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

This is hands down the worst drone I've ever owned

uberamd

Active Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2021
Messages
29
Reaction score
20
Age
35
Just want to rant a bit, but this $2200 Autel Evo 2 Pro V2 is hands down the worst drone I've ever owned.

Lets begin with 45 minutes ago: I had to stand around like a dummy while I waited for my Evos battery to die because the RC disconnected from the drone and refused to reconnect -- instead just sitting on the "Connecting..." screen. Minor problem, right -- after all this is why we have failsafe RTH? Wrong. The auto-RTH put the drone close to a small tree so it refused to land (obstacle avoidance works, thats a plus I guess?). It hovered 12' off the ground for 30 minutes while I stood around waiting for the battery to die and the drone to fall from the sky. Eventually it did.

And this is a pattern with this stupid piece of crap drone. This thing has constant connectivity problems with the RC, where the RC would say "Connecting..." until I restarted the RC then it'd reconnect and I could control the drone once more. Annoying, but again, not the end of the world. Now it no longer reconnects until the drone itself is rebooted. I thought a firmware upgrade might fix it, and waited for the slow as molasses firmware release cadence from Autel. No luck. No improvement. It’s worse, actually.

OTA updates? Forget about it. They take over an hour to MAYBE complete, but usually it just stalls out at 60% after a full hour of watching the progress bar crawl across the RC display.

Active track? Trash. The one time I tried to use it to capture me riding my mountain bike down a straight road it locked onto me (yay) and then descended and flew right at, then 3 feet over my head, nearly ramming into me at full speed before losing me because it passed me, veering off to the side, clipping a gigantic tree branch, and breaking a propeller. Couldn't help but laugh, it was that comically bad.

A local neighbor kid recently got one of those $50 no-name drones, and he's had less issues with it than I've had with this crap.

Now I'm being told by Autel that by moving to an older firmware to see if it fixes my disconnect issue, I may have voided my warranty. What?

Sigh. Should have stuck with DJI.
 
Last edited:
A local neighbor kid recently got one of those $50 no-name drones, and he's had less issues with it than I've had with this crap.
sorry to hear you are having trouble with your drone. so the neighbor is not having issues with active track, getting beautiful 6k video, his drone flawlessly returns to home every time, and he can update his software ota in under 60 minutes, etc? ;)
 
sorry to hear you are having trouble with your drone. so the neighbor is not having issues with active track, getting beautiful 6k video, his drone flawlessly returns to home every time, and he can update his software ota in under 60 minutes, etc? ;)
😄 the video is beautiful when it works, that’s true. Of course my methods of sharing the beautiful video include Instagram which compresses it down to potato quality anyway, but it does look good prior to uploading.

My drone may have more half-baked features, I paid 44x what he did, and I don’t feel I got 44x more drone.

Hell, I brought my drone up to the beautiful Minnesota North Shore to get some video last weekend and the drone disconnected and left me hanging 23 seconds into my flight.

I know I know I may have a dud, but this is my 3rd Autel Evo and all of them have had issues. My Evo 1 would drop into atti mode randomly. My first Evo 2 Pro V2 had range issues literally 20 feet away from me. And now this one just drops connection.

Meanwhile I’ve had a dozen DJI drones over the years and none had issues. Maybe it’s me, idk.

Oh, and interestingly: even when my RC disconnects and gets stuck “Connecting…” the video feed to the mobile app keeps working until I reboot the RC. Can’t control it and telemetry isn’t working, but I can see the camera feed in real time still. Gives me a nice Birds Eye view of my disappointment as this piece of crap flys back to me on its own.
 
Just want to rant a bit, but this $2200 Autel Evo 2 Pro V2 is hands down the worst drone I've ever owned.

Lets begin with 45 minutes ago: I had to stand around like a dummy while I waited for my Evos battery to die because the RC disconnected from the drone and refused to reconnect -- instead just sitting on the "Connecting..." screen. Minor problem, right -- after all this is why we have failsafe RTH? Wrong. The auto-RTH put the drone close to a small tree so it refused to land (obstacle avoidance works, thats a plus I guess?). It hovered 12' off the ground for 30 minutes while I stood around waiting for the battery to die and the drone to fall from the sky. Eventually it did.

And this is a pattern with this stupid piece of crap drone. This thing has constant connectivity problems with the RC, where the RC would say "Connecting..." until I restarted the RC then it'd reconnect and I could control the drone once more. Annoying, but again, not the end of the world. Now it no longer reconnects until the drone itself is rebooted. I thought a firmware upgrade might fix it, and waited for the slow as molasses firmware release cadence from Autel. No luck. No improvement. It’s worse, actually.

OTA updates? Forget about it. They take over an hour to MAYBE complete, but usually it just stalls out at 60% after a full hour of watching the progress bar crawl across the RC display.

Active track? Trash. The one time I tried to use it to capture me riding my mountain bike down a straight road it locked onto me (yay) and then descended and flew right at, then 3 feet over my head, nearly ramming into me at full speed before losing me because it passed me, veering off to the side, clipping a gigantic tree branch, and breaking a propeller. Couldn't help but laugh, it was that comically bad.

A local neighbor kid recently got one of those $50 no-name drones, and he's had less issues with it than I've had with this crap.

Now I'm being told by Autel that by moving to an older firmware to see if it fixes my disconnect issue, I may have voided my warranty. What?

Sigh. Should have stuck with DJI.
I left Autel after the EVO 1. Just got the Mini 3 Pro and the active track, although not perfect does pretty well and some of the smart modes are great for cinematic moves.
 
  • Like
Reactions: David G. and G_G
Sorry to hear that your Evo II isn't working properly. I am a prior Evo II 8K V1 owner and it never failed me. Flew it frequently under a variety of conditions and never experienced any problems with disconnects or OTA updates. Took very little time to take it out of the bag, power up, power on the controller, and start flying. I now have a skydio which is superior for tracking and OA but the Evo II is better in many other respects -- I miss it.

I agree the active track isn't stellar on the Evo II, athough the OA features will definitely keep you out of trouble.

Is your Evo II new and under warranty? If yes, there may be a problem with it. I recommend you submit a support ticket to Autel or return it if you're within the return window where you purchased it.
 
Your drone sounds like my Dodge Caravan I bought 20 years ago. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong with it did! Yep we both got lemons.

I have been flying my Evo II Pro 6K for nearly 2 and a 1/2 years now and even after clipping a fence at high speed, I have had zero problems with it flying both recreationally and commercially.

I hope Autel will work with you and rectify your situation, I can't imagine the frustration you have dealt with!
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: SBKSeveN
I left Autel after the EVO 1. Just got the Mini 3 Pro and the active track, although not perfect does pretty well and some of the smart modes are great for cinematic moves.
The mini 3 is a solid performing drone for sure, very powerful for such a tiny device. Unfortunately, 2 days after getting it I crashed it and broke the gimbal while trying to get closer to some wasp activity on my roof line.

Luckily it’s a cheap replacement with DJI Care at least :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: David G.
Sorry to hear about your issues with. I had my own with the Nano+ Emails back and forth until they finally agreed to the issues I was having, yes, more than one, and took back the drone to fix it. When I got it back I no longer trusted the thing.
I would advise not trying to sell your drone on this thread.
 
In clinical drug trials, we collect data on adverse events. Some are benign, some serious, some severe. Another important factor is "frequency of occurrence" in each case and collectively. A "good drug" is when the frequency of occurrences are low, and so on. Our society--via the regulatory agencies--tolerates frequent benign and rare severe events. As smart people you are, you know already where I'm going. Consequences of drone failures ranges from lethal to pain-in-the-***. So for our beloved (or not) Evo IIs, the real question--the one that guides us users--is what are the statistics for EVO-IIs in these categories? Until we know, judgement overall on performance (and safety) of these machines is difficult to know--aside from anecdotal reports. Does anyone know?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: AnCoats
The mini 3 is a solid performing drone for sure, very powerful for such a tiny device. Unfortunately, 2 days after getting it I crashed it and broke the gimbal while trying to get closer to some wasp activity on my roof line.

Luckily it’s a cheap replacement with DJI Care at least :)
Yeah I crashed mine on one of my first flights. Trying to do a follow me mode while mountain biking and ran out of battery and did a forced landing. Not the easiest drone to find as the Mini will shut off quickly because of heat. It landed in some desert brush, flipped upside down but luckily no damage. Got to be careful as I missed the DJI care window.
 
Yeah I crashed mine on one of my first flights. Trying to do a follow me mode while mountain biking and ran out of battery and did a forced landing. Not the easiest drone to find as the Mini will shut off quickly because of heat. It landed in some desert brush, flipped upside down but luckily no damage. Got to be careful as I missed the DJI care window.
Did you have it following you on some technical wooded trails or was it more open-air single track? I’d love to take mine out on some technical mountain bike trails but im convinced it’ll smash into a tree or vegetation in about 10 seconds.

The good news with DJI is that you can add DJI care just about any time, the only stipulation is DJI makes you upload a screen recording showing the pre-flight checks are all green and the gimbal moves as it should. Autel makes you mail your drone to their HQ in Washington so they can evaluate it, at your expense, if you’ve passed the 48h mark for adding their Care product.
 
Did you have it following you on some technical wooded trails or was it more open-air single track? I’d love to take mine out on some technical mountain bike trails but im convinced it’ll smash into a tree or vegetation in about 10 seconds.

The good news with DJI is that you can add DJI care just about any time, the only stipulation is DJI makes you upload a screen recording showing the pre-flight checks are all green and the gimbal moves as it should. Autel makes you mail your drone to their HQ in Washington so they can evaluate it, at your expense, if you’ve passed the 48h mark for adding their Care product.
Open desert terrain. Usually does a descent job but depending on the wind direction it can really eat into battery life. Also I had the RC in my backpack so flying completely blind and it's so quiet it's hard to tell if it's still following. I wouldn't trust it in the trees without the DJI care package.
 
Your drone sounds like my Dodge Caravan I bought 20 years ago. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong with it did! Yep we both got lemons.

I have been flying my Evo II Pro 6K for nearly 2 and a 1/2 years now and even after clipping a fence at high speed, I have had zero problems with it flying both recreationally and commercially.

I hope Autel will work with you and rectify your situation, I can't imagine the frustration you have dealt with!
One thing I've noticed reading similar threads to this one - it seems a real crap-shoot with Autel products. One purchaser might get a rock-steady piece of kit that works well, the bloke down the street might buy one and get something that gives the word 'unreliable' a bad name. I'm beginning to wonder if Autel have out-sourced the manufacture to a number of sub-contractors, one of which is slipshod on the quality control front. As a yardstick: the Nano+ I bought blew a motor less than 3 months from brand-new. That unit had rock solid signal strength but had a wonky gimbal. The replacement that I got delivered to me had a gimbal that was pointing in the right direction: but the drone drops connection and the signal strength goes from 5 bars to non-existent in the drop of a hat. Mind you: both of the things constantly returned a "gimbal recalibrating - please take off later" warning. 'Frustration' doesn't even cover it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tvwxman
One thing I've noticed reading similar threads to this one - it seems a real crap-shoot with Autel products. One purchaser might get a rock-steady piece of kit that works well, the bloke down the street might buy one and get something that gives the word 'unreliable' a bad name. I'm beginning to wonder if Autel have out-sourced the manufacture to a number of sub-contractors, one of which is slipshod on the quality control front.
That definitely could be the case. My drone was a pile of crap from day 1. Firmware update after firmware update, either applying via OTA or SD card flash, didn’t fix it. It was still a terrible flying expensive drone.

Then Autel apparently simply reflashed my drones firmware using their tooling and it resolved most large issues. Why does a user need to send in their drone to cleanly reflash firmware to fix a software issue, well, I’ll never understand that.

But on a QA front, my RC having a cable stuck in the fan blades was inexcusable. Autel requiring me to mail my whole drone back to solve a simple RC issue: also inexcusable.

'Frustration' doesn't even cover it.
Amen.

And still, after all this, smart features released forever ago are still crap. Orbit is still junk and doesn’t keep the subject centered (look at Lite+ reviews, exact same thing, orbit subject drifts all over the frame), active track is erratic and results in useless footage. And zero guidance on remoteID for these expensive drones.

Glad I just sold, packed up and shipped off my Evo 2 Pro yesterday. Just replaced it with a Mavic 3. Night and day difference.

Yeah yeah “omg NFZ and geofencing!” but I haven’t ever had an issue with that on my DJI drones, and the writing is on the wall: Autel will implement them in the future. It’s just a matter of time.

Oh well maybe the Evo 2 Pro V3 will be a winner? 😂
 
In clinical drug trials, we collect data on adverse events. Some are benign, some serious, some severe. Another important factor is "frequency of occurrence" in each case and collectively. A "good drug" is when the frequency of occurrences are low, and so on.
That including the "vaccine" that does not protect anybody from "covid"? Just asking.
 
sorry to hear you are having trouble with your drone. so the neighbor is not having issues with active track, getting beautiful 6k video, his drone flawlessly returns to home every time, and he can update his software ota in under 60 minutes, etc? ;)
I just bought Evo 2 V 3 I hope I don't have these problems it's scary to think I might have made a big mistake we'll see my first time on this site I hope all you guys work together for the common good as my astronomy forums do
 
  • Like
Reactions: EBEPLS

Latest threads

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
11,229
Messages
102,663
Members
9,821
Latest member
Bigmaxsg