Considering the Crystal Sky Ultra, but how does it stack up?

[lickitysplit11111]

Can someone clarify whether changing the channel settings affects only the video feed, or whether it also affects the remote control of the aircraft?

Well if you cant see where your going your flying blind ,you need the video feed..

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Try 5.8 AUTO again.

Over suburban areas, two of us here in So. Calif have over a 4mi range when flying with a clear LOS connection, 200ft above homes galore, using a windsurfer. Here are the reasons I think 5.8 AUTO seems to work better:
1. 5.8ghz frequency is twice the frequency of 2.4, able to carry the high video data bandwidth easier, which may be why AUTO works on 5.8Ghz
2. Less penetration from home WiFi sources, inside homes and buildings. Since 5.8 doesn't penetrate walls as good, the outdoors is better shielded from rogue signals from homes, making the air cleaner in that band where we fly.
3. Less people use 5.8Ghz for WiFi than 2.4, less interference sources means less to conflict.
4. P4P puts out slightly more RF power on 5.8 than 2.4Ghz.

And I gave it another try in the Meadowlands with the same results 5.8 Auto crapped out all together a little over 12,000 ft and a Custom channel let me join the 4 mile club today, the only reason I stopped was because the battery, I fly at a location if I don't make it back its lost

 

[Basspig]

And if you can see but you can't control the aircraft...
Does that channel option affect both control and video backlink?

 

[lickitysplit11111]

And if you can see but you can't control the aircraft...
Does that channel option affect both control and video backlink?

Sorry but it don't work like that at least not for long , once your feed goes down the copters going to enter RTH in a few seconds .. Its a safety thing

 

[Basspig]

Of course.. so the question still stands.. what are those radio settings for? Video feed only, or both?

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Of course.. so the question still stands.. what are those radio settings for? Video feed only, or both?

Seeing that its in the Video transmission menu my guess is....

 

[Basspig]

That would seem to be the logical expectation, but what band is the command and control transmitting on if the receive is selectable between 2.4 and 5.8GHz?

 

[lickitysplit11111]

That would seem to be the logical expectation, but what band is the command and control transmitting on if the receive is selectable between 2.4 and 5.8GHz?

That's above my pay-grade. I don't concern myself with the "why" or 'how" as long as it works for me..

 

[John Locke]

And I gave it another try in the Meadowlands with the same results 5.8 Auto crapped out all together a little over 12,000 ft and a Custom channel let me join the 4 mile club today, the only reason I stopped was because the battery, I fly at a location if I don't make it back its lostView attachment 99870

That's interesting. I wonder why my 5.8 AUTO setting does 4mi and you're doesn't. Are you using a windsurfer?

 

[lickitysplit11111]

That's interesting. I wonder why my 5.8 AUTO setting does 4mi and you're doesn't. Are you using a windsurfer?

I dunno, I gave up on the stock antenna/ windsurfer thing last year the best I could get I think was 10,000 ft and that was on a good day and I tried 5.8 Auto and Custom channels too, I had a antenna mod done and it helped a lot todays flight was with the XR, with the smaller screw on ones that resemble the original antenna I get 3 miles with so they're definitely better then the stock ones

 

[Basspig]

Hmmm, I'll have to look into a better antenna, too. Would be neat if I had a high gain Yagi for 5.8GHz on a 400' tower. Then I could fly this thing for miles!

Back to that CS display, I think it's not good in anything but colder weather. Wed and Thurs I had no software hangs and flew multiple short missions. It was 59°F those two evenings. Today it was 74°F and I had video freeze on me right after takeoff and more freezes along the way, and after landing, the touch screen wasn't responding at all. 20 seconds later, "DJI Go 4 has stopped responding" pops up, so I close it, and the whole display goes black. 20 more seconds and nothing happens, so I press the power button. Then I get another system message about the OS not responding and I choose reboot. If my drone was in the air a mile away at the time, that would be very bad.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Hmmm, I'll have to look into a better antenna, too. Would be neat if I had a high gain Yagi for 5.8GHz on a 400' tower. Then I could fly this thing for miles!

Back to that CS display, I think it's not good in anything but colder weather. Wed and Thurs I had no software hangs and flew multiple short missions. It was 59°F those two evenings. Today it was 74°F and I had video freeze on me right after takeoff and more freezes along the way, and after landing, the touch screen wasn't responding at all. 20 seconds later, "DJI Go 4 has stopped responding" pops up, so I close it, and the whole display goes black. 20 more seconds and nothing happens, so I press the power button. Then I get another system message about the OS not responding and I choose reboot. If my drone was in the air a mile away at the time, that would be very bad.

Hit RTH , easy peasy
If its not working for you return it , I know I wouldn't keep it

 

[shockwave199]

The common denominator is android, not the CS itself. Dji simply cannot do android. I would not rely on it for serious flight.

 

[Basspig]

DJI doesn't support 3rd party apps, so I would be concerned that if something bad happened, they would not honor the warranty unless DJI Go was the app that caused the problem.

I don't think it's the app so much as the hardware, because on my Galaxy Note 5 phone, it's never, ever produced an error or failed to respond. On the Crystal Sky, I find it laggy, like it's running on an older tablet. Then it stops responding completely after a while, then sometimes recovers, but ultimately stops with the error message.

I don't trust RTH because I'm launching from a dense forest and concerned that it might fly into a tree on the way down.

 

[DroneB]

I bought the CrystalSky 7.85" Ultra about a month ago to use with the Phantom 4 Pro. It's rated at 2000 nits. The screen brightness is awesome. I used an iPad before and struggled to see power lines, tree branches, etc. The details are perfect on the CS and it makes flying much safer because you can see so well. But at $999, it doesn't come with a mounting bracket ($75.99) or charger. The Phantom 4 charger will work. The screen gets hot from use and is almost too bright to view inside. Video storage is poor. Usually run out of storage half way through 3 P4P batteries. It has 2 micro SD slots but video recordings will not save directly to the SD cards (that's just crazy stupid). It won't save photo images. At start-up, sometimes the CS will not connect and requires a total reboot with the P4P and controller. The screen froze only once; could still see where I was going but the altitude and distance froze. I've never had pixelation even in intelligent modes. The first photo comes out blank white so must remember to shoot the first photo at least twice and you won't know if it's black or not because the CS won't replay it. CrystalSky does have some problems but for the fantastic screen brightness and detail in full sunlight, I'll keep using it. The safety of seeing the power lines and tree branches (I do real estate construction inspections) is worth it.

 

[russellk]

I have had the High Bright now for 4 months. I have used it on Spark, Mavic and P4 Pro.

Spark, it's worthless as you need the Wifi turned on from CS and thus battery life suffers, but I had a ton of control problems so said, no more.

Mavic, it's for the most flawless. A lot of flights, no App lock ups, no Video lock ups. The only thing I see is an occasional video lag on pans. The video jumps to catch up as you pan. Sometimes the video live view pixelates, but that does not last more than a few seconds.

P4 Pro and P4 Pro Vr 2.0. Both have IMO really severe issues.

1. App disconnects, during flight you get a message that the app has disconnected, your video will freeze where the disconnect happened. You still have full RC control and if in VLOS can fly back manually, but if you are a ways out say 1600 feet, (I still can see a P4 out that far), you still have to figure out craft orientation and that far out it can be difficult to not to panic.

2. Video Freezes, here the app never disconnects, but the video still is frozen. You can attempt a reboot of the CS or power cycle, but personally I would rather not do that.

3. Camera freeze when switching between video and stills. This just started with the latest firmware to support P4 Vr 2.0.
On switching to the stills from video, the shutter button is greyed out and all camera features are locked up. Reboot or power off of CS does not fix this, you have to power cycle the drone so I am not sure if it's a CS or P4 Vr 2.0 issue. But I have not seen this with the iPad on the Vr 2.0.

Net, I love the hardware and design of the CS. I returned my Ultra bright due to all the problems folks were having with the ultras burning out. The high bright 7.5 is a great design, love the size and touch screen is excellent. I can see the high bright in most of the outdoor shooting and the screen resolution/app have a much better unification. Thus your stills look more in focus than with the iPad (the djigo4 app does not respect retina resolution, "respect" is an Apple developers term) Instead the djigo4 app is displaying around 720 and that is way below the iPad screen resolution. So critical focus is much hard to work. This is not an issue with the CS as images on screen have much better display resolution.

Battery life, is all day, (well 1 battery will last much longer than a P4 on 6 flights). You need a p4 charger to charge the CS as it doesn't come with one.

I am surprised at just how many issues the Phantom seems to have with the CS. Problems that IMO should not be there. The version of djigo4 on the CS is not the same as the standard android version and DJI rolls out updates a bit behind the standard android version. But still if android users were seeing as many lockups and app disconnects with their phones or tablets, I feel that there would be a lot more posting. Instead those products seem pretty solid.

For now I only use the CS on my P4's for short flights and where I know I will stay in good VLOS. On the Mavic I have gone out much further, with no problems.

Paul Caldwell

My high bright is NOT worth the money I paid for it. You can’t load just any app onto these so do some research. Drone deploy? Nope! Litchi? Yes but you have to purchase it again! Mine gets real hot and starts glitching when in full sun. But that’s what I bought it for!!!!!

 

[kentM]

It's a shame that this thread even exists. I still use two P3A's and a P3P. I waited for the ability of the CS to operate with Litchi and then I bought the ultra bright unit about three months ago. The first one quit after about ten days. The dealer said I would have to return it to DJI as they had recalled all of his stock. I got it back after two and half weeks with them replacing the main board. This one lasted another week with the severe heating problem. I told DJI that I wanted a new one or my money back. One showed up in 8 days. I have to assume that it is at least a different one but who knows. The display is just super great but I don't need a super great display to see "Litchi has stopped"....
No, I am not picking on Litchi, it does the same thing with the DJI GO app. So far the best feature on these machines is the RTH feature.

Remember the most worthless things in aviation are runway behind you and altitude above you...

 

[diverreb]

Using the Ultra Bright CS and wouldn't trade it for the World! Used for a job the other day which would have been very difficult using my iPad Pro. I never shy away from flying in full sun anymore.... It has some quirks, but nothing that would have me use anything else.

 

[Basspig]

I discovered another glitch in the CS Ultra last night. I plugged the RC into the charger and the CS Ultra booted up! I shut it down, but a few seconds later, it booted up again. The CS Ultra FORCES itself to be powered on when the RC battery is being charged.

 

[alsobrook4336]

Thank you for the honest review, it's much appreciated, I had no idea there was this many issues with CS, and I would have expected DJI to offer better support for it.

Read your review I’m glad I read it I’m wondering if everyone has that problem I’ve got the phantom for pro plus and it’s pretty much blah us not to tickled with the android system in the plus but as far as my flight or any freezing up or lag it’s next to perfect occasionally there’s a little bug her too I just have to restart every day and everything goes perfect that’s a real drag I was just about to get the David to phantom with the crystals guy just as a back up because I love the phantoms camera I’ve got a Mavic pro solid little boring but the camera just cannot touch the phantoms camera I’m sure one the phantom five comes out or the Mavic pro to phase issues you’re talking about will be fixed have you ever tried rolling back to earlier farm where are use the 104.600 I believe in the In the phantom and it’s next to perfect