V2 Smart Controller; Top level Concerns

[BlairAir]

I asked before, possibly in a different thread - Does anyone know a source of APK's for these versions -or any versions? I have a V2 Smart Controller running V1.1.7.60 for crying out loud. No way to install FW, System (Android Updates), FW or AE App easily if it isn't presented in the Update Menu. I figured out how to force a FW Update (haven't tested yet, but I can unpack a FW Zip file into the Android/data/com.autelrobotics.explorer/files/upgrade folder, which should work, but without the .93 app version I am concerned there will be issues. Alternately, I could push the FW to the AC via sdcard, but would have a Controller/Aircraft mismatch (I think - not much experience with Autel's old school file management.

I get that the V2 SC is new. But your putting it in production, shipping it and it's now out there. Autel should be able to provide some basic things, like caching video to the SC. Like downloading the video to SC wirelessly. Downloading ANYTHING to the SC wirelessly other than low res photos.

Photo transfer speeds are insanely slow. Like 12 seconds to download ONE photo to the controller. I just transfered 8 photos. It took 12 minutes, 41 seconds. I could transfer a nice amount of 4 k footage in that time on my Air 2, even without high speed WiFi Direct.

Look I know Autel is working hard, and they are genuinely interested in making these products succeed. They simply must invest in more resources- particularly Android developers. They could probably find expertise at XDA-Developers, or at phone companies such as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile that could fix stuff like camera options on AOSP Android. That was embarrassing to see on this beautiful beast of hardware. Or an automotive scanner app installed (I'm guessing to test or change some behavior or setting)

Minimally Autel needs staff that knows basic AOSP if they want this controller to not be top hardware running a barely functional AOSP Android build. These things are not optional.

I honestly thought they had all this, but it is apparent that they don't or do but cannot implement for some reason. Worse, they are charging prices that give customers high expectations. This discrepancy is not promising for the success of the SC, and by extension, the "Enterprise" Products. Enterprise means an ecosystem and support infrastructure, not a high end bit of hardware in a wheel case. They simply have to have it all. I want it for them. But I simply can't see how they get there. If I was CEO I might not get much sleep. So much greatness, so many challenges.

 

[PingSpike]

You bought a controller for a drone, not a tablet. Were you expecting something different?

I'm also not sure what version of the Explorer app you're wanting to install? Is the currently installed version not the latest stable build?

 

[BlairAir]

Yep. For a Drone. So the expectation is that most of that works. And to be fair, it mostly does. Do you have one? I have the DJI SC as well, and it's pretty good if a bit weak in a few spots. The mediatek proc is a bit light on power though tge SC doesn't run a lot of processes at once. It's sturdily built, screen is bright but it is a bit clunky the way it runs both DJI FLY and DJI Go... Works well enough, range (for me) is perhaps 10-15% less. Overall I like it a lot. Nothing is perfect. Range on the Autel SC Dual Band is phenomenal. Not super consistent, but I expect improvement as they tune band switching.

I have just about zero hardware complaints with Autel's SC - a takeoff/land button would be nice, but it didn't make the final HW spec, despite a picture of one on page 8 of the Quick Start Manual (based on the incorrect details it must have gone to print before the hardware was finalized)

The 128Gb Storage that I worried would be filling fast with 4K30/4K60 video won't be a problem. To get the video off the drone you literally have to either run a CABLE from the drone (at 25Mbps best) or... take the SD card out, put it in a reader, put the reader in the SC and transfer. Not ideal.

So yep. Bought it for a drone.

A pretty big concern I reported is a pause/brake button with a 3 second delay. You definitely want a delay on C1/C2 and RTH, so no accidental activation, but a pause button? I use it, like most do -when the drone does any autonomous actions but needs monitoring. Landing... coming through trees/obstacles. 3 seconds is an eternity when your drones about to crash.

I absolutely love my E2P, and very impressed with the hardware here. But they absolutely need further software development for it to match the hardware. Autel is not Nintendo, Not Sony, NOT a phone builder... They are a Drone Company first and foremost.. That said, they chose to run Android 7 on this hardware.. Embedded Android isn't easy, but it's not rocket science either. Going through the file system is discouraging. Its a bit of a mess. I'm disappointed in the way they implemented updates. The only way to know if your up to date on App/FW and System is going to update to see a message saying "you are on the latest version" System doesn't even provide installed version #. There are files & logs left from development. It's functional but a bit sloppy. I expected there might be some development between V1/V2 SC. No V1 bugs have been resolved that I can see. They had a few months, so perhaps there's something right around the corner. Hope so. Autel Explorer Android version never got the time shift, indoor mode, HD photo sync and a few other IOS features, at least not yet.

I'm not wishing anything but huge success for Autel. My point was that the premium experience and function of this SC should set a high bar at the asking price, and expectations will be high. I need it to succeed. If sales are low, my chances of it getting a lot of attention and development from Autel becomes smaller. If they get spread thin with the consumer class drones, it may fall put of focus. That would be disappointing and I truly hope it doesn't go that way.

 

[PingSpike]

the expectation is that most of that works. And to be fair, it mostly does. Do you have one? I have the DJI SC as well

I too have both the Autel SC and the DJI SC.

I only use them for flying my drones though so processor power is never an issue as they both just run their native flight apps and the occasional Litchi flight.

The 128Gb Storage that I worried would be filling fast with 4K30/4K60 video won't be a problem. To get the video off the drone you literally have to either run a CABLE from the drone (at 25Mbps best) or... take the SD card out, put it in a reader, put the reader in the SC and transfer. Not ideal.

I'm perhaps not understanding your workflow here, but why would you want or need to copy 4K video on to the SC itself?

Again, this is probably just a workflow difference but I take the card out of the drone and put it in the computer for editing. Occasionally I'll put the SD card in the CrystalSky and a connect a USB HDD too, just to do an infield-backup of the SD card.

I cant think of a time though where I've ever needed to copy media directly off a card and on to any SC though.

You obviously need to do it for a reason so yes, I can imagine it being very frustrating

 

[BlairAir]

One thing I now understand about Autel's processes from having the SC: They do most processing on the AC. This is odd, and creates some issues. For example, I suspect Hyperlapse videos are processed on the drone, and panoramas are certainly stitched on the drone. This is why we lose FPV during stitching (and Sphere Panos aren't stitched.)
Also rhe individual photos and finished products remain on the drone. Even my Fimi X8SE 2020 does them using your phone's processor (even if their panoramas often don't stitch well). But they do so after the flight or only when you go to the photo gallery.
This is part of what you are referring to as my process or workflow. It's actually on Autel to some extent. Because they don't synch photos or ever download them to the phone or SC, on Android. (you can SLOWLY download photos to them) all that work has to take place on the drone. This is why we lose FPV - a safety issue to some degree,, and an annoyance always,, and why we won't ever see anything like quickshots on this Drone, as long as they insist on doing it this way. I don't need quickshots, but the concept allows for some fun content at times. And it sells drones.
I take a large percentage of photos. That's important to me. This is a strange choice, possibly out of a concern that people were flying with older, less competent phones - but makes no sense for people with Samsung S21's, or Note 20 Ultra's in my case and makes less sense with the SC. Why do you need an 8 core Samsung Exynos processor to run Autel Explorer only? It's overkill in this case. That wouldn't be true if Autel was using the SC to offload most processing work and let the drone focus on flight control, video RECORDING to the built in DVR. There's not much logic in having the drone up there stitching panoramas and assembling Hyperlapse videos .
But that is exactly what it's doing. Why are they continuing to put that workload on the drone - as great as it is in terms of hardware. Why not offload the work to the SC -or people's phones in the Standard Controller?
I have seen many requests to have Pano Stitching run after the flight - but that's not practical under this setup. So we all go blind in the sky or stitch photos ourselves on the PC.
Use the hardware you built, Autel. Put the workload where the hardware is.

 

[G_G]

One thing I now understand about Autel's processes from having the SC: They do most processing on the AC. This is odd, and creates some issues. For example, I suspect Hyperlapse videos are processed on the drone, and panoramas are certainly stitched on the drone. This is why we lose FPV during stitching (and Sphere Panos aren't stitched.)
Also rhe individual photos and finished products remain on the drone. Even my Fimi X8SE 2020 does them using your phone's processor (even if their panoramas often don't stitch well). But they do so after the flight or only when you go to the photo gallery.
This is part of what you are referring to as my process or workflow. It's actually on Autel to some extent. Because they don't synch photos or ever download them to the phone or SC, on Android. (you can SLOWLY download photos to them) all that work has to take place on the drone. This is why we lose FPV - a safety issue to some degree,, and an annoyance always,, and why we won't ever see anything like quickshots on this Drone, as long as they insist on doing it this way. I don't need quickshots, but the concept allows for some fun content at times. And it sells drones.
I take a large percentage of photos. That's important to me. This is a strange choice, possibly out of a concern that people were flying with older, less competent phones - but makes no sense for people with Samsung S21's, or Note 20 Ultra's in my case and makes less sense with the SC. Why do you need an 8 core Samsung Exynos processor to run Autel Explorer only? It's overkill in this case. That wouldn't be true if Autel was using the SC to offload most processing work and let the drone focus on flight control, video RECORDING to the built in DVR. There's not much logic in having the drone up there stitching panoramas and assembling Hyperlapse videos .
But that is exactly what it's doing. Why are they continuing to put that workload on the drone - as great as it is in terms of hardware. Why not offload the work to the SC -or people's phones in the Standard Controller?
I have seen many requests to have Pano Stitching run after the flight - but that's not practical under this setup. So we all go blind in the sky or stitch photos ourselves on the PC.
Use the hardware you built, Autel. Put the workload where the hardware is.

Somehow, DJI manages to stitch even 360° panos on the aircraft, in under 30 seconds, and simultaneously provide FPV. Autel Robotics, which seems to "borrow/copy" everything else from DJI, could certainly up their game by copying DJI yet again! DJI also manages to shoot all the necessary 26 images in another 30 seconds, instead of four minutes! Total time per 360° pano, including stitching on all DJI aircraft is 60 seconds, with no loss of FPV during stitching! Four minutes without stitching on 360° panos, is taking 8x longer than it takes DJI!

 

[BlairAir]

Sure. But DJI also only does them in 1080P. You can do higher resolution on all the others but sphere -also Asteroid Quickshots. 1080P.

One clear Advantage DJI has is stable AC flight control- thus the fast and precise capture while snapping photos for panoramas - occasionally a few hiccups.
Again - in spite of the Quick captures, I believe the major advantage is that for DJI the photos are NOT stitched on the aircraft at all. This was the primary thing I was wistfully saying Autel should REALLY imitate DJI - and sync all photos (not just low resolution ones) with the controller/phone or Smart Controller. The phone has ram, a processor and the ability to do stitching and Hyperlapse footage assembly off line from the Aircraft- preventing any need to interrupt FPV. It's a huge discrepancy between the way DJI and Autel process media. Autel has a serious processing power in the drone. I don't have performance benchmark comparisons, but in general Evo 2 ranks high. They also have good transmission - more so on the Dual Band V2 setup. I simply don't get the insistence on putting all or most of the work on the drone. They could have it sync using the 5.8 Band when active, then allow the drone to get back to flight control. Better still would be the ability to move data at 5.8 WHILE using 2.4 for flight control. That may be a bridge to far in terms of what's possible. If I'm dreaming - at least I dream big!

 

[G_G]

Sure. But DJI also only does them in 1080P. You can do higher resolution on all the others but sphere -also Asteroid Quickshots. 1080P.

One clear Advantage DJI has is stable AC flight control- thus the fast and precise capture while snapping photos for panoramas - occasionally a few hiccups.
Again - in spite of the Quick captures, I believe the major advantage is that for DJI the photos are NOT stitched on the aircraft at all. This was the primary thing I was wistfully saying Autel should REALLY imitate DJI - and sync all photos (not just low resolution ones) with the controller/phone or Smart Controller. The phone has ram, a processor and the ability to do stitching and Hyperlapse footage assembly off line from the Aircraft- preventing any need to interrupt FPV. It's a huge discrepancy between the way DJI and Autel process media. Autel has a serious processing power in the drone. I don't have performance benchmark comparisons, but in general Evo 2 ranks high. They also have good transmission - more so on the Dual Band V2 setup. I simply don't get the insistence on putting all or most of the work on the drone. They could have it sync using the 5.8 Band when active, then allow the drone to get back to flight control. Better still would be the ability to move data at 5.8 WHILE using 2.4 for flight control. That may be a bridge to far in terms of what's possible. If I'm dreaming - at least I dream big!

The 360° panos DJI creates, complete with a cloned in ceiling, have nothing to do video or 1080p resolution. These are still photographs, not videos. They are not performed on the tablet, but are, in fact, created on the aircraft in under 30 seconds, after taking a mere 30 seconds to shoot the 26 original photographs. 60 seconds from start to finish on the Mavic 2 Pro, yielding a usable 13MB 360° pano, and saving all 26 of the 20MB originals to the microSD card for a future 300MB stitch in third party software, if desired! While all this is taking place, the pilot has full view of the camera, with no blackout. Downloading the 26 20MB still images to the tablet to process them on the tablet would be prohibitive, especially when the aircraft can easily do so, and then save the result to the onboard microSD card, along with the originals.

 

[BlairAir]

I appreciate the clarification. I don't have a M2P - only an Air 2 and Mini 2. I was probably thinking of the Asteroid Quickshot, combining a short 1080p "dronie" type reverse and up video with a sphere pano. It's slick, fun and fast. I can't recall, but seem to remember the sphere on the Asteroid possibly using a smaller # of photos? I'm sure you will correct me if I'm wrong, lol. I do know that the photo shooting on this quickshot is captured significantly faster than the sphere pano. At least with the Air 2 it is!

 

[G_G]

I appreciate the clarification. I don't have a M2P - only an Air 2 and Mini 2. I was probably thinking of the Asteroid Quickshot, combining a short 1080p "dronie" type reverse and up video with a sphere pano. It's slick, fun and fast. I can't recall, but seem to remember the sphere on the Asteroid possibly using a smaller # of photos? I'm sure you will correct me if I'm wrong, lol. I do know that the photo shooting on this quickshot is captured significantly faster than the sphere pano. At least with the Air 2 it is!

Both the Air 2 and the Mini 2 also shoot full 360° panos, but in slightly lower quality due to the 12MP stills used, rather than the 20MP stills from the M2P. They also can still save the 26 original still photos for improved third party stitching. I don't use the Asteroid Quickshot, so I'll defer to your use of it. However, if I recall correctly, I believe some of the Quickshots can be set to record in 4K instead of the default of only 1080p. They have their own separate hidden settings menu, only accessible once you have selected each of them while in the air.

 

[BlairAir]

You're correct on Quickshots. It was hard to find 4K setting; it was in the main Manu under camera, only when the drone was in flight. They moved those to the pro camera settings on main screen on 1.4.4 or 1.4.x in any event - the reason I mentioned Asteroid is it's the only Quickshot that combines video and stills. It's also the only one that can't do 4K or even 2.7k. Could be a performance choice on DJIs part. I wouldn't mind a higher res choice even if it ran slower. This might be a choice DJI made to save support folks fielding calls if it ran slow or had other issues. Anybody's guess.

Hoping Autel steps up their game on Evo 2 features, and fixes some bugs. Porting some of the new features IOS version has to Android version would be good, and add value to the SC.

I am interested in testing the current beta code when we get a stable version. I doubt 16x zoom will be too useful for photography or video- thats pushing digital zoom too much; it could be useful for SAR activity - coverage of large areas with capacity to check objects of interest at a high magnification level. Any work on firmware and/or the the app is desirable, as long as it's stable and doesn't introduce new headaches

 

[30ADroneguy]

I asked before, possibly in a different thread - Does anyone know a source of APK's for these versions -or any versions? I have a V2 Smart Controller running V1.1.7.60 for crying out loud. No way to install FW, System (Android Updates), FW or AE App easily if it isn't presented in the Update Menu. I figured out how to force a FW Update (haven't tested yet, but I can unpack a FW Zip file into the Android/data/com.autelrobotics.explorer/files/upgrade folder, which should work, but without the .93 app version I am concerned there will be issues. Alternately, I could push the FW to the AC via sdcard, but would have a Controller/Aircraft mismatch (I think - not much experience with Autel's old school file management.

I get that the V2 SC is new. But your putting it in production, shipping it and it's now out there. Autel should be able to provide some basic things, like caching video to the SC. Like downloading the video to SC wirelessly. Downloading ANYTHING to the SC wirelessly other than low res photos.

Photo transfer speeds are insanely slow. Like 12 seconds to download ONE photo to the controller. I just transfered 8 photos. It took 12 minutes, 41 seconds. I could transfer a nice amount of 4 k footage in that time on my Air 2, even without high speed WiFi Direct.

Look I know Autel is working hard, and they are genuinely interested in making these products succeed. They simply must invest in more resources- particularly Android developers. They could probably find expertise at XDA-Developers, or at phone companies such as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile that could fix stuff like camera options on AOSP Android. That was embarrassing to see on this beautiful beast of hardware. Or an automotive scanner app installed (I'm guessing to test or change some behavior or setting)

Minimally Autel needs staff that knows basic AOSP if they want this controller to not be top hardware running a barely functional AOSP Android build. These things are not optional.
View attachment 11992
I honestly thought they had all this, but it is apparent that they don't or do but cannot implement for some reason. Worse, they are charging prices that give customers high expectations. This discrepancy is not promising for the success of the SC, and by extension, the "Enterprise" Products. Enterprise means an ecosystem and support infrastructure, not a high end bit of hardware in a wheel case. They simply have to have it all. I want it for them. But I simply can't see how they get there. If I was CEO I might not get much sleep. So much greatness, so many challenges.

View attachment 11991

I bought a memory card reader and pop it out into my laptop and it's instant. The download speed is crazy slow on the V1 Evo 2 Pro I have. The Enterprise V2 Smart controller I can't get it to down load pics or videos to the Smart controller unless the machine is on. The memory card ready was super quick.