New Tello App from Drone Legends

[dronelegend]

Hello everyone. Given that DJI is no longer supporting the original Tello app, Drone Legends has created FlyCode for Tello. FlyCode | Drone Legends

It is currently for flight only, but soon a block-based coding environment will be integrated into the app. Timing for that is November of 2025. For now, check out the app and see what you think!

 

[scbenoit]

Looks interesting! Glad to see it supporting basic Tello's. Doe sit happen to support the GameSir controllers via Bluetooth?

 

[dronelegend]

Looks interesting! Glad to see it supporting basic Tello's. Doe sit happen to support the GameSir controllers via Bluetooth?

Actually a great question. I don't have an answer for you right now, but I will speak with the Drone Legends dev team to confirm. Thanks!

 

[volate!lo]

It feels like you are a few years late to the party but: welcome and good luck with the app!
Good to see you are adding block development for STEM classes, something that has been missing for a while now.


I did a quick test flight on an ancient Pixel 3, here is my 100% biased feedback:

Positives:
You guys obviously have much better graphics & design skills than I do ;-)
The intro & tutorials are really nice and super useful - but please make sure tello moves into the right direction on stick moves

Negatives:
The live feed & recorded video are broken on the Pixel 3. Video shows upper left corner, using 15-20% of the screen area. The other 80% of the screen are green.
Pictures are snapshots taken from that broken video. Apart from the green problem this always gives super low photo quality. That just plain sucks given that Tello has a great still camera.
Stick controls feel strange. It seems to be mutually exclusive, so its either pitch / yaw / throttle / roll but no mix of these, and the sticks don't have a proportional feel. Or maybe my thumbs are too thick.

The next issue made me delete the app, sorry: Tello kept moving after sticks were released until it crashed into a wall. You should review your control loop and add watchdogs.

 

[volate!lo]

Looks interesting! Glad to see it supporting basic Tello's. Doe sit happen to support the GameSir controllers via Bluetooth?

Gamesir T1D are a special breed of controller and use their own protocol, which isn't documented anywhere. So the only two supporting apps that I am aware of are the Ryze OEM app and TelloFpv.

 

[dronelegend]

Gamesir T1D are a special breed of controller and use their own protocol, which isn't documented anywhere. So the only two supporting apps that I am aware of are the Ryze OEM app and TelloFpv.

It will have Gamesir support. In development now.

 

[dronelegend]

It feels like you are a few years late to the party but: welcome and good luck with the app!
Good to see you are adding block development for STEM classes, something that has been missing for a while now.


I did a quick test flight on an ancient Pixel 3, here is my 100% biased feedback:

Positives:
You guys obviously have much better graphics & design skills than I do ;-)
The intro & tutorials are really nice and super useful - but please make sure tello moves into the right direction on stick moves

Negatives:
The live feed & recorded video are broken on the Pixel 3. Video shows upper left corner, using 15-20% of the screen area. The other 80% of the screen are green.
Pictures are snapshots taken from that broken video. Apart from the green problem this always gives super low photo quality. That just plain sucks given that Tello has a great still camera.
Stick controls feel strange. It seems to be mutually exclusive, so its either pitch / yaw / throttle / roll but no mix of these, and the sticks don't have a proportional feel. Or maybe my thumbs are too thick.

The next issue made me delete the app, sorry: Tello kept moving after sticks were released until it crashed into a wall. You should review your control loop and add watchdogs.

Thank you for the candid feedback. We're using Tello for the foreseeable future and we have 1,000's of legacy clients using it in our Drone Legends programs. So we felt we had to address the iOS issue ASAP. Thus the fairly quick dev/launch time. You can convert the sticks in the settings. We start them "locked" for the little ones (grades 4) to help them maintain basic pitch/roll/throttle/yaw.

I really appreciate the feedback and will relay to the dev team now. I couldn't access the pics. If you'd be willing to share them and any other feedback to [email protected] that would be amazing.

Thanks again!

 

[volate!lo]

Thank you for the candid feedback. We're using Tello for the foreseeable future and we have 1,000's of legacy clients using it in our Drone Legends programs. So we felt we had to address the iOS issue ASAP. Thus the fairly quick dev/launch time. You can convert the sticks in the settings. We start them "locked" for the little ones (grades 4) to help them maintain basic pitch/roll/throttle/yaw.

I really appreciate the feedback and will relay to the dev team now. I couldn't access the pics. If you'd be willing to share them and any other feedback to [email protected] that would be amazing.

Thanks again!

Cool, I wasn't aware that such a large scale STEM community exists around Tello. Makes sense to address the app issue then.


One more thing I noticed: Yaw can have funny values, like -450°. Could make sense in a programming scenario so kids can keep track of rotations but at first sight its funny.

Here is a screenshot of the app's gallery on a Pixel 3 running Android 13 (lineageos). The onscreen live feed was just the same.

 

[volate!lo]

It will have Gamesir support. In development now.

Cool. I just had another look and found someone documented the T1D protocol recently:

DroneLab - Coding Autonomous Drones in Baby Steps.

On this blog, dronelab.dev, I explore machine learning by teaching a drone to fly autonomously. I break things down into small steps and share my discoveries along the way.

dronelab.dev

 

[christiaan]

Hello everyone. Given that DJI is no longer supporting the original Tello app, Drone Legends has created FlyCode for Tello. FlyCode | Drone Legends

It is currently for flight only, but soon a block-based coding environment will be integrated into the app. Timing for that is November of 2025. For now, check out the app and see what you think!

The biggest issue is, that no new batteries are available for this discounted drone...

 

[dronelegend]

Cool, I wasn't aware that such a large scale STEM community exists around Tello. Makes sense to address the app issue then.


One more thing I noticed: Yaw can have funny values, like -450°. Could make sense in a programming scenario so kids can keep track of rotations but at first sight its funny.

Here is a screenshot of the app's gallery on a Pixel 3 running Android 13 (lineageos). The onscreen live feed was just the same.

Thank you! Will continue to relay this info the dev team. Yes, still a large educational community around the Tello. It's still the best for the use case.

 

[volate!lo]

Its sad DJI closed their STEM department instead of creating a simple SDK for the DJI Neo. Its form factor, weight, enclosed props make it fairly safe for kids and far more capable.

 

[dronelegend]

Its sad DJI closed their STEM department instead of creating a simple SDK for the DJI Neo. Its form factor, weight, enclosed props make it fairly safe for kids and far more capable.

Agree 100%. Neo would be a perfect educational platform!

 

[Bruchpilot]

@christiaan

neue Batterie

 

[christiaan]

@christiaan

neue Batterie

Thank you. I have 3 decent and 1 very good working batteries. Since I bought 2 Neos and 2 Avata2s, don´t fly the tello any more, but I see other pilots having a hard time to get new batteries. Some 3rd party ones reported not working at all. Looks like dji complitely abandoned this awesome drone.