Welcome, Autel Pilots!
Join our free Autel drone community today!
Join Us

Nano Plus ISSUES - collective thread

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.

Ken is a good guy and does work for Autel. He doesn't get to make policy at Autel though, unfortunately.

There is an "old" saying amongst guys that have been involved with the consumer multirotor community since it's inception.

If the craft does what you expect and want it to do out of the box when you purchase it, then great.
If it doesn't, and you are not happy with it in it's current state, don't expect it to change. It might, but it probably will not.


Over the last 10 years or so, that saying has proven to be mostly good advice. Your time is your own, though, so as you say; maybe you are the one. Just don't count on it !
 
  • Like
Reactions: trontar
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.
I admire your patience!
Ken is a good guy and does work for Autel. He doesn't get to make policy at Autel though, unfortunately.

There is an "old" saying amongst guys that have been involved with the consumer multirotor community since it's inception.

If the craft does what you expect and want it to do out of the box when you purchase it, then great.
If it doesn't, and you are not happy with it in it's current state, don't expect it to change. It might, but it probably will not.


Over the last 10 years or so, that saying has proven to be mostly good advice. Your time is your own, though, so as you say; maybe you are the one. Just don't count on it !
Yeah, people also vote for change, because they are tired of the BS others try to force on them.
Someone can tell you "I done it like this for 20 years...." Yes you did, and you did it wrong :)

Time for change !
 
Yeah, people also vote for change, because they are tired of the BS others try to force on them.
Someone can tell you "I done it like this for 20 years...." Yes you did, and you did it wrong :)

Time for change !

So I don't misunderstand your comment, are you saying that the "old saying" I mentioned is just wrong now because there are new guys complaining about new craft rather than the old guys complaining about the old craft? 🤔

Because I can assure you there has ALWAYS been LOTS of complaining when expectations are not met. The "old" saying came about over the years because all that complaining fell on deaf ears at the manufacturer.

But, the new complaining (fill in the time) This year / This month / This week / etc. is different, right? 🥱

We ALL wish it wasn't like this. But in fact, it is.

Anyway, carry on 'cus when you get tired, the next new guys will be along shortly.
 
So I don't misunderstand your comment, are you saying that the "old saying" I mentioned is just wrong now because there are new guys complaining about new craft rather than the old guys complaining about the old craft? 🤔

Because I can assure you there has ALWAYS been LOTS of complaining when expectations are not met. The "old" saying came about over the years because all that complaining fell on deaf ears at the manufacturer.

But, the new complaining (fill in the time) This year / This month / This week / etc. is different, right? 🥱

We ALL wish it wasn't like this. But in fact, it is.

Anyway, carry on 'cus when you get tired, the next new guys will be along shortly.
No, it's general comment to those who notoriously discourage change. (Like those who told me that is pointless to pin any thread since nobody cares)
Autel will have to change their ways and listen to users unless they want to fold it.
 
No, it's general comment to those who notoriously discourage change. (Like those who told me that is pointless to pin any thread since nobody cares)
No one is suggesting discouraging change.

Autel will have to change their ways and listen to users unless they want to fold it.
Just like DJI has had to fold.
 
No one is suggesting discouraging change.


Just like DJI has had to fold.
Glad to hear that

The difference with Dji is, that when they started, it was pretty much monopoly, no competition around. Autel is not in that position, and not like they giving these away cheap.
 
That's the point. As long as there's no real alternative to your products, you don't need to listen to anyone but your wallet.
Autel appears to be the first real competitor of DJI, while drones don't seem to be their main products - but products with the secondary effect of underlining their competence in their main sector.
I know a similar situation: Granite Devices in Finland, CNC specialists, also producing direct drive wheels for the sim racing industry. Not their main products, but excellent devices often mentioned in the media. Things like that raise the public's awareness level and foster growth in their other sector, also may result in a second main pillar of their business.
I guess it's similar with Autel.
Difference: Granite Devices has a very attentive support, listens, replies, makes customers feel they care about them. Autel does not really. Lack of communication appears to be a central problem. Thus we do communication, even if it seems to be unidirectional. But a lack of response does not necessarily mean you didn't get heard. ;)
Trying won't cost us anything. But not trying may cost us everything.

Dave: I do advertizing copywriting, also consulting regarding national and international campaigns, feasibility studies and the like. Thus I know a bit of the game. And I would love if Autel would listen to me. Not for making money, just for helping to create better product services, which of course are part of a product and help building a loyal customer base - maybe by creating the feel there's someone doing more for their community than others. That's the way Autel should give a try.
They got a lot of criticism from different sources, media, this forum. There's also quite some guys stating they cancelled their order or return a drone. Thus I see some more detailled criticism as a kind of supportive means, collecting and explaining possible desertion causes, not restricted to pure flaming, but also pointing to solutions.
Might succeed, might not. But always worth a try.
How about naming a few shortcomings, so I could adobt them?
 
Dave: I do advertizing copywriting, also consulting regarding national and international campaigns, feasibility studies and the like. Thus I know a bit of the game. And I would love if Autel would listen to me. Not for making money, just for helping to create better product services, which of course are part of a product and help building a loyal customer base - maybe by creating the feel there's someone doing more for their community than others. That's the way Autel should give a try.

I don't disagree with your desire to "help" Autel see the light, so to speak. The problem is, that Autel, like DJI, is a segmented company. I'm not talking about the auto side and the drone side. I'm talking about the China side and everyone else at the company. As much as we might hope that Autel will come to see the value in their customer base, China execs just don't seem wired that way. Candidly Autel employees that deal with the decision makers will tell you as much. I'm not sure if your were around when Autel Robotics hired Randall Warnas as CEO. His tenure was short lived when he found out that he was going to be more or less an engaging, customer forward, figure head. But that the decisions were still going to be made in China, like always. So, he quit. Autel has not changed since then.

You guys have at it. I tried to temper your hopes, but I'm done. I hope your efforts amount to something. If you are willing to take anything away from my comments, take the "old saying" that I mentioned earlier to heart; for Autel and any drone maker for that matter. Make your purchases based upon what the drone will do out of the box. Not what may come down the road as far as fixes and features. Only what is does on day one.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: kenautelevo2pro
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.
Good review and thanks for taking the time to point these out to Autel. Lets see if anything or anyone at Autel even contributes to the solving of these problems. Autel is a little late in addressing problems and even simple accessories for these drones. Again, thanks
 
Good review and thanks for taking the time to point these out to Autel. Lets see if anything or anyone at Autel even contributes to the solving of these problems. Autel is a little late in addressing problems and even simple accessories for these drones. Again, thanks!
 
Experienced new bug yesterday, using Pixel 6 PRO, after taking off I noticed that the complete right hand sliding Mode Menu was missing, I killed the app, but even after restarting it and reconnecting to the drone it was still missing. Had to land the drone and reboot it to get the Menu back. Strange.
 
What happened? Mechanical damage?

I am really not sure what happened here. I tried to take off and one of the propellers would not move. It is jammed, the entire propeller unit is stuck. The others move freely but not that one.
 
I am really not sure what happened here. I tried to take off and one of the propellers would not move. It is jammed, the entire propeller unit is stuck. The others move freely but not that one.
That's unfortunate, time to start warranty claim :(
Be patient.
Good luck!
 
Forced Landing on Battery Low.

So I've lived with the countless "false" obstacle alerts one every flight but what happened today tipped the balance to where I'll probably sell it and go back to DJI.

Was flying the Autel over a piece of property we recently purchased. The drone was no farther than 800 feet distance wise from me at any time. I was attempting to get multiple picture to stitch together and knowing that it wouldn't be going off my property I ignored the initial battery low warning and cancelled the RTH.

Then at some point around 8% battery life it decided to just force land - I could not over ride it even though I could have manually flown it to my location and landed in probably a minute. Luckily it landed in semirough area but it forced me to go hiking through the brush to find it.

So basically take at least 10% off the advertised "flight time" since you won't ever get to use it unless you're willing to go hunt the drone down assuming it force lands in a recoverable spot.
 
Forced Landing on Battery Low.

So I've lived with the countless "false" obstacle alerts one every flight but what happened today tipped the balance to where I'll probably sell it and go back to DJI.

Was flying the Autel over a piece of property we recently purchased. The drone was no farther than 800 feet distance wise from me at any time. I was attempting to get multiple picture to stitch together and knowing that it wouldn't be going off my property I ignored the initial battery low warning and cancelled the RTH.

Then at some point around 8% battery life it decided to just force land - I could not over ride it even though I could have manually flown it to my location and landed in probably a minute. Luckily it landed in semirough area but it forced me to go hiking through the brush to find it.

So basically take at least 10% off the advertised "flight time" since you won't ever get to use it unless you're willing to go hunt the drone down assuming it force lands in a recoverable spot.
sorry to hear about that but dji drones will force land, too. i hear about these stories all the time so i make it a point to try not to ever go past 20%....15% at the most. the total flight time for me is not based on how much i can squeeze out of one battery....it's how much time i can get from a series of batteries. if you want to fly for an hour, do the math based on 20%, buy the number of batteries. to me, that's the only way to avoid a disaster. glad to hear you got your drone back, others have reported forced landing in a lake.
 
I wish they offered slightly bigger props. There is enough diameter space on the drone to add around 5mm to the props which would help with flight stability.
 

Latest threads

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
11,228
Messages
102,655
Members
9,818
Latest member
redwingaerials