Hi Folks. I'm going to be using my Iris+ in Follow Me mode with the Tower app, and I was curious if any of you have experience with this.
My first question is, where do you put the phone and antenna? Can the phone screen be in sleep mode or does it need to stay responsive? Can I put this in my pocket or does the antenna need to maintain a line of sight to the drone?
Thanks.
Replies
I appreciate the feedback and ideas. I'm thinking, why not a longer usb cord for the antenna?
I really want to have the phone within hands reach so I can quickly pause or land if I need to, or just see if it's still following me without turning around and looking at the drone while I'm riding.
Why not use a longer cord and throw the antenna over my back somehow while I keep my phone in front of me. Any experience with this?
Yeah, the longer chord makes sense. Velcro or tape the antenna to the back of your helmet.
Make a flexable antenna that goes in a neck strap. The pebble can be used to start and stop the "follow me" without touching the phone.
Let's make a wired lanyard that holds the phone and plugs in. On another note: I bought a $40 droid watch from Banggood and I'm gonna see if it will do Pebble stuff. I'll keep you updated. (then you don't have to have the phone in your hand, etc.)
The watch would help some, but then again if the drone is behind you, your body might be blocking the signal.
The watch connects to the phone via bluetooth. The phone to the mavlink antenna, and then to the drone. So if the antenna is positioned on your back or helmet it should be fine.
Or maybe I read your comment wrong. It seemed like you were implying the watch connected to the drone directly.
I tried the pebble watch with Droid Planner 2. Had some issues and bailed on it. Maybe it works better with the Tower and the new approach they've taken.
Just throw it in one of your cycling jersey rear pockets... or perhaps in a CamelBak.
I've done a bit of follow-me experimentation. Best results were when I created a "pocket" out of duct tape and taped the phone between the shoulder blades.
However, I've also successfully tested it (once) just throwing the phone in a chest pocket. In that case, it took a couple tries. On the first attempt, the Iris+ never entered follow me. I think I may have touched the screen and hit pause or something while putting it in the pocket. On the second attempt, follow-me worked fine, except for 20 seconds while the target (who was on a mountain bike) rode through a pine forrest. So based on that one test, it appears that chest pocket works, but I still have my doubts. I just haven't had the time to really do proper testing.
Before Tower (i.e.. with Droid Planner 2), I did a lot more follow me missions (skiing, in car, biking, etc) and they all worked pretty well, but in all cases I placed the phone where the antenna had a good visibility to the sky - usually between shoulder blades as mentioned above. When following a car, through the sunroof.
I guess it would be simple enough to look up the wavelength the mavlink antenna broadcasts on (I think its 950mhz), and check to see if that can pass through a human body. I haven't bothered to research that yet, even though it would take less time on google than the time I've spent writing this post so far.
Although I can appreciate the true fashion statement of the fanny pak, I would like to easily access the phone and even watch it (maybe) as it's flying, in case I need to keep my eye on it
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