The 4DRC distance scam
My 4DRC experience was with the M1 Pro, but yours may be the same with other models. The first takeoff, with 18 satellites and setup by the book, was a mess. I pressed up on the elevation stick and the drone lifted off and immediately drifted right into a fence about 10’ away. I pulled the battery, checked the optical flow sensor, and restarted everything. I synced it up with my iPhone, waited for the drone to acquire 18 satellites, and sent it up again, this time up to about 15’ and took my thumbs off the sticks. It hovered in about a 5’ circle, then, 10’, and then 15’, and then it was out of control. It would travel in the general direction I sent it, but when I let off the right control stick it would resort back to spiraling out of control till it crashed again. I made the decision to just send it up to 120 meters and see what would happen, nothing to hit up there. I took a break and then went back to it. I was surprised to see when I started it up this time that it performed like a normal drone. It lifted off and I sent it up to about 6’, and it held a stable hover. I moved it around a little to test it and it remained stable, so I sent it up to 120 meters. Nice. Very smooth and responsive. Good signal quality. It did a great job for a while, so I ran it out to test its distance. The reason I fell for this scam was that all the product literature stated the drone was controllable out to 3 km with video reception up to about 1500m (m stands for meters in real people speak, so they advertise about 1.5 kilometers of video transmission). I watched the distance on the app and the controller hit “1500m” before I completely lost the video signal, with direct line of sight. I knew exactly where the drone was when the app and controller both read “1500m’ so I brought it back and checked the distance with Google Earth’s measuring tool. Here’s where 4DRC looses all the stars I would have given them. The farthest I got with the drone according to the controller and app was 1556m, but according to Google, the spot I flew to was 1556’ away. Feet, not meters. I repeated this test over and over, pushing out to “1999m on the controller”, and photographing a landmark below. The max flight distance of the drone measured on Google Earth is not 1999m, but 1999’. 1999 feet is about 609m (609 meters if you read the gauges like a normal person would). So here’s the scam; 4DRC advertises the M1 Pro as controllable out to 3 kilometers, but the app restricts you to “2000m”, (2 kilometers for a normal person). But the kicker is that it isn’t actually measured in meters like on the controller, the app, and the product literature, it’s all measured out in feet, so 4DRC blatantly lies about the range of their drones. If they tell you you’ll get a kilometer and a half of transmission, they really only mean up to 1500’. And when they say the range is 3000m, they really mean 609m because the app is locked at 2000m maximum, which is really only 2000 feet, and as stated previously, 2000 feet is actually only 609 meters. So, advertising their “flagship” drone as good out to 3000 meters is a blatant lie, it will only travel 609 meters at the most under ideal line-of-sight conditions. Forget customer service, they couldn’t give 2 squats I’ve figured out their scam. They would rather I tell the world what they are doing than refund my purchase. Don’t fall for this. Send your drone back right now.