After starting to research drones, one thing became increasingly clear: as much as I want to run out and buy a DJI Mavic Air 2, I needed to learn how to fly a drone first. The dual joystick controls take a bit of getting used to and it’s better to crash something affordable then something pricey.
After a LOT of research, an obvious contender emerged: the DJI Tello. It shows up on pretty much every list of beginner drones:
In fact the UAV Coach site basically says this outright:
At UAV Coach, we often suggest starting off with a less expensive system. This is so you can hone your skills before moving on to the bigger guns (like the Mavic 2 Pro or the Flyability Elios 2).
So, I did what every grown adult would do: I started whining to my wife and young children that I wanted a drone and subtly sharing the link to the DJI Tello. And behold on Christmas morning my adult-like behavior was rewarded!
It took a bit of doing but eventually I got the app installed (android and IOS) and was up and running. I started flying it around the yard and was having a blast.
I started running into a few limitations pretty quickly:
- The range is only about 30 feet or so, since it runs on wifi.
- The battery is about 13 minutes, and 1 runs out pretty quickly.
- The phone screen joystick makes it hard to fly and watch line of sight at same time.
The 30 foot range is fine, this is to learn flying after all. But, I wouldn’t buy this and plan to take grand flights with. Likewise, the battery isn’t that big a deal and was easily rectified by buying a couple spares and a charger on Amazon (out of the box, the Tello charges the battery in the drone).
The joystick was another matter. Ultimately, the goal of this was to fly something smaller and learn the feel of the flight, so that had to be solved. Turned out it was pretty easy: I ordered a bluetooth gamepad to use with it.
This worked immediately with the Tello app! It was incredibly easy to setup. However, I had convinced myself I knew what I was doing and made the mistake of trying to fly it in the house. Well… turns out the actual joysticks are a bit more reactive (or my years of smashing joysticks in video games came back to me) and I managed to smash the drone into a wall and break one of the motors.
I am still trying to figure out if I can fix the broken motor, but in the meantime, I ordered myself another Tello to practice on (and forcing myself to only fly outside). I will write more about the gamepad in a future post, but so far it feels much more effective at steering the drone in a realistic manner. I can steer while keeping eyes on the drone, my fingers aren’t constantly slipping off it like on the phone and I can try more complex maneuvers.
