If you have waited this long and still have not purchased a TH pro, you might want to wait until January.

 

Inspire 2 ! ebee fixed wing even better !

 

Tough call. Back in the late 60s or early 70s if I had waited for that Dick Tracy screen to come out I would have waited 20 years minimum for a good one. I would probably wait but with all the promise from CES 2017 I would still wait at least 6-9 months for them to work the kinks out of the first runs so your realistically looking at waiting another year. Its your call.

Greg

 

Good call Greg, and all the "kinks" are still not ironed out !

 

You could wait forever.

I can guarantee Yuneec will be showing new stuff in January, and that there will be a whole bunch of other launches and announcements from other drone manufacturers - some of stuff you can buy right away, and some of stuff that won't be available until 2018.

My personal feeling is that the H isn't a fire and forget product - it's been built more like the commercial H920 than the throwaway Phantom - and it has enough 'spare capacity' to be upgraded and improved for quite a while yet. The detachable camera and RealSense, and the fact that you've got a pretty smart and solid controller marks this out as a platform designed to go the distance. I could be wrong, but unless you buy an upgradeable drone, whatever you buy at the moment will be 'out of date' in six to nine months. DJI replace their own consumer products in that sort of time frame and there's no evidence the Mavic or Phantom 5 or whatever is going to be any different.

 

I just bought H pro realsense pro pack. It was delivered Thursday. I am a happy camper. If you keep waiting for the latest and greatest you will never own or enjoy anything. Just look at Apple. Everybody keeps waiting for the next iPhone to come out..just to own the latest. In the electronic computer world the technology is already old when you order the product. Just buy it and enjoy it. Then upgrade several years down the road. Buy it and have fun....

 

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you don't want to be the beta tester of a new and shiny item, you wait until the bugs are worked out. Same with anything (new cars, phones, computer OS, ...). You will never have a new multirotor.

I have been waiting patiently to pull the trigger on the H but I keep coming across bugs from updates that I don't want to deal with. The price has not dropped as much as expected, I'd almost say that is a good thing.

I want one, but the fence I am sitting on is just as comfortable as the anxiety of maybe getting one that decides it's going to give attitude.

So I will keep lurking on the forums and see how the H matures for another few months.

 

If I wanted to own a business, and I do, I would develop a business plan that addressed what it needed to do, the customers it needed to target, and establish exactly the equipment necessary to get it done. From there I would select the equipment most capable and go to work.

If you want to starve to death, keep waiting for the next latest and greatest product design, or the one that's without any consumer complaints. There will never be the perfect Multirotor because there are very few users that understand their equipment as well as they should. Many product complaints are due to user failures.


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Honestly if your facing the decision whether or not to buy something because of when a fictitious product is going to be released, you'll be forever in buyers remorse no matter when you buy.

That being said I'm in total alignment with what @Tuna said above. Buy the drone, you won't regret it. I purchased mine yesterday after months of research and looking forward to getting her in the air today.

 

Go for the DJI Mavic that will start shipping in three weeks
and I think you will be happier in the end.

My H has been a good flyer from the beginning except for the compass errors that
were introduced but now corrected with the latest firmware.

I still prefer my smaller Phantom being more nimble and better camera at getting
the job done and has always been reliable. The 3rd party software support is great!

The Mavic has a load of sophistication so it will be the drone to beat in the
coming year. It is also much quieter than the Phantoms and the H so if your
over 100 feet nobody will know its there.

Good luck whatever you decide on.

 

Not I ! it's all Yuneec's fault, and you are correct, the perfect drone will never arrive ! feeed meeee !

 

Let me know if your a happy camper after you fly ! I hope you got one with all the juice squeezed out of the lemon my friend !

 

Just my .02 owning multiple drones. I have zero issues with my Inspire and Phantom 4. Never had an issue with my P3 Standard and P3 Advanced... Wish I could say the same about my H.

Depends on you situation. Do you need a drone with more features right now or can you wait? Are you looking to do lots of paid work or just a little?

If there is no immediate need, then I'd wait and see what develops. DJI "may" produce an Inspire 2, they "may" have a Phantom 5, and Yuneec "may" have the H sorted enough that it will be much more reliable.

If I had to buy one today, it would be the Inspire. I think it has some nice features like true "two operator" functionality, interchangeable cameras.

IF the H was more reliable with its firmware upgrades, it would be my recommendation.. but not until that time...

 

If I was seeking a truly "professional" drone it would not have a 'toy" flight controller driving it. The FC would be extremely versatile, have full user code review and alteration capability, and be easily utilized for different size and weight aircraft. The FC would permit incorporation of equipment from different manufacturers without the need to buy expensive adaptation equipment from the primary FC manufacturer. The FC manufacturer would have to provide an extremely comprehensive documentation package to enable users to perform accurate and effective adaptations. The FC would permit incorporation of components and payloads the user desired, not just what the FC manufacturer permitted the user. The FC would also not incorporate artificial flight restrictions designed and maintained by non government personnel or entities. Without the previous the FC is a toy and not designed for true professional use and should not be viewed as a reliable tool for the commercial environment.

There's currently only a couple of those out there. Neither Yuneec or DJI is among them.

 

Now that's what i am talking about Pat, I am learning towards a ebee fixed wing for my farm mapping surveillance, more steady and reliable and for sure Pro grade, and stick to my P4/P3/P2 with Go Pro for real estate and building structure shots, Let me know if you find a good one, I have a few in mind my friend !
Say Hi to muskratmoe for me, I think she divorced me !

 

I may be a little vague with the identity of Muskratmoe. Realistically we have only three FC's to choose from for what we want to do, but only two of them are up to snuff in accuracy. APM based; Ardupilot/copter, Pixhawk, PX4, DroneCode, and Mikrokopter. You really can do almost anything with Pixhawk and PX4. Big commercial and military interests love them for that reason. Eagle Tree is getting close with their Vector but it's not quite there yet, although they are very responsive to user feedback. CloudCap and Lockheed are there, and then some, but unaffordable for anyone without deep pockets.

For mapping and inspections I think SteadiDrone has the edge but they don't come cheap. Combine their platform with a Solo FC and you would have a great general imagery platform. For large area mapping and land survey a multirotor is a lousy tool because of low speed and very limited flight duration. I think SteadiDrone is where I'm going next though. Anyone so inclined can build their own but few want to invest the time and effort in learning and building. A real good FC eliminates need for a 360* gimbal because yaw is smooth and rate controllable. All that's necessary is stabilization and tilt. The consumer drone market is all about giving people something that almost meets the various needs and requires little skill to fly but does so using questionable components and assembly practices to keep the costs at a level consumers will pay. At that level the necessary reliability will never be there. Note I said what consumers would be willing to pay. None of the consumer drones are worth what we are being charged for them, having a real value of about 1/3, or less, of their selling price. But they are "easy" and people will pay for easy.

 

I agree, I like the ebee, with the Sequoia camera as a set, ready to fly, with superb aerial imagery and a real 45 minute flight time, But I also am glad you pointed me toward the SteadiDrone, seems very promising ! Thanks Pat !
I made a new friend on the forum, mustangmoe, thinks she's my mother, more like the other !

 

I think it's too early to tell with Yuneec when it comes to things like the FC. This is very much a new platform, and things like the RealSense seem to mean that they've had to do a whole load of development that 'plain' flight controllers just don't have to worry about - Yuneec are a member of the DroneCode group, but it's clear that the H code base has been changing very rapidly for the last few months. The ball is very much in Yuneec's court at the moment when it comes to third party integration, but I'm optimistic that they will see the benefit of working with others - just as DJI and others have done.

Things like the 360 gimbal start to matter when you integrate obstacle avoidance and smart navigation because the drone should be facing in direction of flight to take advantage of the additional sensors. The Phantom (and Mavic) have a real problem that all of their smart sensors face the wrong way if the subject they're filming is not 'ahead' of them. Their demo videos hide it well, but basically all of the follow me/watch me modes on DJI products are only good for following behind a moving target. The Yuneec follow me/watch me modes are quite happy to film from the side or ahead of the 'target' whilst still avoiding obstacles, and maintaining a constant bearing from the thing being followed. DJI do have a 'follow from in front' mode (I understand you have to check a box to make it work), but even that tends to end up following from behind.

Unfortunately, things like that don't show up in quick test videos - people try out the follow me modes and don't really think about how they'd use them for real filming.

@PatR I think you underestimate the value of consumer drones. If you consider that the H includes a 4K camera, 360 degree gimbal, hex copter, R/C unit, 7" android tablet and charger and batteries, along with all of the complex software integration to make them all work together, the price they charge is not bad. Sure you could get a cheap Chineese 4K camera and tablet for a nice low price, but they come with no software, no support and seriously low quality. My father in law worked for years in China in this area and the difference between 'cheap but ok' and 'decent quality' is huge. I showed him the H and he was very impressed with how much has gone into it.

 

Tuna,

I tend to agree. From my perspective Yuneec seems to be responding well to issue resolution and new features provided in firmware upgrades seem to be practical in design even when falling a bit short in implementation. We should recognize that some will screw up with any firm or software up grade simply because they choose to rush through the process or refuse to perform either previously required or post upgrade calibrations. It would not matter what the platform was.

What I would like to see is perhaps a bit more pre-release validation testing of firmware upgrades. We don't need to experience fast and furious code correction releases as some of us experienced before with another maker, some of which bricked FC's.

If Yuneec puts just a little more effort into it they could be a great supplier of good aerial products, but they need to have the "want to" and buck the current corporate climate seen around the world.


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