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Nano Plus ISSUES - collective thread

Landey

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Purpose of this thread: Concentrating all issues at one single place, so Autel may get aware of them without browsing countless different threads and posts.

Please don't erect the stake, please don't tar and feather me. :D
There's flaws which Autel won't correct if nobody speaks up (why should they if there's no complaints?), so I'll name the things I dislike. I'll add more as soon as I get aware of more flaws, remove topics if there's a solution.

Please add your own ideas, please also tell me if I am talking nonsense – I'll update the post accordingly, naming the contributors.



Drone
1. Why does that fan run continuously? It should kick in if temperature rises and stop if temperature returns to normal again. So why waste precious battery power and cause permanent mechanical wear for no reason?
2. Legs are too short. Even on slightly uneven ground, ground features may block the gimbal, scratch the camera lens and cover the fan.


Flight
1. Smooth and Standard modes restrict the motor power to certain values. I understand this is needed for not exceeding the maximum speed of that modes. But if wind comes into play, the drone does not reach that maximum speeds anymore. It's maximum motor power is limited to the value it needs for achieving it's regular speed in windless conditions. In such cases, the motor power needs to be increased beyond the values set for no-wind operation, so the drone doesn't struggle to reach regular speeds. This is quite vital as it may prevent the drone returning to it's home point if you don't switch to Ludicrous mode, Speed priority and deactivate the obstacle avoidance. A software issues which may easily lead to the loss of our drone – e. g. if flying over water.
2. Countless false positives with obstacle detection, occurring if sunlight hits the camera lenses or the drone shaking in windy conditions. Use the main camera for validating the smaller cameras inputs, use GPS and compass data for determining the sun's position relative to the OA cameras lenses to distinguish sunlight from real obstacles.
3. Height over ground shown by obstacle detection often strongly differs from the actual height.


Camera
1. CAMERA PROFILES MISSING! RAW photos show significant vignetting, distortions towards the corners and wrong colors. That's nothing special, but a hell of work correcting those issues manually. So please provide a camera profile allowing automatic correction. You use such a profile for creating the JPGs, so it's already there.
2. Vital settings not possible if you're not airborne. What the heck? We need to do and check settings prior to liftoff to save battery.
3. Log profile is handy, but flying with a running Log profile recording is a horror – the low contrast settings make flying the drone very difficult, you just can't see much. Save videos as Log, but show the regular non-Log video while flying.
4. No manual camera settings if recording Log or HDR videos? That's an absolute NO-GO! We desperately need manual control over exposure and ISO.
5. "50 MP" pictures. It's not 50 MP, it's 12.5 MP JPGs scaled up to 50 MP. Please provide the real sensor output, not just zoomed 12.5 MP pictures.
6. 1920 × 1080 recordings are crops, meaning the resulting picture is just a 1920 × 1080 pixels sized cutout from the center of a 4K picture. This results in a bad resolution and a very narrow field of view. 1920 × 1080 recordings should depict the full frame, downsampled to 1920 × 1080.
7. Permanent "Gimbal is calibrating" message, preventing liftoff. The gimbal does nothing, but still there's that nagging voice telling lies and causing unnecessary waiting. Message gets triggered as soon as the drone doesn't rest perfectly horizontally – thus it's not about gimbal calibration, it's about resting on non-level ground. Please stop that.
8. Auto settings: Exposure adaption is jumpy, you clearly see the change steps. Just smooth this out a bit.

Just a cosmetic thing: That red writing all around the lens looks extremely cheap. Just use small white letters like all serious lens manufacturers do.


Controller
1. Why the heck does that loud, vibrating and disturbing fan run if the controller just does nothing, like resting on my car's seat, not connected to the drone, no data transfer running, just being idle?
2. Battery life is low. One flight session with three batteries, and that's it. One culprit is forced smartphone charging.
3. Senseless forced charging of the smartphone. Permanent charging of the smartphone destroys the smartphone's battery and quickly exhausts the controller's battery. I read this is caused by some senseless Google USB specifications. Isn't there a way around that nuisance? How about offering a special USB cable preventing forced charging? I would happily pay for that.
4. Lacks buttons. I use the Fn button for gimbal up/down 90 ° and switching flight modes. In quite some situations a double-tap on the Fn button gets interpreted as a single press by the drone – now tilting the gimbal instead of changing the flight mode, ruining the recording. I also miss a dedicated button for switching between video and photo modes. Using the display, I need to take one hand off the controller, which is very undesirable, especially regarding the unfavorable weight distribution, making the controller top-heavy. A few more buttons at the bottom side or in thumb's reach would be great.
5. Yes, everybody laments about it: We need space for storing the USB cable and the sticks. Doesn't feel like a big thing, but it indeed is an issue.


Charging hub
1. Horrible thing! Batteries fall out if you don't utmost care as there's just friction holding them. Quite often, one battery pops out if you connect the next. Yes, it's small and flat, in theory saves space. In real life it doesn't because the batteries still need a lot of space. Thus a closed charging hub fully enclosing the batteries would be the better way to go.
2. Why serial charging only? With a powerful power adapter parallel charging would be possible, saving so much time. Just detect the charging current and switch from sequential to parallel charging.


App
1. I don't see any means for setting the "connection lost behavior", e. g. for telling the drone if it should return home, hover or land if signal is lost.
Just imagine flying indoors (or under objects like bridges) with sufficient GPS reception, and the controller running out of power, getting dropped or inadvertently switched off. Drone will try to rise to it's return height and drill a hole through the ceiling.
2. Video transmission quality: The higher the video transmission quality between controller and drone, the higher the power consumption and CPU load, possibly also introducing significant lag. I don't see ANY sense in transmitting a 2.7K video signal for flying the drone if a tiny smartphone is used as a screen. It's just a big waste of battery, CPU power and transmission bandwidth. So please make it selectable – 2.7K for tablet use or other purposes, 1080p and 720p for smartphone use, saving battery, CPU power and bandwidth for a lag-free experience.
3. I. HATE. THAT. NAGGING. GOOGLE. VOICE. telling the same information over and over. PLEASE give us an option for switching off that nuisance! There's plenty of indicators on screen, we really don't need permanently repeated lectures. And we don't need a permanent low-volume warning on screen if we decided to shut up Ms Google's senseless babble.
4. I cannot choose my language. Would be no problem at all because I prefer English over a bad and cheap translation. But there IS a problem! The app is English, so the voice should be English, too. It isn't. I am in Germany – and the app uses the GERMAN Google voice for pronoucing ENGLISH text, pronouncing English as if it was German. Plus, the German Google voice sounds utmost unfriendly and unpleasant. You cannot imagine the drag on my nerves while listening to that horror. Add a language selector for the voice or default the voice to English only. Please.
5. Option for switching off or better: dimming the green battery LEDs of the controller missing. No problem during daytime, but blinding at night. Sure, you can cover the LEDs. But you still wish to know the battery level – and if the problem comes up, you usually don't have any means for covering at hand.
6. Extreme delay between triggering a photo recording and shutter sound. When does the drone take the picture? Immediately after pressing the button or ages later when the shutter sound (I don't want that sound! Immediately triggers bystanders asking "DID YOU JUST PHOTOGRAPH ME?") is heard? If the latter: Why that extreme delay? We wish to capture a specific moment, not something happening in the far future.
7. Pano modes: Option for choosing stitching the pictures immediately or later (after landing) missing. Stitching takes ages, battery doesn't last ages in flight.


Wi-Fi download
1. Same problems as with firmware updates, obviously same reasons.
I managed to download a single JPG file after 10 or 20 tries (no exaggeration), no DNG files, no videos. Transmission always stops after transferring a few kBytes, followed by an error message.
At present, there's no way of transferring larger files via Wi-Fi if you're using a dual-band Wi-Fi network.
2. I did not manage to transfer JPGs taken just before the transfer, only JPGs shot during a previous session. Transfer works after shutting down the drone and restarting it (and after countless retries). Seems like the drone does not allow transferring files just taken in the same "flight session".


Firmware updates
I wasted a full battery for the first update as it took countless tries. Connection repeatedly broke (1 m between controller and drone, router 2 m away), other unspecified errors occurred again and again.
I read that we need to manually switch network transmission bands for making this work. This is something to be done by the software, not by reconfiguring our home network.
Alternative: Provide the firmware files for download and doing updates via SD card.


Manuals
1. The manuals look and feel very cheap.
2. English manuals aren't written by an English native. This is no big deal, but it sheds a "cheap" light on Autel, a partly US-based company.
3. There's information missing in the manuals, there's wrong information in the manuals.
4. I am an approved technical writer, EN > DE translator and advertizing copywriter with perception psychology training, working for the real big ones. Just an unobtrusive hint. :D


Bag
1. The bag coming with the Premium bundle is just too small, lacks space for storing the controller with the sticks mounted, also storing the smartphone is close to impossible if you won't wish to use the back pocket. Side pockets are not suited for delicate smartphones.
2. Material should be weather resistant.



Editing history
2022-04-21: Inserted topic Camera/6.
 
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Thanks for doing this, I tried before, but after all the negative comments how useless it is I gave up.
GOOD ON YOU!

Now AUTEL will you listen and monitor this help from users to improve your product?
 
I have one tiny addition but it could be just me (I'd say landing category). I have a small landing pad and if I'm not super careful to place it perfectly flat the drone slides off slowly once landed (feet and pad both slippery). When this happens the drone never turns off the propellers even though it is already landed so if I'm not careful it ends up cutting the grass while falling off the pad. I'm not sure if the drone detects the sliding as "not yet landed" but would be nice if the propellers are off when it does that. Then again I'm a beginner so maybe is just me.
 
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most of your comments are observations and in fact, cannot be "fixed" by autel at this point or at least not by software. much of what you posted aren't even "bugs" and don't detract from the overall experience but it sounds like probably the autel nano is not a drone suitable for you. perhaps you could take a look at the upcoming mini 3 since dji seems to have all the refinements without all the flaws in their low-tier drones.
 
I had no doubt kenautelevo2pro would crap on this thread as much as possible ....Unbelievable
This is not contribution just useless verbal vomit that doesn't help, so thanks for nothing kenautelevo2pro
im actually being serious about the mini3, it sounds like it turning out to be a nice little drone and possibly coming in under the nano+ pricing. the nano is not perfect and if you need a drone that does more than just take beautiful pictures and video, have a look at the mini3. dji is very responsive to their customers, they listen and provide frequent sw updates....what's wrong with making that suggestion?

honestly, the nano is their first and likely last sub-250 venture; let's face it they aren't going to turn nano into a superstar. it's never going to be flawless. surely everyone can have their thoughts and opinions on what makes the product better; that's fine, post them here. poster asked if he was talking "nonsense" and he invited replies.....so i replied. he's not talking all nonsense but i found several of the items (such as legs not long enough).....really?
 
im actually being serious about the mini3, it sounds like it turning out to be a nice little drone and possibly coming in under the nano+ pricing. the nano is not perfect and if you need a drone that does more than just take beautiful pictures and video, have a look at the mini3. dji is very responsive to their customers, they listen and provide frequent sw updates....what's wrong with making that suggestion?

honestly, the nano is their first and likely last sub-250 venture; let's face it they aren't going to turn nano into a superstar. it's never going to be flawless. surely everyone can have their thoughts and opinions on what makes the product better; that's fine, post them here. poster asked if he was talking "nonsense" and he invited replies.....so i replied. he's not talking all nonsense but i found several of the items (such as legs not long enough).....really?
Another useless reply, did you even bother to read why and what for was this thread created?
If you don't own the Nano/Nano+ I think you can steer away from this thread.
 
I just had them replace my Nano Plus and the replacement is worse. Intermittent flight controller connection losses (Not RC.)
Slow, slow, slow.
Delayed video transmission response.

yeah the charging hub is a pain but I can deal with that.


Does anyone know why there would be a video delay? I turn the drone left or right and the RC is doing its job and the drone physically responds immediately. But I do not see the response on my tablet or cell phone device ( I have a Tripletek; I-phone 13 and Samsung Galaxy cell phone the issue is same for all.

What can I do to improve the video transmission time?

Why is my replacement drone slower than the first one? It tops out at 26mph in ludicrous.

I think I love the drone because it has such a nice camera though.

also it seems that my range on the replacement unit is not as good.
 
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Another useless reply, did you even bother to read why and what for was this thread created?
If you don't own the Nano/Nano+ I think you can steer away from this thread.
ok i see. you think this is a thread going directly to autel to settle your grievances and you want to control it because you could get one done in past. don't be ridiculous, of course i have a nano+. an real one. maybe that's why i don't see half of these, unlike you and the op, i don't buy and complain about pre-production equipment that is clearly defective.
 
ok i see. you think this is a thread going directly to autel to settle your grievances and you want to control it because you could get one done in past. don't be ridiculous, of course i have a nano+. an real one. maybe that's why i don't see half of these, unlike you and the op, i don't buy and complain about pre-production equipment that is clearly defective.
No, I think you are wasting our time with your posts, simple as that.
Welcome to my "ignore" list 🙄
 
most of your comments are observations and in fact, cannot be "fixed" by autel at this point or at least not by software. much of what you posted aren't even "bugs" and don't detract from the overall experience but it sounds like probably the autel nano is not a drone suitable for you. perhaps you could take a look at the upcoming mini 3 since dji seems to have all the refinements without all the flaws in their low-tier drones.
I don't wish to be unfriendly - but this is one of the most unhelpful and crude responses possible. In fact, responses like this had been the reasons for my very first sentences of the original post.
Let me tell you why.

1) OF COURSE there's many problems which cannot be fixed by software. That's why this thread's title is "Nano Plus ISSUES", not "Nano Plus software bugs". Autel will launch more drones in the future, maybe there will be a Nano Plus 2 or Pro. Do you wish for the next generation repeating the same issues? No, you don't. And that's the reason why we need to tell Autel what we dislike, so they can do better.

2) Imagine a friend of yours tells you he loves his wife but dislikes her underwear. What will be your advice? Instant divorce? Would that be a good advice? Of course not. A good advice would be suggesting some ways for improving the situation. That's why I provided quite some suggestions about how to solve current issues.

Thus I friendly ask you to reflect a bit more on the matter before posting a quite huffy and useless fanboy response.
 
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Does anyone know why there would be a video delay?
What can I do to improve the video transmission time?

Why is my replacement drone slower than the first one? It tops out at 26mph in ludicrous.
Please see the topics App>2 and Flight>1 of my original post.
I guess (which means I don't know for sure) that the HQ video transmission is the culprit causing the delay. There's a setting in the app, but I don't understand it's purpose.
Regarding speed I guessed the reason under Flight>1 - and you can try Ludicrous mode with Speed priority, obstacle avoidance switched off. All three settings need to be done! This should get your drone to 15 m/s.
 
I have one tiny addition but it could be just me (I'd say landing category). I have a small landing pad and if I'm not super careful to place it perfectly flat the drone slides off slowly once landed (feet and pad both slippery). When this happens the drone never turns off the propellers even though it is already landed so if I'm not careful it ends up cutting the grass while falling off the pad. I'm not sure if the drone detects the sliding as "not yet landed" but would be nice if the propellers are off when it does that. Then again I'm a beginner so maybe is just me.
Hi there! ;)

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, I also did not experience that phenomenon myself. Could be a good thing if the drone senses it's not really landed, yet - and keeps the propellers spinning for taking off again if it topples or drops.
Buf if that's the case, only the Gods of Autel know. ;)
 
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Please see the topics App>2 and Flight>1 of my original post.
I guess (which means I don't know for sure) that the HQ video transmission is the culprit causing the delay. There's a setting in the app, but I don't understand it's purpose.
Regarding speed I guessed the reason under Flight>1 - and you can try Ludicrous mode with Speed priority, obstacle avoidance switched off. All three settings need to be done! This should get your drone to 15 m/s.
where is this topic? Thank you
 
most of your comments are observations and in fact, cannot be "fixed" by autel at this point or at least not by software. much of what you posted aren't even "bugs" and don't detract from the overall experience but it sounds like probably the autel nano is not a drone suitable for you. perhaps you could take a look at the upcoming mini 3 since dji seems to have all the refinements without all the flaws in their low-tier drones.
At the price it is I wouldn’t call the Nano + a low tier drone
 
I'm sorry, but how exactly do you buy "pre-production" equipment? Pre-production would mean prototype. I'm pretty sure this is talk about a retail product that people paid good money for.

ok i see. you think this is a thread going directly to autel to settle your grievances and you want to control it because you could get one done in past. don't be ridiculous, of course i have a nano+. an real one. maybe that's why i don't see half of these, unlike you and the op, i don't buy and complain about pre-production equipment that is clearly defective.
 
I'm sorry, but how exactly do you buy "pre-production" equipment? Pre-production would mean prototype. I'm pretty sure this is talk about a retail product that people paid good money for.
unfortunately not an easy question to answer. as far as i know most of us here do not work at autel so best i can do is speculate. perhaps "pre-production" is not the best word to use. it's a long story, the history is in the a bunch of other threads if you would like to glance at it. doesn't appear to be a big deal anymore but it's still early. just saying.
 
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Purpose of this thread: Concentrating all issues at one single place, so Autel may get aware of them without browsing countless different threads and posts.

No one seems to believe that Autel officials don't bother with user forums, so threads like this pop up from time to time. If you want to get Autel's attention, you have a few choices.

Autel has an official Facebook group that you could join. OFFICIAL Autel Robotics Owners | Facebook

Reach out to [email protected] Of course everyone is complaing about slow reply time from support, so adding replying to feedback to the list won't help. But at least someone that works for Autel will actually see it.

Next, you could post a well produced video to YouTube detailing your complaints and observations. If you don't have at least 50k subscribers, you may need to get someone that does do it for you.

But threads like this might be able to influence Autel. If enough prospective buyers actually read this stuff before hitting the "buy" button and then choose not to. Sales will fall and Autel will notice.

Good luck!
 
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Morning, Dave. ;)

German saying: "Alle sagten, das geht nicht. Dann kam einer, der nicht wusste, dass es nicht geht - und machte es einfach."
Rough translation: "Everyone said it's impossible. Then one came along who didn't know it was impossible - and just did it."

An example, own experience: Quite some time ago, I developed a simple, but new communication system. I even got permission from the government, as it included governmental services. Then I did my worst mistake: I told everyone about my new idea and asked for their opinion. They all said it was impossible, nobody would be interested in it - and if it could work, someone else would have done it before. I got disenchanted and stopped my project. Two years later others made millions with it.

If you try, there's a chance. If you don't try, there's no chance.
There's an Autel representative roaming this forum, so there's an addressee. If a thread gets some attention, it will also get his attention.
And OF COURSE I'll send that list directly to Autel - after collecting some more issues and making sure I did not miss a setting or similar means.

So your way is giving up and doing nothing, eliminating all chances of success. I doubt this attitude could turn out beneficial.
 

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