New app: TelloFPV for Android

[volate!lo]

YT banned me for posting the same comment to four Tello review videos that all complaining about the same things. Well, someone thought it was spam I guess.
I filed a complain but received a final decision within minutes with the comment never to get back to them in this matter. Well, Inever wanted to provide any content anyway so no loss for me.


I have been banned by FB three times now, using different email accounts. Its always the same. They ban me for suspicious activities and ask for a phone number and a photo to identify me and unlock the account. Now how could they identify me without another photo as reference?
Of course I cheat and give them some prepaid phone numbers and some photo I find on the internet. Ok, the first photo I uploaded was some 1960s psycho mass murderer, so they banned that account permanently. Next I tried a photo of young Saddam Hussein. Maybe not the smartest move, got banned again Next I tried the photo of the next town's catholic priest. No clue what this guy did but that got me another ban.

Now of course I could just obey and give them my real email, my photo, my phone number. But no way this is going to happen...
Somehow I can't take this FB seriously. I would like to be on FB just to push TelloFpv a bit but other than that I don't give a sh!t about this social media.

 

[volate!lo]

Yes! I would love the option! I have successfully used "screen mirror" to a Roku for a party but no options to chose VR independently or if you do, it shows on the "party" screen lol. Sounds like I will need a few more headsets with the new set-up. Awesome! Thanks Volate!lo!!!!!!!!

I just had a nice test setup using a few more devices: S4 runing TelloFpv and 4 devices (2x S4, S6, Tab A6) all running Copilot in parallel.

Works! The phones automatically create a chain with TeloFpv at the head and one Copilot daisychained to the next. Video delay is between 170 and 230ms, but this depends more on each phone's CPU / GPU power than it's position in the chain. The delay due to chain position is less than I can reliably measure.

I haven't tested how many devices can be connected at the same time, but 5 are OK. Taking one phone out causes the chain to break up and automatically re-arrange itself in a new chain which works well but takes a few seconds.

Still needs a bit of fine tuning and testing but overall it works. Sometime next week this should be done.

 

[rajones19]

Fantastic news! I have a 9-year-old grandson who is hot to learn to fly the drone if the weather here ever cooperates. I told him about the VR option, he thought that was fantastic!

 

[Luiz6b]

@volate! lo, is there any way to increase the audio bitrate from screen recordings?

Maybe something like on secret menu to increase video bitrate ...

 

[Koedoe888]

Would be a lot of work, and gives some headaches.

The question is: Where do the maps come from? Maps need to be preloaded, as there is no internet while connected to Tello. Caching google maps is against their terms of service, so I'd need to get other map sources. Google Maps API does not work with other sources, so I'd have to implement my own map selection and download process, maps cache, provider, display handler, ...

As far as I can see vGPS is a non-seller without the magic FollowMe. About 80 people bought it, which is just over 0,5% of the user base. Overall such a map would be a lot of effort for very few users.

I'm one of those 80 happy people?

 

[rajones19]

I'll be buying vGPS if it ever stops raining here in Michigan and I can get outside and experiment. For the last two weeks it's either been raining or windy every stinkin' day.

 

[dstjohn]

Just finished flying my Tello with a new Flypad and TelloFPV. Don't have a wifi repeater so far, but still it was fun. Got the FPV going with a $20 VR headset from BB. This all worked satisfyingly well, despite the budget nature of all of the gear. Initially, I paired the Flypad with my phone and then attempted to find it in TelloFPV, but this didn't work. I had to unpair my phone and then tell TelloFPV to look for it. Is there a reason why the app can't find the controller when I've already paired it to the phone?

 

[Sagvan82]

Hi there,

one idea for the mirror clip users.

I started to play with this last month and still have troubles to control Tello. I'm confused by the mirrored image. Maybe I´m not the only one fighting with this.
Could be possible to add function to reverse back this mirrored image that came from Tello? It could be one control button in misc menu called e.g. "mirror clip mounted" or something like this. Just for phone display and photos, no meaning for shaky video.

 

[volate!lo]

@volate! lo, is there any way to increase the audio bitrate from screen recordings?

Maybe something like on secret menu to increase video bitrate ...

There is no such thing (right now). Sound recording is a bit delicate issue because of the constant re-synch between video and sound required. Dropped / lost frames are a fact so there is always more sound recorded than video. I would have to look into this and see what I can do.

EDIT: Sorry, i got confused: You are talking about screen recording not video recording.... There it would be possible without issues, I just have to add another "secret setting".

Just finished flying my Tello with a new Flypad and TelloFPV. Don't have a wifi repeater so far, but still it was fun. Got the FPV going with a $20 VR headset from BB. This all worked satisfyingly well, despite the budget nature of all of the gear. Initially, I paired the Flypad with my phone and then attempted to find it in TelloFPV, but this didn't work. I had to unpair my phone and then tell TelloFPV to look for it. Is there a reason why the app can't find the controller when I've already paired it to the phone?

That's a limitation of the Flypad. If used with Parrot apps like Freeflight its just the same.

Hi there,

one idea for the mirror clip users.

I started to play with this last month and still have troubles to control Tello. I'm confused by the mirrored image. Maybe I´m not the only one fighting with this.
Could be possible to add function to reverse back this mirrored image that came from Tello? It could be one control button in misc menu called e.g. "mirror clip mounted" or something like this. Just for phone display and photos, no meaning for shaky video.

In the great scheme of things you are "the only one". My bet is that maybe 99% of average Tellopilots never use a mirror clip. Only a few hardcore users do that. But I will look into this.

 

[Sagvan82]

In the great scheme of things you are "the only one". My bet is that maybe 99% of average Tellopilots never use a mirror clip. Only a few hardcore users do that. But I will look into this.

Someone in my local fb group offered one batch of these clips, it was a question of tens of minutes then all of them has been sold. So I got feeling that the whole group of clip users is not that tiny, but I have no stats data. Thank you anyway

 

[volate!lo]

Only a tiny fraction of users engage in FB groups, forums, etc. After at least 1 Mio units sold the official Tello FB has just 6000 members. I think its safe to say that its mostly power users who engage in groups and forums. The vast majority just buys a drone and flies it until its lost or wrecked.

Well, in the end the truth is somewhere in the middle. Anyway, I will check but its not a priority for the reason given.

 

[umanbean]

In the US we have a saying:
Give 'em an inch and they'll ask for a mile... lol

 

[UKPhil]

I tried such a function, but so far no luck...

OK.. Thanks anyway for what you've done!

 

[UKPhil]

Breakthrough!

I now have TelloFpv running on one phone, and a special "viewer-only" version on another phone. I haven't measured latency yet but does not seem to have a tremendously negative effect.


Control works only through the main phone running TelloFpv. Both master & student controllers have to be connected to this device. The TelloFpv-Viewer app shows video, telemetry including home position indicator, and a couple of messages that are brokered by Tello (like handland timers and most warnings).
A few things will not be shown on the viewer: the red/green indicators for Video / Sport mode and active controller, autopilot messages, maybe a few more things I haven't thought of yet.


The viewer and main phone both can be put into normal or VR mode independently. So it would be possible to use TelloFpv on the phone in your hands for control, and use another phone with the viewer in the VR goggles. Or use the main phone in VR mode in your goggles, and use a tablet running the viewer for some audience. Or fly with your main phone and let your kids / wife / SO passively enjoy the flight with VR goggles.
All kinds of combinations and use cases are possible.


TelloFpv viewer is completely passive, that is you can't fly Tello with it, can't connect a controller, or trigger any functions or autopilots. The only "function" it will offer is screen recording.


I will need a few days to iron the bugs out, and customize the layout for the TelloFpv Viewer app. So there will be a release in the next few days for the main app, and a new separate Viewer App.

Any smart ideas for the name of the viewer app version? Just TelloFpv Viewer? TelloFpv Slave? TelloFpv Monitor?

Yes!!

 

[volate!lo]

Yes!!

The key was to include the wifi extender to the mix. It seems (and is logicaal) that Tello itself does not forward traffic from one phone to another, and also (which is a bit strange) does not allow direct communication between both phones. So while multiple devices can be connected directly to Tello's wifi they can't talk to each other.

Now with a wifi extender it works like a charm.

While its possible to daisy-chain multiple copilot instances (as mentioned above) this is not the preferred way. The video feed interferences of each device in the chain add up, and the last one in the link sees way more garbage then the first one. Chinese whispers I think its called.

So preferred way is to connect multiple copilot instances to the leading TelloFpv instance, but it ain't that easy... Some phones can handle multiple Copilot connections, some can only handle one reliably. Still tweaking the settings a bit to get a stable setup...

 

[umanbean]

Breakthrough!

I now have TelloFpv running on one phone, and a special "viewer-only" version on another phone. I haven't measured latency yet but does not seem to have a tremendously negative effect.

How on Earth did I miss this post?!!!

Thank you @UKPhil for bringing that back to the forefront!

Now I have to go back and see what else I missed LOL

IMO, this is THE absolutely most awesome feature yet!!

 

[volate!lo]

How on Earth did I miss this post?!!!

Thank you @UKPhil for bringing that back to the forefront!

Now I have to go back and see what else I missed LOL

IMO, this is THE absolutely most awesome feature yet!!

Still tweaking and testing but overall it works. One TelloFpv instance can serve one or more Copilot instances, which in turn can serve one or more Copilot instances each.

The hard limit seems to be the number of DNS leases that Tello can issue in one session (that is how many phones can register to the extender's network). That limit seems to be 6 phones in total (one TelloFpv instance, and 5 Copilots).


I am still a bit undecided how to release. I can release Copilot as a menu item on TelloFpv ("Copilot mode / Pilot mode"), or if I want to release Copilot as a separate (free) app.

 

[lifescanner]

I am still a bit undecided how to release. I can release Copilot as a menu item on TelloFpv ("Copilot mode / Pilot mode"), or if I want to release Copilot as a separate (free) app.

Please put it in one App, it make it easier to Update all functions.

 

[volate!lo]

That is for sure one aspect.

The other aspect is: This requires all Copilot phones to have a TelloFpv license. Maybe not feasible just to share an FPV flight with a buddy.
Of course this forces people to buy TelloFpv, but this is neither nice nor smart. Very few people would buy the app just to take a FPV ride. But if they take a ride using the free app they will probably buy a Tello and the app...

 

[Koedoe888]

Anybody tried tello remote. Yet. I'm happy with tello fpv so I'm not going to try more apps. I have atello app as well and haven't used it in a long time. The copilot can have its uses. I was looking for something today in a tower and it was sunny. If my assistant had the copilot he could have been a spotter in the shade while I concentrated on flying.