and iPad and allows long range control of your drone.
New in version 1.2.0:
- Audible flight status notifications
- Ability to clear all waypoints
- Improved mission editing
- Improved mission display user interface
- Updated aircraft artwork
- Target iOS 7 and above
We look forward to your feedback and thank you for the continued support!
*Photo credit: Dave Leskowicz
Comments
You might want to chime in on this thread about when the iPhone with be ready to plan missions and or just mention your product. I did :]
http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/better-ground-station-platform-wi...
Update... The correct altitude is displayed in apm-copter :]
Andy, pretty sure the issue isn't DC because i've had the same issue with my Taranis telemetry. I'm using a pixhawk with ardu-plane 3.2. I think it's something with plane 3.2. Will be able to confirm when I get my other pixhawk on my quad. Out of action at the moment.
Good deal on the upgrades keep em coming :]
Richard, I'm glad you like it! Thanks for letting me know about the zero altitude and weird readings after lock. I'll have to dig in a bit more on my end to see if I can reproduce the issue and track down what might be going on. If you can tell me the exact version of the autopilot software you are flying and on what flight controller hardware that might be helpful too. I'll contact you off list if I need more information than that from you.
We really liked the original Fighting Walrus Radio and its clamp design but we had difficulty getting it approved by Apple and so we switched focus and created the iDroneLink since the design is so much simpler and closer to what Apple is used to in an accessory.
More upgrades to the iDroneCtrl app very soon. It does look like it will take at least another release cycle or two before full mission planning on iPhone is finished up.
Well I got it! Works slick no issues connecting after I changed the net ID to match. I have only tried it on my phone so far. The only issue I have is it reads zero altitude until gps lock then it reads 251m which I think is 251m above sea level. I have had this issue with my Taranis as well. Funny it doesn't do this with APM Planner so not sure why it does it with iDC or APM Planner. If you have any suggestions please let me know!
The range seems good just judging from the ground haven't been able to fly yet. It seems as good as a typical 3dr 200mw radio based on the fact I left it in the basement and went outside a ways and it still had a decent rss number.
It snapped in nice and tight to the phone. I never had that 'OTG' feeling that if there was a stiff breeze it might come disconnected :] I do wish I had gotten the earlier version I had seen that had a couple clips that grabbed the phone as well. Perhaps you could offer that for a bit more $$? But I didn't have any problems with this one.
Looking forward to upgrades to allow mission editing on iPhones :] Time frame?
Thanks!
Excellent!! I was not aware there was a signal loss at the SMA connection. Good to know. Looking forward to trying it out. I will post back when I do. Thanks for the detailed reply!
Richard, I can't wait to hear your feedback on both the iDroneLink and our iDroneCtrl app. Right now we have full mission planning functionality on iPad and on iPhone you can set a goto waypoints by long pressing the map screen.I'm bringing full mission planning UI to iPhone as we speak.
With mission planning on iPad you can change the waypoint types to things like takeoff, land etc. We are missing a few waypoint types like regions of interest right now but will be bringing those to iDroneCtrl soon.
We build features in discrete shippable chunks and submit updates to Apple every two or three weeks so functionality improves incrementally but consistently. With the short release cycle there will be no long gaps of no improvement. This approach also lets us keep quality up since we can test each and every new software feature, improvement or fix on its own.
The iDroneLink, as a radio system, is more efficient than the 3DR radios and many others since we use an internal antenna and don't have efficiency loss due to the RP-SMA connector like on the 3DR radio so even with the smaller internal antenna it balances out to about the same range. We have also found reliability to be better than the OTG USB connected setup on Android or any bluetooth/wifi bridged system because of the tighter physical connection of the lighting connector and also the fact that we use the lighting connector in the more reliable serial mode instead of USB which can be a bit flakier by nature of the protocol.
Every iDroneLink unit we ship out is run through a set of tests by our factory test app that actually connects to a test drone and performs an number of operations to confirm everything is working perfectly before it gets to you. Please do let me know what you think of the product and software experience when it arrives and if you like it help spread the word :)
@Richard, shipped :)
Will get you full answers to your other questions later tonight.
Just ordered mine... can't wait! :]
How would you compare the reliability and range of the iDronelink to a standard 3DR usb powered telem radio with a small dipole antenna? Slightly less or the same??
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