Learning to fly mini 2 indoors?

Greetings from ? Florida

Welcome to the forum. We look forward to your participation and your view of the world.

Jwood said:

Mini 2 is my first drone and so far I’m very impressed. I am using propeller guards and keep it in C mode. I’m trying to get comfortable flying with only the screen. Going through doors, in and out of rooms and even upstairs and into bedrooms. I also flew through an open back door for a short flight around and over the house and back through the door landing on the kitchen counter. Am I at risk of losing signal when the mini is outside and I am inside? I had some fun video, but haven’t had much success in editing to a shareable size/format

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If you're inside and looking at the drone through a glass door / window you should be fine. But you need to be careful if you're going through walls (quite apart from the fact that it's illegal to fly when you can't see the drone).

I did at test at home (with the drone not in the air - it was on a table and I was watching the video feed). I could maintain signal from a next door room but if there were 2 walls the signal broke up.

The question is what the drone will do if it loses signal. You don't want it to attempt to return to the home point if that's indoors.

Probably best to set it to hover and then if you loose signal you've got time to go outside and reestablish connection. Just make sure you have plenty of battery left!

I own a 1st generation Mini and have practice flown it indoors a few times.
I am amazed at how controllable it is in tight quarters. I just nudge it around yawing, turning, forward and backwards and landing it on our ottoman etc.
I need practice on aiming the camera better as the wheel moves opposite of what I expect sometimes.
Also, forward stick to gain altitude is backwards from my 'fixed wing' experience and I need practice there also.
Zero crashes so far, 'knock on wood'....
BTW....My dog HATES it flying over him....the wind really bothers him....So I try to avoid that....

Steel63 said:

Greetings from ? Florida

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use the software and a computer!

Welcome!

Jwood said:

Mini 2 is my first drone and so far I’m very impressed. I am using propeller guards and keep it in C mode. I’m trying to get comfortable flying with only the screen.

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I understand your just putting around the house and that is all fine and dandy. But in my humble opinion learning to fly by looking at the screen isn't the best approach. You should first get comfortable with control of aircraft by looking at it. That takes some time to get the hand eye coordination and should be the first thing your concentration is on. But having a bit of fun flying around like you are isn't a bad thing, it's just going to develop bad habits later when the room turns to sky

Welcome to the forum from the deserts of Arizona! Enjoy.

Hello from the Hoosier Heartland Jwood.

Welcome to the Forum.

Remember what VLOS means, it’s there for a reason.
Having said that, it sounds like fun with the prop guard on. Only YOU will know what the signal strength around your house is showing you. Previous poster is right, set it to “hover on loss of signal” not RTH at 40m ?

I believe your biggest issue is ‘no GPS’, it is the strength of the GPS and number of satellites that gives you true lateral stability. I hovered for an almost full battery at 2m over a landing pad yesterday for 22 minutes, it barely moved even though it was slightly gusty, when it did move some centimetres it came back. Stunning stability with NO manual correction at all.

Worth a similar test in your house to show yourself how stable it is without you correcting it, then compare with GPS outside.

let us know how you get on ?

Actually the bottom sensors for VPS provides decent stability when GPS is absent, but requires sufficient light. App will tell you when there's not enough light.

Sometimes I wish there were ways to turn off GPS but leave on VPS for when you are indoors and know GPS will be spotty or non-existent.

I agree about failsafe setting not to be in RTH when you are indoors lest it hit the ceiling or if it is outdoors and lands on the roof trying to get to the indoor home point. For the same reason watch your battery level and not RTH on low battery.

Welcome to the forum.
I hope you will find our site helpful and look forward to any input , photo's/video's you might post .
Don't be shy and ask anything if you can't find it by searching .

DanMan32 said:

Actually the bottom sensors for VPS provides decent stability when GPS is absent, but requires sufficient light. App will tell you when there's not enough light.

Sometimes I wish there were ways to turn off GPS but leave on VPS for when you are indoors and know GPS will be spotty or non-existent.

I agree about failsafe setting not to be in RTH when you are indoors lest it hit the ceiling or if it is outdoors and lands on the roof trying to get to the indoor home point. For the same reason watch your battery level and not RTH on low battery.

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No need to actually switch GPS off, if it’s not there or weak the VPS is there anyway, but as you say, VPS needs light and a contrast pattern for the cameras to look at, from the manual “the downward vps cannot work properly over surfaces that do not have sufficient light or a clear pattern”

Jwood said:

Mini 2 is my first drone and so far I’m very impressed. I am using propeller guards and keep it in C mode. I’m trying to get comfortable flying with only the screen. Going through doors, in and out of rooms and even upstairs and into bedrooms. I also flew through an open back door for a short flight around and over the house and back through the door landing on the kitchen counter. Am I at risk of losing signal when the mini is outside and I am inside? I had some fun video, but haven’t had much success in editing to a shareable size/format

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I would like to see your indoors flight and as you said it could be funny ?.
I found one simple and quick way to reduce large video files. With VLC free media player. There is an option in the file menu "convert". There is is options with suitable file sizes e.g. for YouTube.
I still find confusing to fly the drone when the drone nose facing me , you know.... Left instead of right or back instead of frond ?

Welcome to the forum from the beautiful woods of Maine!

Welcome from central Florida.

Welcome from California.

Jwood said:

Mini 2 is my first drone and so far I’m very impressed. I am using propeller guards and keep it in C mode. I’m trying to get comfortable flying with only the screen. Going through doors, in and out of rooms and even upstairs and into bedrooms. I also flew through an open back door for a short flight around and over the house and back through the door landing on the kitchen counter. Am I at risk of losing signal when the mini is outside and I am inside? I had some fun video, but haven’t had much success in editing to a shareable size/format

Click to expand...

I have changed my Air 1 for a Mini2 - very impressed!
I too tried flying indoors, and it was fine until I tried to fly along a hallway - whether it was because the carpet is one colour, or whether the wind was bouncing back from the walls, the drone went out of control - yawing left, then right, in ever larger distances, until it crashed into a wall.
Luckily it was unharmed, but I couldn't regain control before the inevitable crash - I would be interested to hear more experienced pilots opinion.