“I watched my drone slow motion crash into a tree after I pressed ‘return to home’”
Record scratch. What? How is that even possible?!?!
I hear this. A lot.
2 things to know about drone RTH
If you don’t fly a drone…
FYI you a push a button and the thing will come back and land exactly where it took off.
Do you understand what this means?! It’s like Dorthy clicking her heels 3 times and she’s magically home. THIS IS AMAZING. You push the button and then yell “DINNER IS READY” and your drone auto-flies back to you like a Tesla into a parking spot
(You don’t have actually have yell anything. I just added that for effect. Like jazz hands 👋👋)
If you fly drone
1. Make sure your RTH settings “clear” all obstacles.
i.e. if your height settings are 10 feet, you will likely hit 1.5 million things when your drone flies back to you. What is reasonable? Something more than 150’. But there’s no need to max out on 400’ because it takes battery life to get all the way up there, plus there is (a lot more) wind up there.
2. Don’t press the button then go check your DMs.
I encourage you to manually land your drone. Let RTH get it near you, then manually fly and land it safely.
And don’t forget, it’s an electronic device. I get it, it’s not the kind you need to take the cartridge out and blow on it when it’s not working (stupid Nintendo), but we cannot expect it to work EXACTLY right 100% of the time. RTH works within a small range. So it will not hit the X it launched from, so if that tiny little X is you on a boat, DEFINITELY manually land your drone.
And don’t forget you can update your “home point” as you are flying (i.e. sometimes I am droning myself running to the bottom of a hike… if I didn’t update my home point, my drone would land at the top of the hike. And you know what? I’d have to buy a new drone because there is no way I’m hiking back up a freakin’ mountain and … sigh. I’d go get it.
Who uses return to home? An even better way? Turn on the X and use maps to land your drone. Here’s the full video: