DJI Spark - deals etc
Discussion
Have been toying with the idea of getting a drone for a while, and another thread prompted me to look at the DJI Spark. It looks pretty much perfect for what I'd want.
Does anyone have one? Experiences?
And are there any specific deals to be had? Ideally I'm looking for somewhere that John Lewis will price match against as I happen to have a bunch of vouchers to use (and contributing to a drone is more worthwhile than a rug
).
Does anyone have one? Experiences?
And are there any specific deals to be had? Ideally I'm looking for somewhere that John Lewis will price match against as I happen to have a bunch of vouchers to use (and contributing to a drone is more worthwhile than a rug
).Murph7355 said:
Does anyone have one? Experiences?
HTH
alex.tvr said:
I have a Spark, pretty happy with it - I purchased the Fly more package and an extra battery. Only downside is the way it communicates, wifi instead of ocusync. I’ll probably end up trading it for a Mavic Pro, but as an intro to drones it does the job well.
HTH
Thanks Alex.HTH
I believe you can connect the remote to your phone with a cable rather than WiFi.
Did you just buy online? Prices are £150 less than the likes of JL, so negate my vouchers to an extent.
I bought my Mavic from ebay, brand new around £200 less than RRP. I think it was some guy buying them cheap in HK and smuggling them here to resell, it arrived next day but with Chinese manuals.
Not tried the Spark but the Mavic is totally awesome, such a great bit of kit for the price when you consider the cost of an iPhone these days
p.s. pretty sure you can use your John Lewis vouchers in Waitrose for your grocery shopping.
Not tried the Spark but the Mavic is totally awesome, such a great bit of kit for the price when you consider the cost of an iPhone these days
p.s. pretty sure you can use your John Lewis vouchers in Waitrose for your grocery shopping.
Murph7355 said:
Thanks Alex.
I believe you can connect the remote to your phone with a cable rather than WiFi.
Did you just buy online? Prices are £150 less than the likes of JL, so negate my vouchers to an extent.
Yes, I connect phone to RC with cable, but the RC to Spark is a wifi link, and in Europe and New Zealand (where I am) the transmit power is limited. Thats why they won’t fly as far as the Sparks in the US. 500m is about the max distance, i know you are meant to have visual on it, so 500m seems arbitrary but in built up areas or ‘noisy’ wifi areas your distance /video feed may suffer. Not trying to put you off, just saying if you get bitten by the drone bug you’ll wish you’d gone Mavic. Still, for the price the Spark can do some great stuff.I believe you can connect the remote to your phone with a cable rather than WiFi.
Did you just buy online? Prices are £150 less than the likes of JL, so negate my vouchers to an extent.
I have one and love it. I would echo the other comments about it being easy to use (Although I found tricky to first setup).
For me it was perfect, I didn't want to spend $1000+ on something I might crash and / or get bored of, but I wanted as many features and quality video feed as I could. I.E I didn't want to buy a 'toy' drone either.
Also the size is fantastic, I remember when the Mavic came out with its foldable arms how small it was compared to lugging around a pelican case for the Phantoms. This is another level of tiny... literally can fit in your pocket (Although I wouldn't recommend it as the blades are delicate.) But I have a really tiny bag that I can throw in the car and then over my shoulder when we head out. This makes it much more usable for me and I'm so much more likley to bring it with me on a trip than not.
Buy it... you'll love it.
For me it was perfect, I didn't want to spend $1000+ on something I might crash and / or get bored of, but I wanted as many features and quality video feed as I could. I.E I didn't want to buy a 'toy' drone either.
Also the size is fantastic, I remember when the Mavic came out with its foldable arms how small it was compared to lugging around a pelican case for the Phantoms. This is another level of tiny... literally can fit in your pocket (Although I wouldn't recommend it as the blades are delicate.) But I have a really tiny bag that I can throw in the car and then over my shoulder when we head out. This makes it much more usable for me and I'm so much more likley to bring it with me on a trip than not.
Buy it... you'll love it.
Just for info.. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/201...
Murph7355 said:
I have now!
I've spent all day bemoaning "Black Friday" and how nothing's ever cheaper. Looked at JL and they've got much closer to online prices... So just used my vouchers.
Thanks for the nudge
Excellent. What colour did you go for and did you consider the Parrot Bebop 2 or the Phantom 3 at all?I've spent all day bemoaning "Black Friday" and how nothing's ever cheaper. Looked at JL and they've got much closer to online prices... So just used my vouchers.
Thanks for the nudge
JL only do white. Which will look just as good stuck up a tree as any other colour
Have been toying with getting a drone for a little while. Phantom's too big really for what I want (at least for now). Bebop was an option but last year it looked compromised... but hadn't really looked at the v2...
Have been toying with getting a drone for a little while. Phantom's too big really for what I want (at least for now). Bebop was an option but last year it looked compromised... but hadn't really looked at the v2...
Quick update...arrived yesterday (impressed with the free delivery timeframes!).
Limited time to play, but it's had its first flight.
Ball ache to set up. Partly because I'm a typical bloke who hates reading manuals . Partly because the software's not as polished as the rest of it, and partly because the instructions when I finally did read them are not quite as clear as they might be.
Anyway...after much faffing, firmware updates of both the aircraft (their term) and the remote controller saw it no longer giving the "aircraft locked" message and ready to roll.
It's quite noisy, but very easy to fly. First flight was in an 8ft sq room so both taxing and not (and the noise may ease in a less confined space), but easy nonetheless.
No images to speak of yet but what I've seen look good.
The hardware feels beautifully designed and sturdy. Hopefully the software will feel better now I'm on the latest versions.
Probably won't get chance to play properly until the weekend. But first impressions are that this is a worthy gadget
Limited time to play, but it's had its first flight.
Ball ache to set up. Partly because I'm a typical bloke who hates reading manuals
. Partly because the software's not as polished as the rest of it, and partly because the instructions when I finally did read them are not quite as clear as they might be.Anyway...after much faffing, firmware updates of both the aircraft (their term) and the remote controller saw it no longer giving the "aircraft locked" message and ready to roll.
It's quite noisy, but very easy to fly. First flight was in an 8ft sq room so both taxing and not (and the noise may ease in a less confined space), but easy nonetheless.
No images to speak of yet but what I've seen look good.
The hardware feels beautifully designed and sturdy. Hopefully the software will feel better now I'm on the latest versions.
Probably won't get chance to play properly until the weekend. But first impressions are that this is a worthy gadget
Murph7355 said:
Quick update...arrived yesterday (impressed with the free delivery timeframes!).
Limited time to play, but it's had its first flight.
Ball ache to set up. Partly because I'm a typical bloke who hates reading manuals . Partly because the software's not as polished as the rest of it, and partly because the instructions when I finally did read them are not quite as clear as they might be.
Anyway...after much faffing, firmware updates of both the aircraft (their term) and the remote controller saw it no longer giving the "aircraft locked" message and ready to roll.
It's quite noisy, but very easy to fly. First flight was in an 8ft sq room so both taxing and not (and the noise may ease in a less confined space), but easy nonetheless.
No images to speak of yet but what I've seen look good.
The hardware feels beautifully designed and sturdy. Hopefully the software will feel better now I'm on the latest versions.
Probably won't get chance to play properly until the weekend. But first impressions are that this is a worthy gadget
Thanks for the update. Why was it such a ball ache?Limited time to play, but it's had its first flight.
Ball ache to set up. Partly because I'm a typical bloke who hates reading manuals
. Partly because the software's not as polished as the rest of it, and partly because the instructions when I finally did read them are not quite as clear as they might be.Anyway...after much faffing, firmware updates of both the aircraft (their term) and the remote controller saw it no longer giving the "aircraft locked" message and ready to roll.
It's quite noisy, but very easy to fly. First flight was in an 8ft sq room so both taxing and not (and the noise may ease in a less confined space), but easy nonetheless.
No images to speak of yet but what I've seen look good.
The hardware feels beautifully designed and sturdy. Hopefully the software will feel better now I'm on the latest versions.
Probably won't get chance to play properly until the weekend. But first impressions are that this is a worthy gadget
Luke. said:
Thanks for the update. Why was it such a ball ache?
Batteries come in "hibernation" mode so must be fully charged before use (which is easy enough of course ).Out of the box you're then meant to be able to use QR codes to kick off the set up process. That didn't work. Apparently this is common.
Had I read the manual I'd possibly have known the controller's wifi is what you connect your phone to, not the aircraft. That might have saved me 20mins of Googling
So connected my phone to the remote controller. Tick.
Controller to the aircraft. Tick.
Aircraft wouldn't fly. Noted it was "locked".
Bit of Googling and I start to wonder if the warning zones I'm in might be precluding flight. So get onto support (very good btw).
They think not.
So I install DJI Assistant 2. But the Spark will only connect to it intermittently, and the firmware update it needs failed three or four times.
I then stumbled across a more reliable way of getting it to connect to Assistant 2 - connect phone to controller to Spark, then plug in the USB cable. Apparently this should not be necessary but it seems to work every time for me. So hey ho.
This then left me with an up to date Spark.
Then to update the remote controller. That has to be done via the phone so you have to switch in and out of WiFi connectivity with the internet or the controller. This took two goes, but was a little more straightforward.
Once all that was done, it worked nicely.
Not all DJI's issue. And tbh I can easily forgive it when you think what this little thing does and how beautifully it runs once set up (I could watch the camera move all day
). Just took a bit of faff. I do also wonder if this one had been sat on the shelves for some time at JL - fw was a couple of versions out at least.I haven't used a bebop...but I can't see anyone who has an inkling for one of these being disappointed
. (Until I crash it into a tree or something!).Murph7355 said:
Batteries come in "hibernation" mode so must be fully charged before use (which is easy enough of course ).
Out of the box you're then meant to be able to use QR codes to kick off the set up process. That didn't work. Apparently this is common.
Had I read the manual I'd possibly have known the controller's wifi is what you connect your phone to, not the aircraft. That might have saved me 20mins of Googling
So connected my phone to the remote controller. Tick.
Controller to the aircraft. Tick.
Aircraft wouldn't fly. Noted it was "locked".
Bit of Googling and I start to wonder if the warning zones I'm in might be precluding flight. So get onto support (very good btw).
They think not.
So I install DJI Assistant 2. But the Spark will only connect to it intermittently, and the firmware update it needs failed three or four times.
I then stumbled across a more reliable way of getting it to connect to Assistant 2 - connect phone to controller to Spark, then plug in the USB cable. Apparently this should not be necessary but it seems to work every time for me. So hey ho.
This then left me with an up to date Spark.
Then to update the remote controller. That has to be done via the phone so you have to switch in and out of WiFi connectivity with the internet or the controller. This took two goes, but was a little more straightforward.
Once all that was done, it worked nicely.
Not all DJI's issue. And tbh I can easily forgive it when you think what this little thing does and how beautifully it runs once set up (I could watch the camera move all day). Just took a bit of faff. I do also wonder if this one had been sat on the shelves for some time at JL - fw was a couple of versions out at least.
I haven't used a bebop...but I can't see anyone who has an inkling for one of these being disappointed . (Until I crash it into a tree or something!).
Getting mine tomorrow, but that all sounds like a massive pain in the arse. But I guess once it's done, it's done.).Out of the box you're then meant to be able to use QR codes to kick off the set up process. That didn't work. Apparently this is common.
Had I read the manual I'd possibly have known the controller's wifi is what you connect your phone to, not the aircraft. That might have saved me 20mins of Googling
So connected my phone to the remote controller. Tick.
Controller to the aircraft. Tick.
Aircraft wouldn't fly. Noted it was "locked".
Bit of Googling and I start to wonder if the warning zones I'm in might be precluding flight. So get onto support (very good btw).
They think not.
So I install DJI Assistant 2. But the Spark will only connect to it intermittently, and the firmware update it needs failed three or four times.
I then stumbled across a more reliable way of getting it to connect to Assistant 2 - connect phone to controller to Spark, then plug in the USB cable. Apparently this should not be necessary but it seems to work every time for me. So hey ho.
This then left me with an up to date Spark.
Then to update the remote controller. That has to be done via the phone so you have to switch in and out of WiFi connectivity with the internet or the controller. This took two goes, but was a little more straightforward.
Once all that was done, it worked nicely.
Not all DJI's issue. And tbh I can easily forgive it when you think what this little thing does and how beautifully it runs once set up (I could watch the camera move all day
). Just took a bit of faff. I do also wonder if this one had been sat on the shelves for some time at JL - fw was a couple of versions out at least.I haven't used a bebop...but I can't see anyone who has an inkling for one of these being disappointed
. (Until I crash it into a tree or something!).Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff