Surprising message: Warning! Connection to the Streaming GPS Drone has been lost

The subject message on my iPhone 5S (including “Please check the battery is fully inserted, charged and that you are connected to the drone in your devices WIFI settings.”) has appeared during some of my manually-guided flights in GPS Mode. (To date, the message has not appeared during auto missions using Mission Planner.)

During the latest, manually-guided flight, the message appeared and remained on display, blocking much of the video view, which doesn’t help when trying to guide to a landing. I waited for a few moments and GPS Mode was restored, however the message remained. Apparently the message is not removable, even temporarily. It seemed odd to me that I had no trouble continuing to guide the drone in flight, and it responded appropriately to the Return button. Thought I would report this soon, since it’s likely to present a frustrating situation to many users. That said, I’m having fun with this remarkable product. Should be a staple of many STEM programs in schools.

Did the video view behind the message continue to update?
The app uses a WiFi link, whereas the TX uses quite a different protocol, so what you describe is consistent with the WiFi link dropping out for some reason.
Maybe try re-connecting the WiFi if it happens again?
Cheers, Tridge

Yes, the video view behind the message did continue to update. When the rain stops again here, I’ll see if I can replicate the problem, then switch my phone’s WiFi off then on and see what happens.
Thanks for all your work on this product!
John

Not sure what to think at this point. With a fully charged battery in the drone, new AA batteries in the controller, and my laptop with Mission Planner connected along with my iPhone running the SkyViper app, I encountered several problems:
a) map tiles slow to load and not appearing to completely load;
b) no video feed in the SkyViper app;
c) after all connections were made, and the drone battery reported as 87%, I launched and the battery dropped to 25% then down to 12% at landing. Multimeter reading of the battery voltage is 3.94.
So… a few minutes later I went indoors and connected the drone to charge for maybe 15 minutes, then (still indoors at a bench) I powered up the drone, the controller (“TX” in the SkyViper messages) and the SkyViper app. The app stated the battery was at 75%. No GPS Mode initially because I am indoors. Apparently the lack of any video from the camera is a hint that GPS Mode has not been achieved, because after a few minutes sat lock was achieved and video was displayed.
Wondering if the drone battery is defective or has been compromised during the 12-15 flights to-date. No date for replacement batteries yet from SkyViper.
My overall impression is that one needs to be very slow in interacting with the various components of the system, otherwise it’s not clear (at least to me through the controller or app UIs) what to do next, and in what sequence. It’s a new product, so some issues are not surprising. Looking forward to seeing it evolve.

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The SkyViper doesn’t have a current sensor, so it has to estimate battery percentage purely from voltage. That definitely needs to be made smarter.
The fix would need to be in the app, which I don’t work on, as the app does the mapping from voltage to battery percentage. I suspect it isn’t properly taking into account the throttle on the motors.
I’ve pointed out this thread to some of the app developers.

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