Follow Me or Not ?

I went to the park today and tried the follow me. Set it to hover straight above me. Just stayed off to side and jumped around a lot. As I moved around it would move some but not very close to me, just bouncing around.

Landed -disconnected and rebooted Iris. Soon as I connected it said waypoints loaded. I didn't make any waypoints and held on the trashcan to clear mission just in case. Got it in the air and started follow me. Same thing. I notice that when I open tower that the blue dot that is supposed to be me can be way off and move when I don't. Is the gps on my phone and tablets not accurate or is it a software issue ?

As I am sitting here typing I see my blue dot move as much as a whole block to the next street over. And now I see two blue dots

Anyone else seeing this happen ?

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  • GPS is a function of the GPS installed in the device.  Tower just reads that in and if they are marginal it will not use it and not send any updates to the copter.  GPS is effected by obstructions.  It can cause your location to jump several meters in any direction which can cause a problem for the copter.

    Also ever day you get a new set of satellites to use, that's why it takes longer to get a GPS lock the first time you use it.  The GPS has a battery and saves a list of satellites to use.  The next day those may not be in view and has to find new ones.

     

     

    • re-Also ever day you get a new set of satellites to use, that's why it takes longer to get a GPS lock the first time you use it.  The GPS has a battery and saves a list of satellites to use.  The next day those may not be in view and has to find new ones.

      wow.... I did not know that. That explains a lot.

  • Regarding waypoints recieved, that's kind of a known issue.

    Tower just likes to say that when it connects, even when there are no way points. To be safe, I often upload an empty mission to the Iris just in case there actually is an old mission in there.
  • Are you sure that Tower has been granted access to your Android's location services?

    I tested follow me with Tower this past week and it seemed about the same as DRoid Planner 2. Which is to say that it worked, but not perfectly. I had someone ride a mountain bike down a hill, partially through a wooded area (pine forest) and partially in the open.

    On the first attempt it failed. On the second attempt it worked, although when the biker went through the wooded section the Iris stopped and hovered for a bit until he emerged from the wood.

    On the first attempt, it appears the Iris lost connection almost right away and may have switched modes or just gone into pause. I thought I might have inadvertently touched the screen while stuffing the phone into his pocket. I could dig up the logs I suppose if anyone is interested. Personally I plan to do some more controled testing before I dive into the logs, but I don't mind posting them if others want to take a look.

    In general I've found the GPS accuracy of my phone to be pretty good - and exactly the same in DP2 and Tower. In other words the blue dot is in the right place, though I like to give my phone a minute or 2 while location services gets a "lock". I assume both Tower and DP2 are using Androids location services, so I don't know why one would be more accurate than the other.

    In the past I often experience a little lag before the Iris starts following, but I like to set a large radius (30 meters) so I've always assumed that was the reason - it won't start following until I've skied/ridden/driven far enough away to start "tugging on the leash" by exceeding the radius.
  • uninstalled Tower and went back to DroidPlanner 2 and the blue dot is dead on. Maybe try Follow Me again with DP2.

    • I too had some trouble with tower and went back to droidplanner. Good idea to try with that instead.

    • I'll third the comment- automatic modes ("dronie", Follow Me) didn't function well or at all in Tower, DP2 works fine.

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