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Almost lost my drone because of autolanding

arskadirr

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Hello everyone,

I have anafi almost a year now and I have had almost 200 flights with it. I am living in Poland.

Yesterday I took my drone like usually and start flying. The battery was 90% at the beginning of the flight. I was taking some picture of a monastery and there was 30m high limit and I was cautious, tried not to go over the place however after 9 mins flight time I didn't get any warnings, no battery low disclaimers, nothing. I was on the top of monastery's big garden and the drone suddenly started to landing I couldn't even understand what was happening in 2 sec signal lost (the rest of the flight the signal was perfect) and I started to run towards the place drone was landing, I was only 150m away from the drone. There were trees underneath I was scared that the drone would crash. now it is the neat part, I couldn't reach the drone bcs there were walls surrounding monastery garden. I was 20-25m away from the drone and I did catch the signal for a 5 sec, the screen was all black and there was warnings about battery or crush I don't know I couldn't even read those only saw the battery was 7% or something like that. then probably the battery died and the signal was lost. It was Sunday and it was a monastery, nothing like a church. there was no body. Somehow I found a phone number and call them but they didn't pick it up. Stayed there more than a hour. I saw they only answer during the week for just one hour. I didn't any choice, I left and came home. Luckliy I was able to get the backlog and checked what happend. As I said I saw at %20 the drone started to land. It is also interesting I got only 9 mins flight with 90% battery. So I called today, actually my wife called them bcs I don't speak the language. They said I cannot go in, definitely not my wife, and told us that they would look for it. my wife tried to tell them the location more or less and the guy said he can't call us he is not allowed and he told us to call him around 3 pm and ask if they have found it. We called, as you expect they couldn't find it but thank god he said I could go and look for it for a short time. I went there and found the drone. It was only 2m away from the trees and kind of a small cliff. It was upside down when I found it. The drone looks fine but there is a crack at the gimbal holder.

So my question is can I contact with Parrot or the store where I got the drone and talk ask for a service or refund anything. I cannot trust this drone anymore. I am a foreigner here I don't want to get into these kind of situations. When I read other posts from the forum about autolanding I was scared. There is still warranty, it's gonna be almost a year now with anafi and I couldn't trust it (sorry guys). I'd be glad to hear from you guys.
 
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Hello. It seems that it’s possible, or even pretty sure, that this problem comes from the battery. Pretty sure you have to change it, because it is not able anymore to be full charged as it was new.
Of course you can contact Parrot to try to have a service, you won’t loose anything even if they refuse to help you.

The battery life is a huge problem with our anafi, that’s the reason why you can find on this forum a modded app which can indicate the real voltage of the battery instead of a faulty % of it.
Change your battery, and i’m sure you’ll be confident again in your anafi
 
If I look at your thread title ...
You didn't almost loose your drone BECAUSE OF AUTOLANDING!
Without the autolanding function your drone would have fallen down from 30m and would have been totally destroyed.
So the autolandung was/is useful.
Normally the app informs you of activating the autolanding and you have the option to cancel autolanding and land the drone by yourself.
But - as Fmaxii said - if your battery is weak or old, the time between information about autolanding in the app and a too low battery voltage in the drone can be very short.
 
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If I look at your thread title ...
You didn't almost loose your drone BECAUSE OF AUTOLANDING!
Without the autolanding function your drone would have fallen down from 30m and would have been totally destroyed.
So the autolandung was/is useful.
Normally the app informs you of activating the autolanding and you have the option to cancel autolanding and land the drone by yourself.
But - as Fmaxii said - if your battery is weak or old, the time between information about autolanding in the app and a too low battery voltage in the drone can be very short.
Thank you for your message. Sorry but I was lucky that autolanding started somewhere where I can get the drone. I've heard people lost their drone bcs of autolanding while there were on the water. If autolanding starts suddenly without warnings like "" autolanding in 2 3 mins, sorry that is not useful that is dangerous. If it was rth yeah that would be useful.
 
Hello. It seems that it’s possible, or even pretty sure, that this problem comes from the battery. Pretty sure you have to change it, because it is not able anymore to be full charged as it was new.
Of course you can contact Parrot to try to have a service, you won’t loose anything even if they refuse to help you.

The battery life is a huge problem with our anafi, that’s the reason why you can find on this forum a modded app which can indicate the real voltage of the battery instead of a faulty % of it.
Change your battery, and i’m sure you’ll be confident again in your anafi
Thank you for the message, first I will contact with the seller and see if they will help me with it.
 
Unfortunately Parrot only guarantee the Anafi Batteries for 6 months and you state that you have had it almost a year. Best of luck returning it to the seller but I am afraid that they might say that it is a battery problem and refuse to replace it.
 
Unfortunately Parrot only guarantee the Anafi Batteries for 6 months and you state that you have had it almost a year. Best of luck returning it to the seller but I am afraid that they might say that it is a battery problem and refuse to replace it.
Yeah that's why I'm afraid of. But I have a crack on gimbal's l shape holder. Gimbal doesn't look straight. The landing didn't happen properly and I found the drone upside down on the ground. Maybe I can ask for replacement bcs of that.
 
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Thank you for your message. Sorry but I was lucky that autolanding started somewhere where I can get the drone. I've heard people lost their drone bcs of autolanding while there were on the water. If autolanding starts suddenly without warnings like "" autolanding in 2 3 mins, sorry that is not useful that is dangerous. If it was rth yeah that would be useful.
No, if there is low energy, RTH is no option, because home could be too far away to reach.
In case of low energy the drone must land soon. Normally you are informed about autolanding.
 
I lost a drone due to battery failure. Made a clear case based on the logfiles on the android phone. Parrot refused all support but the retailer gave me a new drone. Drone was 8 months old at.that time, so in Europe within the 2 years warranty. Only, if the object is older than 6 months, YOU have to prove that it was a product error, while if it was within 6 months, the manufacturer has to prove that you made a mistake if they want to refuse warranty.

However, good luck contacting Parrot support. They even deny the light of the sun at 12h00... My advise: build a case wirh your logfiles, show that battery failure caused the autolanding, and go via your retailer.
 
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I lost a drone due to battery failure. Made a clear case based on the logfiles on the android phone. Parrot refused all support but the retailer gave me a new drone. Drone was 8 months old at.that time, so in Europe within the 2 years warranty. Only, if the object is older than 6 months, YOU have to prove that it was a product error, while if it was within 6 months, the manufacturer has to prove that you made a mistake if they want to refuse warranty.

However, good luck contacting Parrot support. They even deny the light of the sun at 12h00... My advise: build a case wirh your logfiles, show that battery failure caused the autolanding, and go via your retailer.
Warranty in most European countries deals with faults of a product at the moment you bought the product. So after 6 months YOU must prove that the fault existed already when you bought the product. Within the 6 months the manufacturer has to prove, that you made a mistake using the product.
So if the fault happens after 8 months of normal use, YOU must prove, that exactly this fault was already existing when you bought the product.
This will mostly not be successful and in your case isn't logic as well.
So a manufacturer can be obliging, but doesn't have to.
Thats not a speciality of Parrot.
 
If you can show a irregular and sudden voltage drop based on the logfile, and a normal way of usage before, the ball is back to the manufacturer.
 

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