How safe is the Flytrex ?

[jengo]

I suggest you check out Uncle_fester's range extender mod (if you haven't already), it would be the first thing I would do after buying a vision!

. . . I'm curious, has anyone tried to connect a laptop to the range extender? I wonder what data you could capture like that? Makes me wonder if there is an authentication in the phone app?

Jailbroken iOS devices make stuff like this easier to sus out!

This is exactly what I had planned. I did manage to connect my Macbook Pro to the range extender while streaming video. However because of issues with WireShark and Mavericks, I got no data.

 

[Pull_Up]

A bit late to the party, here, but as the guinea pig for the first Flytrex install in a Vision I have to say it's been flawless from day one. No issues with battery life, no issues with weight, no issues with GPS reception. As has been said it basically just listens in to the GPS data on it's way from the GPS chip to the NAZA and steals a tiny bit of voltage just to write to an SD card (Amit from Flytrex has estimated it will probably take out about 5 or 6 seconds from a 20 minute flight!).

The thing that makes it really great though is that it's fit and forget, and the Flytrex site back-end does all the crunching for you. I haven't played with Dashware yet (I run linux) but the fact you can get .kml out of your flights makes for some fun 3D viewing in Google earth. It also means you get a handy automatic log book of all your flights, total flight time, etc.

Just to ice the cake, Amit from Flytrex has to have some of the most hands-on customer service I've seen. Any issues you have you'll usually get a personal response from him within hours (sometimes minutes), followed by a fix if the problem's at his end, or advice if it's at yours.

 

[gpauk]

I totally agree. There are so many metrics being captured that it kind of amazes me that DJI hasn't taken the opportunity to spin that off into their own software that would allow you to take advantage of it. DashWare does a real nice job of allowing you to overlay the info onto your video, though...

Frankly I wasn't crazy about adding FlyTrex either, but there was no way I was going to pass up on the ability to capture that info and utilize it to my own ends...

The other thing I had thought about was running a packet sniffer on the wifi connection. Most of the important data is being sent back to the phone. Just need to intercept and record it.

Can you say... WireShark?
Excellent Idea.

Yeah -- probably would take ages... All that's needed is for the app to log the flight data it already receives to a text file -- it would be trivial for dji to do that.
I - and others I'm sure! - would be happy to write apps that took that file and allowed it to be viewed in maps, etc, etc...

I emailed dji and suggested they just add a logging option... If more folk contact them and ask for it they might just do it. It really would be a 5 minute job for them...