Typhoon H RealSense not so much bang for the big bucks

Yuneec hexacopter equipped with Intel’s RealSense gets mixed reviews.

Yuneec is gaining a lot of attention from top drone pilots testing out the Typhoon H RealSense for marked quality improvements over the bulky Yuneec Q500 4K and rival DJI Phantom 4.

So far however the added cost for the Typhoon H RealSense for the Yuneec drone, running at $1,800 to $1,900 before any accessories, has called into question the bang for buck of the sensor initially designed for in-house equipment.

In particular, the advertised 3-5 meters of effective distance of the Typhoon H RealSense using structured infrared light has not proven true in higher-speed outdoor aerial photography.

Plus, in a DJI vs Yuneec comparison, the Typhoon H RealSense lacks the more numerous and stable GPS connections available to the DJI Phantom 4, calling into question the ability to dodge obstacles.

In fact, when Yuneec made a sort of debut with the Typhoon H RealSense at the Las Vegas CES show at the start of 2016, a high-tech and expensive VICON demo system was employed to avoid any slipups. That is not the case for the Typhoon H RealSense models on sale now and the comparison to the top-notch DJI Phantom 4 tracking system could prove it a poor cousin.

The idea from Yuneec R&D was to install the Intel RealSense R200 camera at the factory – current Typhoon H models can upgrade for $600 – and use an Intel Atom processor module to map the drone’s surroundings in 3D.

Getting the new parts onto the drone for the Typhoon H RealSense and in sync with other equipment could be a challenge, though Yuneec has not highlighted any particular weight issue or other issues with battery life that may result. Still, electronic equipment has a way of testing patience.

However, it is not a bad plan, but as seen with the Yuneec Q500 4K – products leaving the Yuneec production line have a way of coming back for tweaks, or outright part replacements as in the case of the antenna for the patchy internal WiFi card that has caused all kinds of connection complaints. That is unlike the proprietary and superior DJI Lightbridge 2, which has drawn praise for solid connections.

However, it may be the willingness of existing Typhoon H owners to pay the $600 premium that provides the best evidence for the Typhoon H RealSense because it would have to far outshine the existing ultrasonic collision prevention already installed.

So far, several reviewers who own a Q500 4K or a Typhoon H without the Typhoon H RealSense said they would wait, especially since production glitches are apparently delaying a wider rollout and Yuneec has only vaguely promised a separate Typhoon H RealSense technology at some point in the future.

And at least one early reviewer on Amazon said replacing parts broken during flyaways and erratic crashes has bumped up the cost considerably.

“I’m a little over $2800 in on a $1800 copter,” Bifster said. “I should have waited and researched issues with this unit better, before I bought it.”

 

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3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k: when neither machine succeeds in matching the excellence of DJI drones

3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k is a debate that revolves around two different sets of considerations – cost and quality. While 3DR Solo isn’t a bad machine given its low price and the reasonably well-built design, the 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k price advantage soon becomes irrelevant when you consider the price of the camera and the gimbal. Yes, you heard it right – 3DR Solo is a drone that doesn’t come with a built-in gimbal; you have to pay separately to get one! On the other hand, when the 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k debate concentrates on the quality aspect of the flying machines, both RC quadcopter models frustrate the pilots almost as much as each other.

3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k comparison isn’t always an easy one. 3DR made its Solo drone as a carrier for GoPro and as such their drone and the gimbal are designed to work with GoPro Hero cameras. That could be a great advantage given that the Q500 4k’s camera performance in a 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k comparison isn’t always the greatest. The more recent models in the GoPro Hero series are pretty nice and surely shoot better footage than the Yuneec Q500 4k does.

So, if you don’t own one of the compatible GoPro cameras, the total cost to own a 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k gets very close to the price of the Yuneec drone. In fact, for that much money, you should ask yourself why you are not opting for the far better and more established DJI Phantom 4. There’s no winner in 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k to that end.

On the other hand, 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k does reveal some unique features and qualities that make the Solo stand out. Comparing 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k, UAV drone manufacturers like 3DR give you the option to swap out cameras for the Solo.

Focusing on the Yuneec Q500 4k and forgetting the 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k debate for a minute, the Yuneec Q500 4k quadcopter is way behind against a DJI Phantom 4 comparison. In terms of overall quality and flying experience, DJI Phantom 4 review scores are way more positive, and stand as a testament to DJI’s superior R&D capabilities.

The two factors go in favour of the Yuneec Q500 4k in the 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k debate. For starters, the Q500 4k has two unique features called Follow Me and Watch Me. And then comes the basic difference between the 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k – you don’t get a camera when you buy the 3DR Solo. And therefore, you lose out on the advantages of integration and synchronisation.

And, perhaps the other important differentiation between 3DR Solo vs Yuneec Q500 4k is the after-sales service and customer support. A lot of reviews on sites like dronecompares or yuneecpilots suggest that the Q500 4k, much like its sibling Yuneec Typhoon H, is prone to signal loss and crash landings. Unfortunately, Yuneec China doesn’t cover crash landing damages in its warranty and service.

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Back to the future with Yuneec Breeze 4k

Yuneec China 12-minute flying selfie stick not what the world needs.

Good ideas catch on and are quickly imitated, as the selfie stick shows. But it is unlikely that UAV drone manufacturers will look to copy a drone “selfie” like the Yuneec Breeze 4k that gets easily buffeted by the wind with a battery life counted optimistically at 12 minutes.

Indeed, unlike the Yuneec Breeze 4k, if a selfie stick is damaged or lost it can be easily replaced. But the beetle-shaped 1-pound Yuneec drone at US$500 makes the prospect of damage or flyaways a bit costlier.

On damages, the Yuneec Breeze 4K does come with fold-in propellers, but not a dedicated carrier offering foam or other protection. The landing gear in the Breeze is made of plastic that can easily chip or break if carried in a backpack unprotected and hand guards for the propellers are missing-in-action.

Just that R&D effort alone raises question about the commitment of Yuneec to quality and reliable usage as it targets first-time drone buyers in a push that UAV drone manufacturers just starting out appear to have already won with prices as low as $99 for versatile models that can add 4K cameras from other manufacturers.

In fact, even the 4K in the Yuneec Breeze 4K name should be taken with a grain of salt as many early reviewers suggest using 1080P to get a more stable and ready-to-use video because of the patchy connection via an APP to smartphone WiFi and limited range of 80 meters–and then hopefully post it to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Instagram or WhatsApp.

At that price and for far better camera features at a 2.7K video feed and a 3-axis gimbal and reliability the DJI Phantom 3 Standard is true value for money, especially for first-time drone buyers, and time tested for GPS reliability and under $500. There is really no comparison that the Yuneec Breeze 4K can stand up to.

In fact, unlike the Yuneec drone, the DJI Phantom 3 returns to the user at the press of a button and does the same if the control signal is ever lost and the stability of the drone in flight and hover brings back razor-sharp images.

However, the Yuneec Breeze 4k camera is not mechanically stabilized when filming in 4K, though images are electronically stabilized at 1080p–showing that 4K is not always 4K.

All of this has caught the attention of initial reviews of the Breeze with comparisons not at the nimbler and reliable models like the DJI series, but at newer drones that have flying times more than double the Yuneec Breeze 4K.

And the inevitable comparison of the Yuneec Breeze 4K is to the Yuneec Q500 4K, which has struggled as a bulky product beset by internal WiFi card issues and GPS reliability. Yuneec has attempted to move on from the Q500 4K with the Typhoon H class-but the legacy problems have reportedly impacted production and engineering fixes for the hexacopter.

In fact, some drone pilots suggest Yuneec risks getting lost in the crowd of low-end drone manufacturers that for now are not in the long-term game of innovation to gain customer loyalty like DJI.

 

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Yuneec 4K Typhoon – the drone sold at a premium price point

An upstart among Chinese UAV drone manufacturers, Yuneec marketed its high-end 4K Typhoon model as the best-value 4k system available in the market. For the Yuneec drone, it’s a big and bold claim – one that needs to be backed by first-hand reviews from experienced users. DroneCompares and other online reviews– including feedback from real users who tried the Yuneec drone – are far less impressive than what the manufacturer would have hoped for.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon comes with an android-based touch-screen controller, which is supposed to be an all-purpose unit. The reality is, it slows down the entire setting up process for the Yuneec drone. To make it worse, this Yuneec drone is not supported by any smartphone app like DJI Go. The biggest problem arises when its connection with the Q500 is lost due to poor GPS connectivity.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon has experienced recurrent GPS connectivity problems ever since it was launched – an issue that has caused tens of hundreds of UAV drones from the Chinese manufacturer to either crash, or to make fatally hard landing. Large numbers of the first buyers have had to send their Yuneec drone units back to the manufacturer for repair. And many of these damages and malfunctions were not covered under the Yuneec drone warranty agreement. Yuneec China warranty, unfortunately, does not cover crashing.

The Yuneec drone’s internal WiFi card has had its problems too.

Among a large of pilots who have submitted angry and frustrated reviews of this Yuneec drone, one particular user how her second flight with the Yuneec 4K Typhoon saw the camera losing connection and never recovering it back. Her Yuneec drone started rolling around out of control, switched to the ‘return home’ mode, and made a very hard landing that almost took away her fingernails.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon version of the Yuneec drone has a QHD camera which captures 1080p slow motion video at 120 frames per second. But experienced videographers have already declared the camera to be sub-par and not up to the level of its DJI counterparts.

In an open area the range of the Yuneec drone is closer to about 1,200 feet. The Phantom 4 is clearly the better drone – it flies longer, higher and farther. As far as range goes, in the suburbs there should no real problem for this Yuneec drone when controlling the aircraft at distances of up to around 900 feet before the pilot starts getting intermittent ‘RC Control lost’ messages.

The Yuneec 4K Typhoon is a good UAV if you’re not a long-range flyer. When being flown in the Smart Mode, this Yuneec drone is severely restricted in its flying ability – no further than 295 feet from the remote. On the contrary, DJI Phantom 4 reviews confirm that the DJI drone has a much larger operating range and altitude ceiling.

 

 

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Yuneec Q500 4k GPS problems

Launched earlier in 2016, the DJI Phantom 4 is recognised as the “best-in-class” RC quadcopter, contrasting with the year-old and problem plagued Yuneec Q500 4K.

DJI Phantom 4 reviews make it very clear that the DJI RC Quadcopter is the definitive winner in the DJI vs Yuneec contest.

A DJI Phantom 4 comparison against its competition becomes pretty straightforward when the Phantom’s collision avoidance feature is taken into account. Almost any Typhoon H review, evaluating the drone that Yuneec China produces, mentions that Yuneec drones are prone to connectivity problem. And one of the reasons for that is its reliance on Yuneec Q500 4k GPS tracking only.

On the contrary, Phantom 4 flight tracking is done through GPS as well as GLONASS. Launched in 1982, GLONASS is a Russian-led satellite network intended to work for weather positioning, velocity measuring and timing anywhere in the world or near-Earth space. Access to the US-led GPS system and to GLONASS makes the Phantom 4 a much better connected drone. All of this can be credited to DJI’s superior R&D capability.

DJI Phantom 4 signal loss incidents are extremely rare. And that’s at least partially due to the dual-support the drone gets. When used alone GLONASS doesn’t necessarily have a stronger coverage than GPS. But when both are used together, GPS+GLONASS certainly increase accuracy as well as coverage. And it is more useful in northern latitudes as Russia started GLONASS originally for Russia.

DJI Phantom 4 has a clear advantage over the Q500 4K or even any intel UAV Typhoon H. Accuracy is an advantage of using GLONASS with up-to 2 metre of accuracy. GPS+GLONASS allows the DJI drone to be pin pointed by a group of over 55 satellites all across the globe.

 

 

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Q500 Yuneec quadcopter: lagging behind in design and performance

Yuneec China first hit the headlines with its efforts to challenge consumer UAV market leader DJI when it launched its Q500 4k Yuneec quadcopter model.

That was in 2015, well before the launch of a Yuneec drone with an Intel RealSense module. Even if you discount the absence of a serious obstacle avoidance feature, just the mere product design of the Yuneec quadcopter left a lot of unanswered questions.

There were a number of things to question about the quality of the build.

First was the inconvenient size and layout of the flight controller. And through the layout of the control unit, you can draw a conclusion that the Yunec quadcopter was essentially using the same control unit that Yuneec China, a former OEM manufacturer, had used in manufacturing the Horizon Hobby.

Second, the Yuneec quadcopter build design and placement of the joints and shoulders looked odd.  These, along with the random wiring and sensor placement, for those who truly know, made it clear that Yuneec was trying to seize market share without paying great attention to quality.

And you can’t forget the fact that the Q500 Yuneec quadcopter went through two large-scale recalls in North America and Europe. The root cause, according to reviews on sites like DroneCompares, was that the Yuneec quadcopter was experiencing an unacceptable level of vibration of the gimbal. Luckily, the Yuneec quadcopter development team found a way to fix this product failure, but it shouldn’t have occurred in the first place. The firm has ceased production of the Q500 Yuneec quadcopter, with total sales reaching around 100,000 units.

According to people familiar with this Yuneec quadcopter launch events in the US, retailers received a handsome shares of the revenue from each unit sold to carry and push the Yuneec drone.

Taking a close and systematic look at what’s inside this particular Yuneec quadcopter, such a strategy surely brought initial success in opening up a distribution network for Yuneec, but it’s fair to say the Q500 was a premature product. What sounded like an early challenge in the DJI vs Yuneec contest, turned out to be a failed attempt thanks to the poor design and inept performance of this Yuneec quadcopter.

The fact that Yuneec claims to have a large R&D team and regularly tries to poach engineers from other UAV drone manufacturers, doesn’t resonate with the unacceptably low build quality of the Q500 Yuneec quadcopter. The poor performance of this Yuneec quadcopter was simply a warning sign that it could never match the DJI Phantom 3, either from the standpoint of exterior design or internal layout. And, of course, after DJI launched the latest version of the Phantom series, virtually every DJI Phantom 4 Pro review made it clear that it was simply a much better product, burying with it any hopes for Yuneec to offer a formidable challenge.

The key to success in the UAV drone industry lies in the details. That’s where the Yuneec quadcopter Q500 – or its successor hexacopter the Typhoon H – lags behind, as it is clear in any DJI vs Yuneec comparison.

 

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Yuneec Q500 4K: not advanced enough, not agile enough either

In the consumer-level-drones market, DJI is the boss. A short time after its launched, the DJI Phantom 3 became one of the biggest selling drones ever. Yuneec China tried to capture a piece of that market pie with the Yuneec Q500 4K – with specs that sought to appeal to professional videographers, drone enthusiasts, and increasingly, mass-market consumers.

Unfortunately for the Yuneec Q500 4K , even before it gained some foothold in the market, the DJI Phantom 4 arrived and impressed everyone with its superior R&D and advanced features.

Yuneec had marketed the Yuneec Q500 4K as an “easy to fly” RC quadcopter even for those who’ve never laid eyes on a drone before. In reality, it takes quite a while to initiate the drone and get it airborne, with the longest amount of time being required for the GPS lock to be established. Plus, unlike the Phantom, the Yuneec Q500 4K isn’t supported by a mobile control platform – so tje convenience of an app like the DJI Go app is absent.

Big, heavy and slow. That’s the three-word summary of first impressions of the Yuneec Q500 4K. While the slower speed and lower altitude may make it a safer choice for beginners, it makes the Yuneec Q500 less attractive for those used to the nimbleness of similar high-end drones in that price segment. The battery life is limited and so is the maximum operating range against a DJI Phantom 4 comparison.

Though similar on paper, in terms of their specs and features, the Yuneec Q500 is no real match to the Phantom. Both have their strengths, and which one is best for you depends largely on what you plan to do with it. The Yuneec Q500 camera produces some reasonable results, albeit with slightly washed out colors and a bit blurry edges of the frames. While the Yuneec Q500 4K is slower and more sluggish than others, it’s reasonably easy to pilot. It’s a toy for people nervous about trying to control their first drone.

The Yuneec Q500 looks a bit bulkier and more ‘stocky’ than the sleek drones DJI produces. It’s also larger than the more familiar DJI drones, and made of plastic far flimsier than drone experts would usually prefer. That’s probably partly why the landing gear and gimbal has been known to break off the Yuneec Q500 upon a hard landing.

Testing the Yuneec Q500 4K, one of several models available, confirms that it’s capable of shooting 4k video. But almost any DJI Phantom 4 review suggests that the Phantom’s footage is crisper and sharper. The control unit has a bright screen; though flying in direct sunlight remains difficult. The Yuneec Q500 box helpfully includes a sunshade that attaches, awkwardly, to the controller with suction cups. It doesn’t completely solve the problem, but it does help.

Flying drones can be an intimidating experience, especially if you are operating an expensive and complicated model. The result is that, unless you’re so rich you don’t care, you spend most of your learning time in a nervous sweat. At least that’s experience with the Yuneec Q500 4K reported by most pilots on on-line forums.

If you’re just learning to fly, the Yuneec Q500 sluggishness is a plus. If you’re already comfortable flying drones, the Yuneec Q500 will likely feel like a step backward.

 

 

 

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