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mapping or waypoint feature

Let's play with the above for a moment. Unless Yuneec desires to be just another "toy maker" they need to recognize their market has to appeal to higher levels of sophistication. Whether those people are focused on advanced level hobby imagery, professional videographers, or survey and inspection specialists doesn't really matter, they will be looking for a platform that both fills their immediate need and will remain viable for some time to come. They won't be looking for the cheapest price for a generic "Barbie" doll, they will be seeking effective specialization tools.

One manufacturer pretty much already figured that out, but their method of serving the customer is quite heavy handed by releasing multiple models of the same aircraft to serve different purposes. We know whom I'm referencing. If we consider both the industrial/military scale UAV manufacturers and auto makers we see a different approach. They retain a basic model for a considerable period of time and add or subtract equipment or features to meet user/buyer requirements. With auto manufacturers a model type might remain relatively form consistent for three years or more. For UAV manufacturers the basic form remain consistent for 7-10 years, or more. What changes are software, new accessory products additions, and a few other minor items that can be changed via firmware upgrades.

They develop their initial customers through the performance of a base model and expand their customer base via implementation of new features without altering the base model format. More often than not the customers establish the path the manufacturers will take by delivering the products and features the customers state they absolutely must have. And they earn some pretty darn high returns on their investments for doing so as their platform development costs are both stable and minimized. One size initially fits all if you will, and the customers are fiercely loyal.

Our equipment doesn't wear out at the mechanical level very often. Where we encounter problems is with poorly vetted soft ware and firmware along with impact induced damage. There's really no reason to be running out to buy a new platform every 9 moths to a year or so. The significant improvements in flight control and mission planning can all be performed through firmware changes What does physically change is the technology used in and for the payloads. Our payload needs also change based on an evolution of our areas of endeavor.

If a maker was to design a basic platform that allowed for flexibility in payload weight, employing software that provided for what we might call "industry standard" that encompassed the more common uses currently in place, they could develop various payloads to fit the basic platform which would provide the variability necessary to attract a wider customer base.

If there were needs and a market for more specialized payloads and exotic software those could be developed and sold with the exotic software residing only within the particular payload. if you wanted the super great stuff you would have to buy the super great payload. That payload might (would) be expensive but as you already had the primary platform the transition higher end operations would be easier, cheaper, faster, and safer.

There would be more people buying payload upgrades as doing so would be less expensive that buying a completely new system. You want LiDAR? No problem, buy the payload and associated software. Multi-spectral? No worries, just obtain off the shelf and load the software. IR/Thermal? Same thing. Your payload mount allows for a wide range of adaptation or expansion so there's no problem.

It would make life a lot simpler and more efficient for customer service and tech support departments as there would be fewer models to deal with. The platform manufacturer would retain control of platform service and repair and shift payload service back onto the payload manufacturers as the people that create and produce payloads possess more specialty knowledge and experience in that area. In the end the customer would obtain a base platform and swap payloads in and out as the missions dictated, something critical to success as what we do has to be both agile and flexible.

If Yuneec pays any attention to this forum at all I hope they read the above and seriously consider it. The path they have been following is not working and cannot be made to work. The competition is too far ahead of the game to be playing catch up. Yuneec needs to get ahead of the game and the only way they can do that is by doing something new and different, or at least different from what most are doing.

Mimic a method that has enable earning $billions from the customer base, that's already being done by all the people that have been serving the big money markets for a long time. All that's left is to take the product out on the road to show your customers just what they could do if they had it. Make it easy, make it simple. Establish a customer service department that is fast and efficient. Create one that caters to the higher end commercial customer, providing 24/7 response.

If you want to survive, that's what it will take. Otherwise you might as well be selling generic "Barbie" dolls that end up sitting uselessly on a shelf only a short period after obtaining one. The person that bought it soon cast it aside as 'the other guy" came out with something just a little different.

Thanks for the wonderful comments, Yuneec basically try similar way, H520 could support E90/E10T and more playload for commercial application. And H+ will focus on high image quality and related functions.
With present package, H+ owner wants some features for instance waypoint, actually it becomes a common feature with the technical dev and available in each model drone. Yuneec should also follow it then pursue other technologies.
 
Thanks for the wonderful comments, Yuneec basically try similar way, H520 could support E90/E10T and more playload for commercial application. And H+ will focus on high image quality and related functions.

In a perfect world that would be wonderful but reality has already proven otherwise. Unless the payload weighs the same or less that what is currently fitted to a 520 it won’t happen. The power system lacks the reserves necessary to lift more weight. Since the same power system is used in the H Plus it will also fail with other payloads.

The 520 has already been used to experiment with other payloads. Very little time was required to determine it is severely weight limited, and quickly discarded as a candidate for specialized applications.

When systems are designed around a rule of “minimums” they end up being minimally useful. Unless high quality optional hardware is designed to fit within a very narrow acceptable range it cannot be employed. Should a manufacturer elect to design and produce appropriately sized hardware they run into issues with meeting industry quality and performance standards along with dealing with design, test, production, and distribution timeliness. There is also the issue of spare parts availability, something often repeated with multirotor products.

There is also the fact that Yuneec, even as slow as they are to produce new product, has not been capable of releasing a new product that functioned correctly after the first production run. Professional level products are not purchased with an expectation of the buyer becoming a manufacturer’s “Tiger Team”. The market has matured and moved well past people buying something they hope will work. Their competition does not wait for them to fix their malfunctioning equipment. Instead their competition visits the customers and takes over the available work. That is precisely why Yuneec products are not widely used while another brand is.

The equipment people need to conduct business already exists. They know it because they use them. They will not wait for someone to spend months or years re-inventing them to perform at levels falling well below what they can obtain from OEM sources or other system manufacturers. Yuneec does not make an image camera that can produce an image equal to a 40-50mpl, micro 2/3 camera with a 50mm lens equivalent. Another perfect example of this are the IR cameras Yuneec markets. The CGO-ET was deplorable, providing thermal imagery determined as inferior at any reasonable stand off distance as far back as 2004, but it was priced as if it provided cutting edge results. It was like selling ground beef at a caviar price. The high end market uses thermal cameras that can and do detect and depict thermal gradient changes induced by wind flowing over a curved surface and residual surface heat left by a human walking over dirt. More plainly, foot prints, and all that can be done from considerable distance.

As I said before, anyone that wants to survive cannot play a game of “catch up”. They have to find an area where they can jump ahead, and invest the labor and money to stay ahead. They have to innovate, not re-create. They have to sell what the market wants and needs, not what they hope the market will settle for.
 
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Not to be bias to one's opinion, but @PatR has made valid points.

The more that Yuneec adds a feature, the H Plus takes a one step back towards true progress, and the H Plus feels like a blank draft paper that Yuneec engineers wants their costumer to fill it with our wish list.

I feel like, I am in a $2,000.00 experiment that I paid to participate.
 
In another thread I posted a picture of a mix of multirotors. In the picture was a pair of X8’s just slightly larger and heavier than the H-480 sitting between them. Both the X8’s can effectively carry several pounds of payload and easily accept integration of different payload power and control needs. Both are more versatile in flight planning functions than either the H Plus or 520. Less payload, they cost between $1,200.00 and $3,000.00, depending on the model in 2015. You could obtain a DIY build kit for about $700.00 and put them together yourself. Adding more value, the critical components could be later transferred to other platforms if desired.

Also pictured was a DIY 810mm hex, employing a relatively inexpensive FC with more available functionality than an H-480 or H Plus. That unit can carry roughly 8lbs of payload weight over and above the aircraft weight with batteries. As with the X8’s the FC and flight components can be transferred to a different platform if desired.

In essence, both units can carry vastly better payloads than anything short of an H-920 Plus or M series but the 920+ is payload restricted by design. You can only use what Yuneec wants you to use, in the manner Yuneec wants it used. It does not matter the aircraft could easily carry 15lbs+ of payload, Yuneec chose to limit the customer by restricting payload adaptation. Prior to the 920+ we had the 920, a platform designed to carry several different payloads. At the time the 920 was released it became the pinnacle of the industry. Nothing else commonly available could match it for less that $25,000.00. Your other options were a Cinestar, an S1000, or a custom build, and the S1000 had serious stability issues. But Yuneec chose to “improve” the 920, renaming it the 920+ by removing payload versatility and control functions most useful to owners. The 920 was the beginning of a “degradation” pattern Yuneec has followed with each successive release. They have done this over and over again hoping to increase their sales volume and profitability, yet their market share has continuously decreased.

To paraphrase A. Einstein; doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result is the definition of insanity.

The corporate mantra of “we can’t or won’t change what we are doing because we have invested too much time and money in it” does not work. You only end up throwing more time and money into something that will never work. You either accept mistakes were made and change direction, or go broke.
 
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The CCC method of creating a flight plan is simply not cost effective. It doubles or triples the demand for battery resources and requires more that twice the time to set up and execute than required to create a flight plan created and up loaded at ground level. The CCC method also increases risk factor as the mission has to be flown twice.

In all candor, creating a WP referenced flight plan prior to take off was implemented a long time ago by Mikrokopter with limited way points, followed by APM with considerably more way point latitude. Auto pilots providing up to 99 way points referencing a map coordinate and altitude have been around a decade or more before the Mikrokopter auto pilot. The ability to import and store map packs from various sources has been around just as long.

We should consider that Pixhawk was created because APM had reached it data limit. Pixhawk was and is capable of storing and executing considerably more capability than APM, while PX4, the system used in the Plus and 520, was designed to be more capable the Pixhawk while providing the ability for commercial entities to develop proprietary feature code for their business applications that avoided “open source” sharing requirements. PX4 is at least as capable as Pixhawk so the ability to set up a way point generated flight plan resides somewhere within the system. For the Plus that feature has been blocked by the aircraft manufacturer but left open for the 520.

Map data storage is a non issue as that would only require the addition of an SD card reader interfaced with the auto pilot to accept map downloads, long term storage, and way point inputs for auto pilot access. PX4 was designed with that or a similar concept included.

Where semantics are concerned, the FAA clearly defined there’s no difference between commercial and professional. Professional means you receive consideration for your work and the FAA established that receiving any consideration is a commercial activity. The FAA even provided different types of aircraft/personal registration based on that premise, with another dedicated to platform designs that exceed the 55lb sUAS limitation.

So where’s the problem? As it’s been pretty well established that even some of the much less expensive systems can and do incorporate way point flight planning capability using less sophisticated auto pilots the problem has to reside with Yuneec. Someone in management had to say “we can sell a commercial unit for more money than the same unit without a commercial identifier, so let’s call one “this” and call the other “that” to make people think one is more capable than the other. We’ll sell “this” for more than twice as much as “that” and get more money. Customers are stupid and won’t notice there’s no real difference between the two.”

The end result had the business decision for separation decimating their unit sales as customers are not stupid. More sophisticated “deep pocket” customers are even less stupid and recognize they could obtain much more capability with better post sale service and support elsewhere, while obtaining more agility in feature/payload development at the same time.

So Yuneec, being blindly obstinate, elected to drive themselves off a cliff rather than admit they made an egregious mistake. To have avoided this debacle all they needed to do was to ask their customers what they wanted or needed before embarking on development of a new model. But corporate arrogance is not often mitigated with simple solutions.

Hello

that is only partially correct.
You're right, if you say that once you have to fly off the route to set the waypoints, you can simply correct the waypoint. If you set waypoints and also fix the camera orientation, then flies and then finds that the position or camera orientation are not correct, you always have to correct, so fly back again, the difference is marginal.

Once programmed a route, you can fly the route forward and backward, as you like, whenever you want.
That's what I'm doing in a construction project for almost two years, first Typhoon H, now Typhoon H +.
See video:

Yuneec offers a waypoint function, but only with the H920 + or the H520. If you need the unattended, you should get the H520 additionally, has the advantage that many components of the H + with the H520 are compatible (batteries, filters, remote control ...)

greeting
Fan Tho Mass

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
german translation

hallo

das ist nur bedingt korrekt.
Du hast recht, wenn Du sagst, dass Du die Route erst einmal abfliegen musst, um die Wegpunkte zu setzten, dafür kannst Du den Wegpunkt einfach korrigieren. Legt man zuvor Wegpunkte und vlt auch die Kameraausrichtung fest, fliegt anschließend und stellt dann fest, dass die Position oder Kameraausrichtung nicht richtig sind, muss man immer korrigieren, also auch wieder zurückfliegen, der Unterschied ist marginal.

Einmal eine Route programmiert, kann man ohne unterlass die Route vorwärts und Rückwärts fliegen, wie man möchte, wann man möchte.
Das mache ich bei einem Baurojekt jetzt bereits seit fast zwei Jahren erst Typhoon H, jetzt Typhoon H .
Siehe Video:

Eine Waypoint-Funktion bietet Yuneec an, aber nur mit dem H920 oder dem H520. Benötigt man die unbedient, sollte man sich den H520 zusätzlich holen, hat den Vorteil, dass viele Komponenten vom H mit dem H520 kompatible sind (Akkus, Filter, Fernsteuerung...)

Gruß
Fan Tho Mass
 
The bad part is their customers HAD been telling them but they refused to listen. To ignore your customer demands or requests is the best and fastest way I know to to ruin a business.
thats it im going back to smoking ceeegars
 
Nothing like a good cigar while kickin’ back after a tough mission or hard day’s work.
 

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