New app: TelloFPV for Android

[imguy]

Wohoooo! I just did my first outdoor flight in almost two weeks! Weather isn't good but wind is OK and it stopped raining for almost half an hours.


AEB is part of the todo list as are many other photo related functions. Seriously: Thats why the shutter button sits so lonely on the right side of the screen: the other space is reserved for more photo functions ;-)
Priority #1 after Xmas is VR support. That is some serious effort to implement. Following that I have to implement a secret killer feature which will also be similar effort. Afterwards TelloFPV will start to mature in other functions, photo related features included.

Your video is brilliant. I am seeing a whole new copter evolve - you have shown Ryze how to do an app properly. I cannot wait to fly it along the beach down south after XMAS now. Because Im more into photos, I am also excited that is a whole feature set. Hm....A secret killer feature - MAN it really is XMAS !!! I hate surprises This app is already just awesome. I literally cannot wait to fly VR!! Thanks again.

 

[zesteves]

Wohoooo! I just did my first outdoor flight in almost two weeks! Weather isn't good but wind is OK and it stopped raining for almost half an hours.

I won't comment on video quality as I'm biased so will leave that to others, but one word on the autopilots:
The POI APs in v0.7 really rock! What looked good indoors yesterday evening is awesome freaking cool outside!

Key points of todays flight:

• We are getting close to release. I hope TelloFPV works as well for you as it does for me. Not a single glitch with 0.7 .
• RTH saved my a** when video turned into garbage around 80m away.
• RTH will receive a minor change in settings. When doing RTH from greater distances Tello speeds home at 7-8 m/s and has problems stopping in time for the home position. I will reduce max speed to 6 m/s.
• Speed when in the final phase of approach (distance to go below 10m ) will be increased a bit but not too much as I want to keep indoor usability for RTH (useless I know but many folks love to play with this function indoors, and higher speeds in close quarters indoors are disconcerting).
• I will add another speed step to Circle POI, as 40% roll isn't enough for circle large distance POIs in video mode.
• Can't change speedmode while AP is on. That is correct for some APs (Circle POI would not work well) but other APs should accept a change in speedmode from speed to video or vice versa

I sorry for your loss. I'd just get a second Tello off ebay so you have spare parts to swap around. I bought a set of three as-new Tellos from a seller that specializes returned / refurbished items. Cost was around 60 each , and they were barely used.

But: your motor trouble completely explains your issues with not being able to keep altitude and it also explains the issue of RTH going backwards while climbing to altitude. I bet whenever your Tello climbed on neutral sticks it went backwards a bit. The weak motor caused Tello to not stay level but leaning a bit backwards, thus travelling backwards. Tello seems to compensate a bit for drift when only using throttle but not as much as when just hovering.



If you like v0.6 try v0.7 !

You say it worked "almost fine". What are the issues for you?

AEB is part of the todo list as are many other photo related functions. Seriously: Thats why the shutter button sits so lonely on the right side of the screen: the other space is reserved for more photo functions ;-)
Priority #1 after Xmas is VR support. That is some serious effort to implement. Following that I have to implement a secret killer feature which will also be similar effort. Afterwards TelloFPV will start to mature in other functions, photo related features included.

Great, Volatello!

I will test the v0.7 this afternoon. Thank you!

Merry Christmas!

All the best!

 

[volate!lo]

After the big raining weeks I was outside Today for a few minutes to Test v 0.7 on my HTC u11.
It Works AWESOME!!!
I dont have any issue, even DuRecorder works while flying.
Video and Photo Switch Works for me perfect, no blue or black screen.
I tried your Video Settings with 5 Iframes, and it Works well. The Video Transmission Works just like the Stock App for me.

Nun kümmere Dich mal lieber um Deine Familie. Den Rest mit FPV kannst Du ja nach den Feiertagen angehen. Dir und Deiner Familie frohe Weihnachten

Excellent. For me everything works on all devices that I have here. So it interesting to see what problems other folks experience.

Family: We typically don't watch TV except for movies but around Xmas you can find them all on the couch watching winter sports. I'm not into that ... Starting tomorrow its a different story.

They are 32 bytes each. The screen froze with what I was seeing when I hit record...but the timer was running. I still had control. When I hit stop recording, the screen came back to life. I went back to photos then back to video and tried again, same thing. I will try again tomorrow, might have been a glitch.
Cheers

That detailed description helps a lot, thank you! There must be some threading issue burried in the video code. Shouold be gone after clearing & restarting but of course needs a fix.

Your video is brilliant. I am seeing a whole new copter evolve - you have shown Ryze how to do an app properly. I cannot wait to fly it along the beach down south after XMAS now. Because Im more into photos, I am also excited that is a whole feature set. Hm....A secret killer feature - MAN it really is XMAS !!! I hate surprises This app is already just awesome. I literally cannot wait to fly VR!! Thanks again.

I am constantly awaiting a cease & desist order from Ryze. We are doing something with their drone that they obviously did not want us to do - or they would have offered a real SDK like Parrot has done for years. Ryze could have offered similar functionality and much more but maybe DJI did not want a capable tiny toy drone to grasp a part of their larger drone market.

I am too lazy for video editing, and even if I do it I never watch them again. Just not my favorite thing. The autopilots I do are not intended for me to record videos but because I wanted to see what is possible and make this genius drone more useful for other people.
I am also more into photos than videos. We have electronic picture frames at home that are connect to our home server, so photos do get some use here. Expect to see a whole set of photo related features in the future. Again I have a ton of ideas and too little time.
Well... after VR and this little secret killer feature.

 

[brick72]

So its raining outsite, sitting on My Sofa and play around with telloFPV.
I found an little issue, or something like a Bug:
The Ratio of videostream Inside the App is a bit confusing. Switch between Video and picture Mode. Just look at the clock at the wall:

 

[volate!lo]

So its raining outsite, sitting on My Sofa and play around with telloFPV.
I found an little issue, or something like a Bug:
The Ratio of videostream Inside the App is a bit confusing. Switch between Video and picture Mode. Just look at the clock at the wall:

Thats the video aspect ratios that Tello sends. In photo mode it sends a 4:3 stream, the stock app shows black bars to the sides of the screen then. I chose to stretch that instead.
Maybe I will make this another option for the user to select whatever he prefers.

 

[zesteves]

Hi volate!lo,

I just put my tello in photos mode..took a photo
..... When I went back to video.... the screen froze every time I hit record. I got 3 empty video files. Cheers.

Yesterday, with v0.6 I also had this problem when I tried a flight with Flypad but I thought it could be a problem of my old phone, so I didn't report.

After restarted, everything worked very well.

I just sent you the video files so you can check it out!

Merry Christmas!

All the best!

 

[umanbean]

Unfortunately, my antique Galaxy S3 phone (4.4.2) won't run TelloFPV... As a phone and occasional-text platform, there's nothing wrong with this S3 - it could serve me well for another year or more probably - except it won't run TelloFPV!!!

So I'll be phone shopping first of next year - ONLY so I'll have a device with me at all times to run this app!

Meanwhile, I've used v0.7 with my two tablets and, as has been said many times - it's AWESOME!

I'm not surprised that it works well on my new tablet, but just for kicks last week installed v0.5 on a Fire 7 (5th gen) that I bought ~3 years ago and haven't used in over a year. It worked OK - control had no lag, photos looked fine but onscreen video was lacking - I blamed it on the old tablet specs.

Well, v0.7 cured all that!

Even at the time it was new, this was a woefully underpowered tablet. But with TelloFPV the performance is unbelievably smooth, with zero control lag and so little video lag as to be insignificant. Can't wait to try some videos with it, photos are great. Using T1s controller via OTG is fine, everything stays the same. With the Fire connected directly to Tello wifi and to T1s via Bluetooth, there is a lot of video interference... but adding in a Xiaomi Mi 2 wifi extender completely fixed that issue! Performance is virtually flawless.

Summary: I now have a dedicated Tello flight tablet, and next year I'll have a useable phone that fits into the T1s phone bracket.

 

[volate!lo]

Hi volate!lo,



Yesterday, with v0.6 I also had this problem when I tried a flight with Flypad but I thought it could be a problem of my old phone, so I didn't report.

After restarted, everything worked very well.

I just sent you the video files so you can check it out!

Merry Christmas!

All the best!

Thanks a lot, this will help tremendiously to figure out whats wrong. just downloading the video!

 

[tamtak]

If you like v0.6 try v0.7 !

You say it worked "almost fine". What are the issues for you?

AEB is part of the todo list as are many other photo related functions. Seriously: Thats why the shutter button sits so lonely on the right side of the screen: the other space is reserved for more photo functions ;-)
Priority #1 after Xmas is VR support. That is some serious effort to implement. Following that I have to implement a secret killer feature which will also be similar effort. Afterwards TelloFPV will start to mature in other functions, photo related features included.

I did not have enough time for verification, so I said "alomost fine" is an impression with basic operation confirmation.
Tomorrow is a holiday, many people are in the park and can not fly, so the day after tomorrow I will verify the movement of 0.7 firmly and report if there is any problem.

I tested APP with SONY Experia Z3+(android 7.1.1) , Gamesir T1d controller , Mi 2 wifi extender.
The point to worry about at the moment is T1d can not connect OTG cable.

I hope that the AEB will be offered ASAP.

 

[volate!lo]

Unfortunately, my antique Galaxy S3 phone (4.4.2) won't run TelloFPV... As a phone and occasional-text platform, there's nothing wrong with this S3 - it could serve me well for another year or more probably - except it won't run TelloFPV!!!

So I'll be phone shopping first of next year - ONLY so I'll have a device with me at all times to run this app!

Meanwhile, I've used v0.7 with my two tablets and, as has been said many times - it's AWESOME!

I'm not surprised that it works well on my new tablet, but just for kicks last week installed v0.5 on a Fire 7 (5th gen) that I bought ~3 years ago and haven't used in over a year. It worked OK - control had no lag, photos looked fine but onscreen video was lacking - I blamed it on the old tablet specs.

Well, v0.7 cured all that!

Even at the time it was new, this was a woefully underpowered tablet. But with TelloFPV the performance is unbelievably smooth, with zero control lag and so little video lag as to be insignificant. Can't wait to try some videos with it, photos are great. Using T1s controller via OTG is fine, everything stays the same. With the Fire connected directly to Tello wifi and to T1s via Bluetooth, there is a lot of video interference... but adding in a Xiaomi Mi 2 wifi extender completely fixed that issue! Performance is virtually flawless.

Summary: I now have a dedicated Tello flight tablet, and next year I'll have a useable phone that fits into the T1s phone bracket.

If you like the S3 keep it. We still have a S2 in daily use here as there is nothing wrong with these phone. OK, the S2 is pushing the limits with so little RAM. I am a fan of small devices so I m stuck with the S4 mini.
But: TelloFPV runs flawlessly even on my old S3 mini.


You just need to replace the outdated Android with a newer version. I run LineageOS on most family phones, flawlessly. The Samsung S line has tremendous support from the LineageOS communitity so it should not be hard to get a new LOS version onto your phone.

That said the S3 is a bit behind with regards to screen resolution / PPIs. For VR flights you will want more pixels - if VR is not what you want then the S3 is fine! The S4 and later models are much better in terms of PPIs.

 

[umanbean]

ou just need to replace the outdated Android with a newer version. I run LineageOS on most family phones, flawlessly. The Samsung S line has tremendous support from the LineageOS communitity so it should not be hard to get a new LOS version onto your phone.

Thank you for the info on which OS and for the nudge to do it... honestly, not wanting to do the research on rooting and which ROM I wanted was the only thing keeping me from doing it. I'll give Lineage a look and likely install it on one of my other ones - I have two S3s retired years ago by my wife and daughter. I use one to stream music to bluetooth speakers, the other mostly collects dust.

I'm not only glad I got a Tello last month, glad I had ~5 weeks to get accessories and a bit familiar with it before you came along with this fine app... for once, my timing was perfect

[Understatement] You've done a great service for the Tello community! [/Understatement]

Please enjoy your Family and time off this Holiday...

 

[volate!lo]

Thank you for the info on which OS and for the nudge to do it... honestly, not wanting to do the research on rooting and which ROM I wanted was the only thing keeping me from doing it. I'll give Lineage a look and likely install it on one of my other ones - I have two S3s retired years ago by my wife and daughter. I use one to stream music to bluetooth speakers, the other mostly collects dust.

I'm not only glad I got a Tello last month, glad I had ~5 weeks to get accessories and a bit familiar with it before you came along with this fine app... for once, my timing was perfect

[Understatement] You've done a great service for the Tello community! [/Understatement]

Please enjoy your Family and time off this Holiday...

LineageOS is for me the best alternative if all you want is phone that just plain works with no fuss.


As mentioned my family mostly ignores me today and just wants to watch winter sports. pfffhhh

This gives me room for another release. There will be a 0.8 later today with minor improvements and fixes, hopefully including a fix for the problem with video freezing on some devices when recording. Until then please kill the app and restart to fix this.

And I am preparing a first release for the google play store based on v0.8. I expect plenty of Tellos under the Christmas trees around the world and I'd hate to see them being returned because folks don't realize the potential of this little gem.

 

[brick72]

And I am preparing a first release for the google play store based on v0.8. I expect plenty of Tellos under the Christmas trees around the world and I'd hate to see them being returned because folks don't realize the potential of this little gem.

YES!!
Sitting here prepared with my vr glasses, still waiting that Today is Xmas ??????

 

[volate!lo]

Just to make sure you are not disappointed: v0.8 will NOT include VR support.

VR support will be in a release after Christmas. With some luck around new year but no promises.

 

[xcrost]

Wohoooo! I just did my first outdoor flight in almost two weeks! Weather isn't good but wind is OK and it stopped raining for almost half an hours.

I won't comment on video quality as I'm biased so will leave that to others, but one word on the autopilots:
The POI APs in v0.7 really rock! What looked good indoors yesterday evening is awesome freaking cool outside!

Key points of todays flight:

• We are getting close to release. I hope TelloFPV works as well for you as it does for me. Not a single glitch with 0.7 .
• RTH saved my a** when video turned into garbage around 80m away.
• RTH will receive a minor change in settings. When doing RTH from greater distances Tello speeds home at 7-8 m/s and has problems stopping in time for the home position. I will reduce max speed to 6 m/s.
• Speed when in the final phase of approach (distance to go below 10m ) will be increased a bit but not too much as I want to keep indoor usability for RTH (useless I know but many folks love to play with this function indoors, and higher speeds in close quarters indoors are disconcerting).
• I will add another speed step to Circle POI, as 40% roll isn't enough for circle large distance POIs in video mode.
• Can't change speedmode while AP is on. That is correct for some APs (Circle POI would not work well) but other APs should accept a change in speedmode from speed to video or vice versa

I sorry for your loss. I'd just get a second Tello off ebay so you have spare parts to swap around. I bought a set of three as-new Tellos from a seller that specializes returned / refurbished items. Cost was around 60 each , and they were barely used.

But: your motor trouble completely explains your issues with not being able to keep altitude and it also explains the issue of RTH going backwards while climbing to altitude. I bet whenever your Tello climbed on neutral sticks it went backwards a bit. The weak motor caused Tello to not stay level but leaning a bit backwards, thus travelling backwards. Tello seems to compensate a bit for drift when only using throttle but not as much as when just hovering.



If you like v0.6 try v0.7 !

You say it worked "almost fine". What are the issues for you?

AEB is part of the todo list as are many other photo related functions. Seriously: Thats why the shutter button sits so lonely on the right side of the screen: the other space is reserved for more photo functions ;-)
Priority #1 after Xmas is VR support. That is some serious effort to implement. Following that I have to implement a secret killer feature which will also be similar effort. Afterwards TelloFPV will start to mature in other functions, photo related features included.

It completely explains the issues I was having. I am so sorry for any trouble I caused. I guess the motor was failing slowly and finally just died yesterday. Is this kinda the norm with failing motors? I am really abusive to the poor thing. I was planning on getting a back-up so now I will do both. Any recommendations on motors would be great. I have seen upgrades rated at double the RPM but I have yet to research anything yet. Thanks for all your hard work! TelloFPV ROCKS!

 

[volate!lo]

It completely explains the issues I was having. I am so sorry for any trouble I caused. I guess the motor was failing slowly and finally just died yesterday. Is this kinda the norm with failing motors? I am really abusive to the poor thing. I was planning on getting a back-up so now I will do both. Any recommendations on motors would be great. I have seen upgrades rated at double the RPM but I have yet to research anything yet. Thanks for all your hard work! TelloFPV ROCKS!

No trouble caused on my side. From my experience that is just the way brushed motors die. They lose power, the quad starts to behave sluggish, does not climb quickly or is unable to keep altitude at higher speeds.
I think you were also the one who reported lower flight times with TelloFPV? That also fits into the category: Burned motors eat more juice for less output.

I have had a few brushed quads, and replaced a motors a lot, using both cheap chinese set priced $2 for set of 4 motors and $30 per set from a specialized quad motor shop. Many folks on the internet are bragging about their super special expensive motor tuning but my own experienced is very mixed. The tuned motors may be more powerful but the higher rating did not necessarily match the characteristic of the onboard flight controller that well, or reduced flight time considerably.
Especially with a quad that relies so much on its onboard computing power like Tello would not want to change anything. Personally I'd buy the original motors from a reliable source, or just get a spare quad to gut out (refurbished / returned deals from a large warehouse are best deals IMO). In a month from now Ebay will be full of returned & refurbished Tellos.

This is especially true for the Tello which has brushed motors like I have never seen before. As said, each of my Tellos has more flight time than any of my other brushed quads has ever achieved. And that even though I crash all the time when developing TelloFpv.

 

[OptiPlex]

@volate!lo...
you said

RTH saved my a** when video turned into garbage around 80m away.

do u get to 80m using wifi extender??

Sent from my BLA-L29 using Tapatalk

 

[volate!lo]

@volate!lo...
you said

RTH saved my a** when video turned into garbage around 80m away.

do u get to 80m using wifi extender??

Sent from my BLA-L29 using Tapatalk

Of course! In clear line of sight I can do about 300-400m reliably using the Xiaomi Nano Youth, more if I'm brave. In this case I was testing Circle POI around a tree and lost video because I had the wifi extender inside the house.
80m should be doable with phone only depending on the phone.

 

[Flydrone]

You're doing a great job for little Tello, I think it's the best app for this drone! Unfortunately, the bad weather of these days did not allow me to fly with the cello :-(
Merry Christmas!

 

[brick72]

Of course! In clear line of sight I can do about 300-400m reliably using the Xiaomi Nano Youth, more if I'm brave. In this case I was testing Circle POI around a tree and lost video because I had the wifi extender inside the house.
80m should be doable with phone only depending on the phone.

50m with Phone alone.
400m with xiaomi?
My xiaomi 2 Extended arrived yesterday. I Hope I can Test it as soon as possible.
I Hope I can reach 100m
But I will Never ever sent my little tello out more than 100m. After 50m I cant see My little tello in the Sky. No no no, not my tello...