Terrible product, terrible support.
I was going to wait to see if DJI support did the right thing, but after a month of being given the run around I feel like anyone considering purchasing this (or anything else from DJI) should see. I spent close to $3,000 on the DJI Mavic 2 Pro with the smart controller along with a bunch of DJI accessories. I was excited to say the least. Once I got it, I had to wait for good weather to take it out for a spin. I flew it around my house a little bit, but no real flights and hadn’t been able to test any of the features. Finally the day came, great weather and no work. I drove out to the country because I wanted to test the tracking features and then be able to get in a nice manual flight to practice for my first “real” flight. Once I was out in the boonies, with no obstacles anywhere in sight and only a dirt road I deployed the drone in tracking mode with the “follow” option. I drove until I got the battery warning and then I pulled over and landed the drone and switched the battery. It worked great, I was stoked. Now it was time to test the “profile” tracking mode. I deployed the drone again and got it into position and then started driving. It was going just great for about 3 minutes and then I glanced down at the display on the smart controller and saw the drone coming in fast. Before I could even comprehend what was happening the drone slammed into the side of my pickup at full speed. My rear window was down and my dog was in the back seat – it almost flew right into my truck which could have caused serious injury to my dog or myself. It did do damage to my truck. My heart sank. I was devastated. I stopped and found the drone twitching in the road, smashed, propellers busted and completely out of service. I then drove home and immediately started sending DJI support e-mails explaining the situation. I explained that the drone was tracking my vehicle in tracking mode with the profile option. I made it clear that there were no obstacles anywhere around and invited them to look at the GPS data on Google Earth to verify this. I also made it clear that the drone flew into my truck which was the object being tracked. 2 weeks go by and I finally hear back from DJI. They essentially said that since the drone was going faster than 12m/s the sensors would not work and that it could not avoid obstacles – therefore it was pilot error. What? Obstacle? My truck, the object being tracked is considered an “obstacle”? No. It’s clear they just looked at the speed at the point of impact and completely ignored the fact that I told them it hit the object being tracked – not an obstacle. So that reason is ruled out. Next, after about another week they tell me that it’s possible that the object being tracked blended in too much with the surroundings. This is asinine and I feel like I shouldn’t have to even address it but I’ll make it short. Very light-colored dirt road out in the country with nothing else around. Big black shiny truck. Plenty of contrast. But let’s just say that was the case… If the drone “loses track” of what it’s tracking is the behavior supposed to be that it drops in elevation and flies full speed into the last known location or the location of the controller? Ridiculous. I could possibly see that it if the drone saw something else and got confused and started tracking that, maybe even having to avoid an obstacle to pick it up – but once again there were no obstacles and it’s not like it saw something else and started tracking it, it dropped in altitude to the level of my vehicle as it was flying full speed directly at me. I let them know this was also not a possibility or plausible explanation. Another week goes by and I get another DJI support e-mail. This time they are just re-hashing old excuses. They tell me that in side-tracking mode that the drone cannot avoid obstacles if the drone is going > 12m/s (it was going 14 m/s when it crashed itself into my truck). I’m pretty livid at this point. They are giving me the same reason they have already given me which I have 100% shot down as a plausible explanation due to the fact that the drone flew into the item it was tracking (my vehicle) all by itself – it didn’t hit an obstacle as it was trying to track my vehicle which they keep ignoring. I sent a response letting them know once again the details and that the drone did not run into an “obstacle”. Finally, DJI had gotten tired of trying to actually explain it and just told me that the flight data shows no malfunction and that I have to pay them to get the drone fixed. What? First off, this drone obviously malfunctioned. I have the flight data which shows it tracking on the side of the road and then shows it flying directly into the middle of the road, crashing (spinning around) and then dying in the middle of the road. Anyone with common sense could see that the drone is not supposed to do this. 7/1 Finally replaced under warranty.