Flying without GPS

[Pman]

So, has anyone tried flying outside with GPS off? I'm very curious as to whether you are still fenced in or not. You are still going to get altitude hold because of the bottom sensors although I have no idea how well they are going to work at any kind of distance. The breeze isnt using a barometer sensor like a zillion cheap drones do but it's still going to show altitude and distance which isnt going to be anywhere near as accurate as GPS. Someone must have tried this out.

Pete

 

[Prayingdsr]

I have briefly flown my Breeze 4K outside with GPS off but it obviously requires quite a bit of skill and attention to keep it under control. That said, I doubt that the geofence restrictions would be in place as they likely require GPS in order to establish positioning and distance relative to the launch point.

Personally, I'm not nearly skilled enough to fly it that far away without GPS and return it safely.

The great news is that there is a fella in Brazil who has developed a software tweak to the Breeze cam software that eliminates the geofence restrictions altogether.

Check the following link to Read All About It.

BREEZE!! GEOFENCE +500M

sorry i m not speak english very well Hey ... I'm Brazilian and I modified the APP for Android the limits of the geofence and it gave right wing at a height of 120 meters that's why I do not have a wifi extender, but it worked out the original height limit is 80 ...

yuneecpilots.com

I have flown my Breeze 4K up to 400 feet in altitude and 550 feet out without the need of a repeater. This is definitely putting the Breeze 4K in a different League.

I figure less than 2% of all Breeze owners even know about this new software, and once the word spreads the prices of these are probably going to rise. ???

 

[Pman]

I'll take a look as I could test out a breeze without having to worry about losing it since I have so many of them. That doesnt mean that i dont care about losing one it just means I wouldnt want someone else to risk theirs as I've got spares.
I'm assuming you got yours out that far because you landed and took back off again.
As I've stated many times I really need to practice a lot flying my drones that dont have any helps to get way more comfortable flying. It needs to become more of a muscle memory thing than having to think about every move I make.
I've got a couple wife extenders for my drones that I havent actually tried yet and one of them will work with the breeze as it is a dual band WR6606 or something like that.
The issue that I would be most concerned about with flying it really far out is battery life as you are going to have to be careful and pay attention to wind speed and direction so it can make it back especially as it's not very fast.
Through all my testing running different batteries with the breeze i have come to understand why they chose the battery size/capacity. Although it can lift quite a lot, the battery really takes a hit so theres a fine line between the overall design and its abilities.
I dont believe for a moment that it couldnt fly way faster as the software limits it too but it would take too much of a toll on flight time. There is a reason why yuneec locked down all the flight parameters and designed it to be a selfie type thing.

 

[Prayingdsr]

If you will read my previous text again, you may note that I said that the modified Breeze cam software totally eliminates the standard geofence limitations using GPS. No need to land it 100 yards out and take off again. In other words, with the modified app the only geofence restriction is what you manually set.

If you read the aforementioned discussion thoroughly, you will note that you'll need to uninstall the original Hubsan cam app before installing the modified app.

That said, prior to each flight you must manually re-set the altitude and distance limits. So this modified app is a real game-changer that very few Breeze owners are aware of. A year from now it will be common knowledge.

I can maintain fpv up to an altitude of 375 ft and a distance of 615 ft. I will eventually obtain a wifi repeater to extend those distances. But as you said, The Limited flight time on the battery will cause one to think twice about trying to fly it out more than 1.5 km or approximately one mile.

 

[Pman]

Yup got it although I would still like to know the non gps answer.
I just changed all my breeze phone apps out with the new firmware so I'm ready to go. Huge thanks for telling me about it! I still cant believe someone finally figured it out. Just assumed at this point that noone cared enough to do it. I guess I need to pay more attention to the forum than I have been the last few weeks. My wife had her gallbladder out so I've been a bit preoccupied as expected.
I've spent a LOT of time repairing breezes and modding them with lights and testing with other batteries and I was basically done with all of that and figured that was it for this drone. It's just fantastic that this happened.
My plan to start is just go straight up with no antenna mods as high as I can still just barely see it in at least a couple different locations before going out any distance.
I'm in a residential area but at church theres a lot of property. Have to be careful because I'm not far from the 5 mile airport limit from either spot. I might have to do it at an empty farmer's field. I believe my eyes will be about to lose sight of it well before the 400' legal limit. I'm not sure if outside the US you are allowed to fly higher than that.
The way I look at LOS is it isnt just about starting up at it. If I look down and then look back up again and cant find it then I know I'm past LOS. I get a bit edgy everytime I go up as theres always a possibility of something going wrong and someone getting hurt. I'm honestly really surprised that I dont hear about something pike that often as there must be millions of drones at this point.

 

[Prayingdsr]

You are very welcome. By the way, like me, you appear to be a breeze 4K connoisseur - forgive my French. I love these things even though the original geofence was frustrating to deal with until the guy in Brazil came out with the modified app a few weeks back.
If I understand correctly, he plans to continue to make modifications that will make it easier to use. As it stands right now, one must reset the altitude and distance limits upon each flight or battery change. Hopefully he will be able to improve it to the point that it will remember the previously set limits to speed up getting the Breeze up in the air.

Incidentally, he also increased the speed at which the breeze 4K will fly. Although he does provide a caveat that increasing the speed too much might overheat the motors. I currently have mine set at about 15 ft per second.

Best to you a keep 'em flying safe. You made some very good points about flying with discretion when it comes to the possibility of injuring others inadvertently.

 

[xxxntwv]

With gps turned off on the standard software the breeze is limited in altitude to 15 feet so the optical sensors can work

 

[Jgullam]

With gps turned off on the standard software the breeze is limited in altitude to 15 feet so the optical sensors can work

Ah Ha! I was out this weekend in the forest and couldn't get any satellites, I thought that the brush on the ground was interfering with the IR but a 15 ft limit is exactly what was happening.
Always something to learn here - Thank you