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Wifi signal with the Anafi

rjvers

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What is the general experience with the wifi connection of the Anafi using the iPhone? Connect in airplane mode with the wifi on or off? Presumably it would not work with wifi off, unless Freeflight handles that directly. My concern is that the iPhone attempt to connect to another signal it has used when the drone gets further away and the signal gets weaker. I also had issues with the GPS signal on the drone which some put it down to a problem with the wifi signal, which seems strange as it should not be related. Overall, what is the best to fly with a reliable signal, beyond what the manual says?
 
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The Anafi communicates via wifi to the SC3 controller, not the iphone’s wifi ( I wish I had known that when I first started).

So iphone wifi OFF
Bluetooth OFF
Cellular OFF or switch to Airplane mode.

and if I am flying from my back yard, home wifi router is unplugged too

the only time you want the iphone wifi on, is if you do not have the SC3 controller and are only using the iphone to fly Anafi. You will see Anafi in the wifi list on your phone, use the password on the sticker in the Anafi case to connect the Anafi wifi from your iphone, lauch the FreeFlight 6 app and fly the drone by that means.
 
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I too found this extremely confusing. The manual just does not make it clear that the only reason to connect the phone's wifi to the drone is if you want to use the phone as a controller. If you connect the controller to the phone with the supplied USB cable you can (and should) turn off the phone's wifi (and the other stuff as above) and the drone to phone connection is automatic. Much quicker. You still have to wait for both GPS receivers to go green.

I did not unplug my router and had no interference from 20 feet outside the house.
 
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All our mobile phones have a "Flight Mode". When flying on a plane we are told to turn off our phones or at least switch to Flight Mode. Nonsense.
We are told that the phone in your pocket my interfere with the instrumentation meters away in the cockpit. This rule was brought in decades ago by the FCC, not the FAA.
However, the Flight Mode makes sense for drone pilots. Why?
In our drones we use a very weak connection that is limited to the Wlan standards established for the internet connection in our houses. This, link is now used by us to connect between the controller and the drone which may be a kilometer away. As the signal becomes very weak any interference can deteriorate the connection. In this case the sensitive controller is right next to the phone!
Therefore when flying the Anafi outside your backyard put the phone to Flight Mode.
 
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my xiaomi mi max 3 on flight mode does not turn off GPS or BT , bus does turn off Wifi and Mobile Data, and i'm guessing that is enough ?
Or should BT and/or GPS also be turned off?
 
Do not turn off GPS as the controller uses the phone's GPS for the displayed map and for RTH when using Follow Me modes. Whilst Bluetooth should not interfere with the wifi signals it is better to turn it off in order to allow as much memory and CPU power to run FF6 as possible.
 
OK, To make this as simple as possible, If you are using the controller to fly the Anafi, you do not need a WIFI connection to the drone ( all communication to the drone is done through the controller) and the phone, which is connected to the controller with a cable, is basically just an interface/view screen. The controller itself does not have any GPS that is handled by the drone and phone so location/GPS on the phone/device should be left on.
It is recommended that you put the phone in "airplane mode" (WIFI off) to eliminate any interference from a WIFI signal from the phone affecting that controller to drone link............
Now, if you are controlling the Anafi with just the phone..... you will need to have the WIFI on (the phone) and then connect to the Anafi's WIFI ( the password should be on a label in the Anafi's case)just as if you were connecting to a WIFI hotspot somewhere or at home. It does NOT need internet access, just a wireless connection to the drone, so disregard anything that is advising about no internet connection.
 
I'm glad I asked the question as the replies are very informative and helpful. We might wrap it all up to include as part of the offline documentation before take-off.

One of the reasons I asked is that I used to have an iPhone 7, which I changed for an iPhone Xs. The last time I flew the Anafi was with the iPhone 7, when I had everything off. About two weeks ago I flew with the Xs and had nearly all off (airplane mode, WIFI off, bluetooth on). Well, the drone's GPS remained constantly off. Forgetting the change of phone, I immediately wondered what happened to the drone. Since it flew normally before and then was in its case, that made no sense. It could have been the last software update. Searching online someone said that it was a WIFI signal problem which also was odd.

I finally left WIFI on and connected to Anafi's WIFI and all was okay, which is when I remembered that after my very first flight I also had issues and contacted Parrot's support and was told to leave WIFI on and connect Anafi's WIFI before flying. They even said to reset the phone's WIFI before flying (the prospect of having to do that before every flight made me try flying in airplane mode).
 
I would like to add for that would be interested that today I flew without any issues as to the Wifi signal and GPS with Wifi off and also in airplane mode. Namely, using the controller's Wifi. One thing I did was use Apple's own cable with the controller whereas last time I used a smaller cable I had bought for the drone. Clearly that cable is simply not good enough.
 
While the Wifi signal is good, there is a problem with the drone's GPS signal. First, it does not come on immediately (not green). Then it shows up and you back off about 5 feet from the Anafi and GPS goes to yellow. After it went back to green I had it take off and then flew out about 400 or 500 feet and the GPS went off. I brought it back and pressed for it to land. The landing was exactly from where it took off, which makes one imagine that the GPS signal on the drone was working normally, which is strange.
 
with the anafi Wifi connected to my iphone, is correct to have an Exclamation Mark (!) on the Wifi signal icon in my iphone?
 
When you seen"!" symbol, go to iPhone's WIFI settings and see if it warns "No internet connection!" I witness this when the controller links to Anafi. This I think is automatic because WIFI isn't needed when the controller is used. Try shutting controller off & see if it goes away. Hope this helps.
 

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