Tag Archives: remote

DJI Spark – First Impressions

I’m new to drones and picked up a DJI Spark Fly More Combo during Prime Day, where it was $50 off. The price before tax was $500. The combo includes the remote control, an extra battery, and more helpful accessories.

The Spark hardware is a marvel of engineering. It’s not that big, but it packs a lot of technology inside. I chose the Spark since I wanted something small & novice friendly. The operating noise is very loud for my taste, but it’s to be expected for current drones.

The setup experience to start using the drone was very confusing. After charging my batteries & the remote control, it took me a long time to understand how to pair & fly the Spark.

The key revelation is that the Spark drone and the remote control each have their own WiFi network. Depending on which way you want to fly (using phone or remote), you have to connect to the right WiFi network. The problem is that the WiFi network(s) don’t always show up.

I couldn’t find any Spark WiFi networks, so I had to hold the power button on my drone for 10 seconds to reset the drone’s WiFi. Then I could connect to the drone with my phone.

Despite being able to connect to my phone, I wanted to use my remote (instead of the phone’s virtual joysticks). This link about rebooting the remote helped fix my issue. With the remote WiFi to phone being so unreliable, I’ve gone and ordered a 3rd party Lightning to USB Cable.

The drone to phone or remote pairing process is very painful. The process involves pressing & holding various buttons on the drone or remote and waiting several seconds for different beeps & lights. It’s about as user unfriendly as you could get. There is potential for a firmware update or DJI GO 4 mobile app update that would help resolve some of these pain points, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Once you are able to pair the drone to the remote control (and pair your phone to the remote control), the flying part is fun. There’s a learning curve, but the remote control’s hardware joysticks make flying intuitive.

One other note, I’m currently residing in Los Angeles. LA is not drone friendly as there are many airports and restrictions. It’s very likely you can’t fly where you want to in LA. Definitely check out where you can fly drones in your area before purchasing a drone.

Real Life Facebook Button

A dedicated button for Facebook on your phone? With super awkward placement?

While this Fb x Real Life mashup is unnecessary, I wanted to look at other examples of company logos on real life buttons. Most companies that produce hardware are content with having their logo printed onto a surface instead of a pushable button.

Note: images are used only to illustrate hardware buttons. Each logo is property of their respective owner.

Blackberry has been doing this for some time. Note the natural location among the keys.

A natural category for buttons is remotes. Specifically TV remote controls.

TiVo has been doing this for a while with their quirky logo.

Netflix is rolling out their logo as more and more devices ship with an embedded Netflix app. Apparently, Yahoo got onto this remote as a bonus.

Another category with branded buttons is video game consoles. Their controllers have gained logo buttons with the current generation of hardware.

The original Xbox had a giant logo, but it wasn’t one you could press. The Xbox 360 has a pushable logo for Xbox’s dashboard.

Playstation 3 getting its logo on.

An easily overlooked category would be the keyboard. Countless keyboards have the Windows logo.

Here is an example of the ubiquitous Windows keyboards that exist. The Windows key is useful for certain shortcuts (Win + D for desktop), but a pain when you’re in the middle of a full screen game.

Some Mac keyboards have an Apple logo.

While the Facebook logo above is placed awkwardly for dramatic effect, most company logos are placed logically in a manner that consumers use every day.