Sunday, April 24, 2016

Onagofly Drone Experience - Good and Bad

I received the Onagofly drone a couple of days ago. I am impressed by the quality/design of the packaging and the device itself. It feels really solid and is surprisingly heavy. I don't have the right version of Android on my phone, so I had to get my son to load the app so we could try it out.

The instructions are minimal but adequate. We finally got connected and started the drone. We used the auto takeoff. My son did the driving. The first flight ended up in a bush beside our house. Maybe we could use this as a hedge trimmer.

We decided to move to a more open area for the next try. Started out ok, but for some reason, the drone took off away from us at a high rate of speed. And as if drawn by a magnet - straight to a big oak tree. BAM! Gone are two propellers. Otherwise - everything seems intact. There are spare propellers. Each propeller is marked with a letter. I assume that they have to match with the motor letter. In my haste, I put the wrong letter  propeller on a motor. The propellers have a press on fit. They do not come off easily. As I was trying to remove the propeller, I ripped the entire motor from the unit. %#$%^ !

I have written customer service about this incident. Hopefully they can sell me a motor, and I can replace myself. We shall see.

There is a crash avoidance feature. It is not on by default. Even if it had been on, I don't believe it would have saved the drone because of the speed it was traveling and the 8" range of the avoidance system.

My luck with drones has not been good.

Update 5 May 2016: I heard from customer service after a week. They want me to send pictures of my problem, which I did. Here's what happened:

Update 19 May 2016: I received an response from my last contact with Onagofly. They said my issues weren't covered by warranty. That's a surprise. No where in my emails did I mention warranty. So I replied asking could I get parts to fix it. They replied that they have forwarded my request to the appropriate staff. Hopefully I will get a quote on parts soon.

Update 16 Sept 2016: Onagofly is incredibly slow in solving this issue. After numerous emails they gave me a RA and I sent the unit back. I know they received the unit over a month ago. Still no info at all from them. I am waiting - pretty frustrated with the company.

UPDATE 18 OCT 2016: I still have not received any information about the repair of my drone. I have pretty much given up and admit I have lost $200 on this journey.


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