Indoor crash tonight

Ksquad · Nov 13, 2016

I got asked to fly an indoor event tonight. Of course I grabbed the breeze and headed to the event. I was flying Approx 20 feet off the deck. I was controlling the breeze fine with the GPS switched off when all of the sudden it began to drift. I tried to regain control but no luck and it drifted until it struck a wall and fell to the ground. Luckily no one was hit but the breeze sustained some damage. Broke a prop and the landing gear. Any ideas what happened?

BobW55 · Nov 13, 2016

This is just a wild guess.
Being indoors with tons of other cell phones around, possible signal interference.

Ksquad · Nov 13, 2016

Shouldn't that be a non issue on a $500 advertised indoor drone?

Ksquad · Nov 13, 2016

And I know things happen and it's not a perfect world. But it bothered me not having control. The rumor of a controller for the breeze being released may be a good thing.

Onlook · Nov 20, 2016

More likely is the performance of the optical flow sensor at that sort of height. The infra red altitude sensor works very well, even outdoors, at that sort of level, but the OFS is going to struggle to maintain a position without lots of texture and detail in the ground below.

Did it respond to control inputs?

Ksquad · Nov 20, 2016

No. I tried to land it and it just kept drifting. I was about to do an emergency shut off. But hit the wall

Onlook · Nov 22, 2016

That's a weird one! Fancy sending me a copy of your flight log from that flight? I'd be really interested to see what it says.

Ksquad · Nov 22, 2016

How does one obtain flight log? I saw flight logs but they look like date and flight time.

nebucat · Nov 26, 2016

Hi, I also had several crashes indoor, I would say out of 8 flights the Breeze went drifting and ignoring my command 6 times. I could catch her a few times then shutting off, but I got my piano and some probs damaged.

It is certainly an issue with the optical flow sensor or some similar sensor. When the drone flies over a carpet, my black or my grey couch I noticed slow response to my commands. The drone starts drifting. In two cases, after a short side drift, it went crazily fast to one direction until it crashed (the motors are switched off then).

Please be very careful indoors. At the moment I cannot recommend the Breeze indoors. Even an experienced pilot can't do anything as the drone ignores all commands from my phone in these cases (except emergency shutdown). Low light conditions seem to have a big impact on the sensor.

Yuneec should provide a manual control mode to fly the drone without the optical sensors or just let the pilot override the automatic reactions. Until then I'll stay outside.

Ksquad · Nov 26, 2016

I would agree. I've been flying planes and helis for many years. Scary feeling not having control.

bighoud · Dec 23, 2018

my breeze give me some bad indoor expériences, now i am affraid to use it. one time it start and come directly on my face, i just have time to put my hand to stop it.
why the pilot mode don't let the me start it slowly like i want??????????
the start process is very dangerous indoor.

Kingram · Dec 24, 2018

GPS should be turned OFF when flying indoors.

DoomMeister · Dec 24, 2018

bighoud said:
my breeze give me some bad indoor expériences, now i am affraid to use it. one time it start and come directly on my face, i just have time to put my hand to stop it.
why the pilot mode don't let the me start it slowly like i want??????????
the start process is very dangerous indoor.

GPS should be OFF, the room should be well lit so the Flow Sensor has enough light to function properly. Takeoff height should be only about three to four feet, that way it lifts off and hovers at that height, not in your face.

The Breeze Cam app contains the User Manual and the help screens for each flight mode ”?” give details for the operation of each flight mode.

I believe the manual says you should be 13 feet from the Breeze at takeoff. It also helps to put the speed in drone settings to the lowest setting while flying indoors.

The other thing to consider is that the IR Sensor will be used to maintain the hover height, so if you fly over a table or chair or other furniture, countertop, etc. it will cause the Breeze to try to maintain that height over the obstacle.

It must be my training growing up, a stint in the Air Force, and training as an electrician/technician, but it has always been RTFMF (Read The Full Manual First).

bighoud · Dec 25, 2018

thanks for all these tips

Dragonlenz · Dec 25, 2018

I have only had my Breeze for about a month but have noticed when trying to just take off and hover indoors (with GPS turned off) the biggest issue I encounter is low light. Due to the size of the unit and the damage it could cause, I have decided to not try to fly indoors unless I know the lighting can support the sensor.