Blogs

The Solo Gimbal is out there in the wild, and we’re seeing some stunning footage you all are shooting. That’s awesome.

As we head into the end of the year, we wanted to share a few things that are coming soon.

The gimbal production line has been cranking without major hiccups. Limited availability of Solo and the gimbal should soon be a thing of the past.

In terms of software, over the course of the summer we’ve been rolling out features and quality improvements, and there’s more of that to come.

In the latest (first week of October) release, you’ll notice a few key things. First, we’ve improved the gimbal stabilization performance. Your Smart Shots should be smoother and more stable than ever, and the gimbal system as a whole will be even more reliable. You’ll also notice that the radio link is more robust, allowing you to fly with confidence in more places at greater range. Solo will lose link less often when it is close to you (within 1000-foot range), and your overall range should be noticeably longer. GPS lock has improved, too; you should get GPS lock faster than before, especially after your first flight in a new location.

Overall, you should notice a nice big step in the overall robustness of the Solo user experience.

We’re also rolling out more GoPro control features. You’ve been able to start and stop recording on the GoPro already. (Pro-tip: In addition to start/stop record from the, clicking in the pitch paddle on the controller starts and stops GoPro control.) In the middle of this month, we will also roll out mode-switching: This will allow you to switch from video to photo mode during flight straight from the app.

You can now create a user account via Facebook or Google login. This new login method underpins a more advanced user and support system. We have improved our automatic log analysis so that if you should ever need to submit a trouble ticket, we’ll be able to diagnose your issue more quickly and more accurately. Our support team is now using tools that automatically parse your Solo’s logs to help identify problems, doing the work a human engineer once had to do manually.

We call this system BlackBox, and it’s pretty slick. The user accounts will help us track your system over time so that the log analysis tools work even better. And don’t worry, we won’t be collecting data if you don’t want us to—you can control this via a setting in the app. Again, the overall point of this work is to keep you and your Solo up and running, and confirm for you that we stand behind Solo and your experience with it.

By the way, we have even more in store for our November release. Tipping our hand a little bit, we’ll be rolling out finer control of GoPro settings early on in that month, giving you complete control of the GoPro during flight.

There you have it. In summary, we’ve got our complete Solo and gimbal system out there, and we’re improving the user experience in big steps by increasing overall robustness and adding new features. Thanks for choosing Solo, and thanks for choosing 3DR.