DJI Avata – chasing motorcycles a fresh generation of FPV drones

spidersweb.pl 2 years ago

During the tests of the fresh DJI Avata drone, my Apple Watch beat the alarm that for a fewer minutes it has detected a pulse above 100 beats per minute and at the same time does not evidence any activity. This is the consequence of pure adrenaline supplied by the fresh FPV drone.

DJI Avata is the latest drone with tremendous potential. The equipment has its global premiere today, and I have been able to spend the last 2 weeks with it, so I have already learned its strengths and weaknesses. At the outset I can say that Avata has made a very affirmative impression on me, although it is not a drone for everyone.

See DJI Avatar drone in our video

FPV drones – what is this about?

DJI has been creating classical drones for many years, known for its excellent flight modes, good cameras and very smooth shots. At the same time, the maker becomes increasingly bold in the category of FPV drones. It started with transmission systems, and A year and a half ago he debuted DJI FPV, i.e. the first ready-made solution for DJI production flights.

And what precisely are FPV drones? Abbreviation of FPV means first individual view, and in practice it boils down to flight in peculiar goggles. The goggles that transmit the image from the drone camera let you to fly much more aggressively and at the same time more precisely. The sense of distance from adjacent objects is much better, so you can fly an FPV drone in a way that I would not dare with a classical drone. Especially at advanced speeds achieved by FPV drones.

Now the fresh DJI Avata wants to make FPV drones available to all operator. Compared to last year's DJI FPV, the fresh drone is smaller, lighter, safer and simpler to operate, and it is cheaper to use.

DJI FPV is simply a part of solid engineering

The fresh drone is amazingly tiny and light. With the battery, it weighs 415 g, which is almost twice as light as the older DJI FPV. The integrated part of the Avata is besides propeller casings that improve safety. The structure is very compact and well balanced. The only flaw is the hard access to the microSD card slot, located inside the propeller cover. A large plus is the built-in memory with a capacity of 20 GB.

Flight safety is besides supervised by a proximity sensor, which is present on the bottom of the drone. Thanks to it, goggles display a informing erstwhile we get besides close to the ground.

Plus, on board, we have everything we request to fly, or GPS, gyroscopes, or yet a superb video and telemetry transmission system. The drone reaches 8 m/s in average mode, 14 m/s in athletics mode and 27 m/s in full manual mode, but the second mode was not available before the launch, even after pairing Avata with DJI FPV controller.

It should be fair to point out that against the background custom FPV drones, the fresh DJI Avata is rather free equipment. For this reason, the advanced FPV operator will most likely despise the Avatar, but let us remember that it is equipment for people who have not already had contact with the FPV segment.

The first flights from DJI Avatar are a pleasure

Remember, I compose the full review from the position of a individual who has never flown in FPV (well, possibly but Drona Parrot, but it was a different league.). So far, 99 percent of my drone flights have been carried out on classical equipment, with a view visible on the smartphone or controller.

The FPV subject is completely fresh to me, and yet Avata made me feel like I had at least a couple of hours of flights behind me. Already on my 3rd flight, I caught the following material.

Such dynamic flying is mainly possible thanks to the sensational DJI Motion Controller. This distant is already known from the DJI FPV drone, but this time it is not just an optional add-on, but the default Avaty controller. Motion Controller looks unusual, but in practice it is highly easy to use. Under the index finger we have the acceleration trigger, and the biggest button under your thumb is an emergency brake. We control the drone by tilting Motion Controller in the air.

This is simply a superb solution in its simplicity, which has its limitations, but at the same time allows to evidence awesome shots even if never before had contact with FPV drones.

The fresh DJI Goggles 2 goggles will be a hit

Together with the drone, they besides debut fresh DJI Goggles 2 goggles (not to be confused with older and larger DJI FPV Goggles V2). fresh glasses are much smaller, lighter and simpler in design. This time, alternatively of 4 screwed antennas, we have only two, and besides neatly folded, so that they will not get lost and preparation for flight takes little time.

However, the image quality is the most important. Both screens in front of their eyes display Full HD image of outstanding quality. Both resolution and brightness are much higher than in DJI FPV Goggles V2. Actually, there is no comparison, due to the fact that older goggles fall out against fresh ones like equipment from another era. The image in the fresh goggles is very sharp and readable.

In my case, the goggles lay well on the face and completely cut off sunlight. I could besides easy adjust the spacing of my glasses, as well as the correction of the dioptria. The goggles featured a contact panel for operation and function selection. We besides have a microSD card slot for recording images visible in goggles, as well as a headphone output. There is besides a port to connect the battery. This one, as in the erstwhile one, is on a flexible wire, and we gotta have it in our pocket erstwhile we fly.

The quality of the image with DJI Avata is very good, though alternatively not delightful

DJI Avata uses a built-in camera placed on one-axis gimbal, which is standard among FPV drones. We have 48 megapixel resolution and 4K recording at 60 kl/s and Full HD at a maximum of 120 kl/s. At the hardware angle we are dealing with a 1/1.7′′ matrix and a f/2.8 lens with a 155 st angle of view. The image is additionally digitally stabilized. The camera besides allows you to take photos (JPG only), but I failed to enable this function before the premiere.

The quality of the image is very good during the day, both in sunny and cloudy weather. In the evening, erstwhile the sun is low above the horizon, there is simply a crucial fall in quality, especially in terms of sound and overall image exposure. It is not a drone designed to fly in hard lighting conditions.

The camera saves the MP4 image with a very good bitrate of 150 Mbps, and we can choose from a standard colour mode as well as a flat D-Cinelike format. Of course, as in FPV drones, we will not find built-in flight modes that let automatic orbiting or tracking of objects. In the FPV drone, this mode misses the target.

The working time of DJI Avata is large for FPV drones and mediocre against classical drones

The producer's talking about 18 minutes of flight, but I don't know how we got that result. In practice, erstwhile flying in athletics mode, we can anticipate more about 12 minutes of flight. This is inactive a lot against the background of DJI FPV, which in practice allowed to draw about 8 minutes on 1 battery.

Such results are inactive a lot in the FPV world, where custom, the fastest drones most frequently let for 2,3 or a maximum of 5 minutes of flight.

What's the scope of DJI Avatar?

Outside the city, I had no problems flying over the track, which is about 300-400 m from me. The situation in the city is different, due to the fact that problems begin before the distance is 300 m. erstwhile there's an obstacle between us and the drone, the scope falls even more. Of course, we're dealing with a digital transmission system, so we don't see a gradual degradation of the image, just a complete cut off of the transmission.

The black screen in the goggles, erstwhile we were flying fast just above the ground a second ago, it could freak out. This situation I had many times during the tests, but each time the drone behaved exemplaryly, which means immediately after breaking the transmission stopped at the place and started the RTH procedure (return to the starting place). The drone in the first phase begins to slow emergence upwards, to a safe tallness (above tree level), and then begins a slow flight towards home. mostly rising upwards solves the problem and restores scope and imagination in goggles.

In summary, DJI Avatar is simply a groundbreaking drone.

I am absolutely convinced that in the FPV operator environment, the fresh Avata drone will be ridiculed for its low velocity and unnecessary safety systems expanding mass. At the same time, I know that only Avaty equipment has the chance to popularize FPV flights. Flying in this mode has never been so simple and accessible.

I have any kind of deja vu here, due to the fact that the first classical DJI drones, or Phantom series, were ridiculed too. The “real drones” who soldered their drones themselves, in a disdainful way called the Phantoms “washers”. We all know how past went on. present the DJI is an absolute hegemon of the drone market, and soldering its own designs just stopped making sense. I anticipate now the same revolution awaits the FPV segment.

Is it worth buying the Avatar? Yes, if you care about very dynamic, Cinema shots for his video projects. Not if you're looking for a drone to fly on vacation with your family. You can see a very clear discrimination between these 2 categories.

End of price:

DJI Avata (the drone itself) – EUR 579,
DJI Avata Pro-View Combo (with DJI Goggles 2 and Motion Controller) – EUR 1429,
DJI Avata Fly Smart Combo (with older DJI FPV goggles Goggles V2) – 1149 euro,
DJI Avata Fly More Kit – 249 euros,
additional battery – 119 euro
Hub for charging 3 batteries simultaneously – 59 euros,
propellers – 9 euro,
top frame – 19 euros,
propeller cover – 29 euro,
official ND filter set (ND8/16/32) 69 euros.

It is impossible to hide that the customized FPV drone will be much cheaper, but at the same time incomparably more annoying and hard to operate. It is so hard to clearly measure the price level, due to the fact that Avata simply does not have competition on the market. I fishy the vast majority of customers will choose ClassicDJI Mini 3 Pro, but Avata announces that the FPV drone marketplace is facing a revolution.

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