HOW to CONNECT a QUADROCOPTER to a PHONE CORRECTLY

We tell and show how to con­nect the drone to the phone cor­rect­ly. Read more about con­nec­tion types, secure mount­ing and the best pro­grams for iPhone and Android, read below.

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To legal­ize air­craft to a mobile phone, you need to do four things.

1. Down­load the appli­ca­tion for the desired drone mod­el (as a rule, it is described in the drone man­u­al).
2. Launch the quadric and acti­vate Wi-fi on it.
3. Enable Wi-Fi on your mobile/tablet and con­nect it to the drone’s “net­work”. To do this, you need to con­nect to the net­work, which will be referred to as the plug-in drone mod­el. For exam­ple “DJI Mav­ic” or “Xiao­mi FIMI”.
4. Go to the appli­ca­tion on the phone and use the step-by-step actions indi­cat­ed in it to con­trol the fly­ing device.

If the man­u­al for the copter does not con­tain the desired appli­ca­tion, you should use one of the 10 uni­ver­sal ones for iPhone and Android:

• FreeFlight Pro — works with BEBOP and SCYCONTROLLER devices;
• DroneDe­ploy — appli­ca­tion for DJI mod­els with advanced flight plan and autopi­lot set­tings;
• SYMA FPV — to work with SYMA copters;
• Litchi — the appli­ca­tion con­trols DJI Mav­ic / Phan­tom / Inspire / Spark copters;
• UgCS is anoth­er appli­ca­tion for DJI;
• Pix4D is a uni­ver­sal script that allows you to pre-reg­is­ter flight paths over the ter­rain;
• DroneDe­ploy — pro­gram for DJI drones;
• Pro­peller Aero — an appli­ca­tion for detailed study of the ter­rain;
• Rap­tor Maps is a uni­ver­sal appli­ca­tion that will work with many drones;
• Wi-Fi UFO — allows you to con­trol the drone from your mobile. The main thing is not to send it too far, oth­er­wise the Wi-Fi con­nec­tion will be lost.

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WiFi connection

There are three options for con­nect­ing the quad­copter to the phone:

• con­nec­tion with the device via Wi-Fi;
• con­nec­tion to the remote con­trol via Wi-Fi;
• con­nec­tion via cable to the remote con­trol.

If it is pos­si­ble to con­nect to the remote con­trol, this is the eas­i­est option. It is advis­able to use them. The remote con­trol has a more pow­er­ful receiv­er, with a range of up to 3 km (like the DJI Mav­ic Mini). If you con­nect Wi-Fi to the drone via a mobile phone, the device can move away by a max­i­mum of 30–50 meters. You under­stand, the dif­fer­ence is obvi­ous.

For those who are inter­est­ed in how the Wi-Fi con­nec­tion works: both devices are com­bined into a com­mon local net­work, where the phone trans­mits drone con­trol data, and the quad­copter receives and instant­ly responds to them. In turn, on the mobile you can see what the cam­era of the device is shoot­ing.

Such a con­trol sys­tem is suit­able for those who are just learn­ing to con­trol quadro­copters (often cheap mod­els do not have a remote con­trol). And for those who want to enhance the film­ing expe­ri­ence.

Advanced mobile appli­ca­tions for quad­copters will tell you about the weath­er, wind strength, allowed and pro­hib­it­ed areas for shoot­ing, etc.

The fur­ther the drone flies, the greater the delay between the com­mand and the move­ment of the fly­ing device. For exam­ple, fly­ing 50 meters away, a bud­get mod­el will show an image with a delay of 2–3 sec­onds. These fig­ures are espe­cial­ly acute in the urban envi­ron­ment.

Relat­ed: TOP 3 best drone man­u­fac­tur­ers — rat­ing of quad­copter man­u­fac­tur­ers

Drone control using a remote control or a smartphone of the user’s choice

Once the copter is con­nect­ed to your phone, you’re ready to get to the excit­ing part of fly­ing the drone.

There are three options for work­ing with the device via a mobile phone.

1. Using vir­tu­al but­tons inside the pro­gram inter­face
The mobile phone acts as a replace­ment for the joy­stick.

2. Flight mode set­tings and cam­era tweaks
The phone pre-pro­grams the “flight” autopi­lot, where you can work through fre­quent­ly used or dif­fi­cult flights.

3. Every­thing that the cam­era “sees” is broad­cast on the smart­phone’s dis­play.
The user receives on the side of the same image a flight con­trol but­ton. It turns out such a flight sim­u­la­tor in real­i­ty mode called First Per­son View.

In gen­er­al, the con­trols are sim­ple. Mobile gamers will be com­plete­ly at ease. They fly a drone in the same way as an air­plane in a flight sim­u­la­tor. If the user does not real­ly play mobile games, he will mas­ter the skill of con­trol­ling the quad­copter in 10–15 min­utes with the help of clear prompts pro­vid­ed in the quad­copter con­trol app.

Four tips for begin­ners.

1. Do not rush to imme­di­ate­ly charge into the sky. The first few flights are best done at a height of 2–3 meters.
2. The first time it is bet­ter to launch the drone away from sky­scrap­ers and trees so that the device does not acci­den­tal­ly crash into them.
3. If the appli­ca­tion offers to enable vibra­tion feed­back, you should use this. Feel the con­trol through the pul­sa­tion.
4. For shoot­ing in flight on the pre­view, set the min­i­mum image qual­i­ty. Full­HD video is stored on a microSD flash dri­ve, but the “pix­el” pre­view will reduce image delay.

Read: 16 Unique Ways to Use Quad­copters

Frequently encountered difficulties and their solutions: table

In most cas­es, con­nect­ing the quad­copter to the con­troller goes with­out a hitch. How­ev­er, some­times there are prob­lems that can and should be addressed with­out delay.

The main trou­bles and their solu­tions are sum­ma­rized in the table:

Only the best: TOP‑5 quad­copters (drones) DJI

Selfidron — what is it and how to manage it

This is a type of quadro­copters that are focused exclu­sive­ly on work­ing with a mobile phone. It is not uncom­mon for such mod­els to lack a remote con­trol. There­fore, the cost of the device is 2–3 times cheap­er than the usu­al quadro­copter.

The pur­pose of such a gad­get is the abil­i­ty to take a self­ie from a height of sev­er­al meters. When using a self­ie stick, only the top of the body often gets into the frame and very few beau­ties in the back­ground. The self­ie drone solves this prob­lem. It allows you to shoot even the largest com­pa­ny in full growth and so that every­one fits into the frame. More­over, you can eas­i­ly cap­ture the sur­round­ing beau­ty with it. The device ris­es a few meters up and flies 40–50 meters into the dis­tance.

To bet­ter under­stand the fea­tures of the device, see its pros and cons in the table:

It should be not­ed that self­idrons in most cas­es are con­trolled only from mobile phones. So those who are used to a phys­i­cal joy­stick will find it dif­fi­cult to rebuild.


Sum­ming up the above, every­one can con­trol a quadro­copter from a smart­phone! The main thing is to give your­self some time to get used to the new style of con­trol.

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