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Transportation Technology

People Are Complaining That Their New DJI Drones Are Falling Out of the Sky (qz.com) 90

An anonymous reader shares a report on Quartz: The DJI Spark, the smallest and most affordable consumer drone that the Chinese manufacturer has released, seems to be having flight problems that could have dangerous side-effects. On DJI's support forum, multiple users -- Quartz counted at least 14 separate complaints across two forum posts -- have reported that while they were flying, their Spark drones have switched off and fallen like rocks out of the sky. In some cases, the drones were close to the ground and were easy for their owners to retrieve and send diagnostic information to DJI, but in others, the drones crash landed in thick woods, or, in a couple of instances, in lakes. [...] It's not clear what caused these crashes -- some forum posters suggest some could've been user error, but others shared their drones' flight logs and showed nothing out of the ordinary had been happening before the crash. DJI told Quartz it was looking into the issues on the forums we uncovered. "DJI is aware of these reports and we are investigating to determine the causes," a spokesperson added.
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People Are Complaining That Their New DJI Drones Are Falling Out of the Sky

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    are they using Samsung batteries?
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Obviously not, because then they would be going down in flames instead of dropping like rocks.

      • And it would be much easier to find them in the woods. Well, for a brief time before you and Bambi burn to death.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      No, they're powered by old jokes that are long past their expiration date.

  • by A10Mechanic ( 1056868 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @12:43PM (#54875881)
    This model has hand motion control. Someone probably flipped it the bird in flight and it committed suicide. Drones have feelings too...
  • It seems Chicken Little was right after all.

  • not unexpected (Score:2, Insightful)

    by avandesande ( 143899 )
    Most consumer technology gadgets are junk. Save yourself time and money and don't buy them.
    • So what other drones are you going to buy? The kind Uncle Sam uses?

      • So what other drones are you going to buy? The kind Uncle Sam uses?

        That junk!?

        Mine have better missile & autonomous-guidance systems and cutting-edge ECM (electronic counter-measures). Notice nobody has spotted any of them yet!

        Strat

      • Like none? Sorry drone doesn't pass the deathbed test.
    • by nnull ( 1148259 )
      You're not exactly far off. DJI has been trying to fight the drone hackers with some stupid idiotic methods. Their latest attempt was to encrypt the commands with base64 and some other nonsense, with the password in plain view. It has caused the DJI Go app to be extremely sluggish and stupid, that people have resorted to using the hacked DJI Go App to solve the issue, because DJI is just being utterly dumb. Unfortunately, the moron Chinese programmers are not giving up and are continuously making the app wo
  • I'm using electronic pulses of light to take down the drones https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Meanwhile they profit for "unintentional" planned obsolescence. I doubt they will replace the damaged unit.
  • No, it's a $499 coral reef incubator.
  • What would the Dow Jones Index know about making drones?

  • Maybe someone was pointing/testing a GPS or other signal jammer in the vicinity. On a side note, I'm not sure why anyone would purchase a drone from a manufacturer that controls where you can fly it. http://www.dji.com/flysafe/geo... [dji.com]
    • I'm not sure why anyone would purchase a drone from a manufacturer that controls where you can fly it.

      a) because people don't give a shit
      b) because they are amongst the most newbie friendly drones on the market to fly

      Why do people buy iPhones when you can't sideload apps?
      Why do people use Windows 10 when it spies on you?
      Why do people upload their phone numbers to facebook?

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      The maps are wildly inaccurate. I know in my location drones are treated like model aircraft. The laws about those in not restricted zones but alllowed safe zones ie generally restricted but can be flown at designated safe locations. They could be sued for the entirely inaccurate map versus the reality http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... [abc.net.au].

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