Hey Billy, our engineers would love to have access to this flight log to see what caused the water landing. Would you mind uploading them so we can see what went wrong here?
Skydio so much for billy going through the warranty process as “just a normal person”. 😂. For real though I think this was just a case of the computer vision getting mixed up, can’t wait to hear the results of the engineers investigation
Pretty cool that Skydio chimed in here. That's some great customer service, IMO. I'd love to hear some details of how they analyze the flight data and their conclusions.
Billy, the clear very reflective water is probably the reason it believed it could fly lower using its optical system. Skydio is big on warning about flying over water and near reflective items. This is why I think the SKYDIO version 3 requires bottom ultrasonic sensors to detect such things. I'm sure SKYDIO will help you out with a repair/replacement since you were doing what many of us would do and not trying to crash it.
My frustration doesn’t come from a lack of hardware, it comes from the fact that the drone decided to veer to the right when I had it set to follow me from behind.
I'm usually so tired of the "hold my beer" jokes, but this literally had me on the ground laughing my ass off! Thanks for bringing a huge smile to my face, I needed a good laugh! Great start to a Friday, ha ha :)
I think, one again, the lighting is too dark, I could see the headlights of the car on the ground. The sky is overcast but bright, and the lakes are smooth and reflective. The drone mistook the lake's reflection for the sky, and did swan drive into it. This drone needs an IMU to tell it which side is up when the optical sensors start going wonky.
Vision system took water as empty space. Since telemetry was wrong, the drone thought it had more vertical space to go down. This raises a lot more questions, like if you start a flight at the top of a mountain, while tracking you does the drone ever go below the 0ft line according to telemetry?! Or even the other way around, if you start at the bottom and when you reach the top there is a lake will it guess the lake as being a "hole"?! This is important because the 0ft line would be the only way it could be sure it wouldn't go into the water since cameras will mistake reflections as empty space.
As I wrote this I also realized the dangers of flying near buildings or other structures with reflective surfaces like mirrors or windows. Lots of stuff that could be mistaken as empty space.
Here's what I noticed. At 7:00 minutes you had a low battery warning pop up on the center of the phone screen (near 30% I think). This didn't match the telemetry at the top of the phone. Just before the crash there is a segment where the drone is trying to get by a puddle that the car has gone through. The drone looks like it has a lot of difficulty analyzing the puddle but it finally passes over it. As you come into the area where the drone does crash the water is exceptionally still and mirror like. Everywhere else where you have been flying the open water is rippled except in a narrow band near the shore edges. I think the drone was unable to distinguish the true direction of the sky in the near perfect and expansive reflection it suddenly came upon and considered itself to be upside down and flew in the direction it thought was skyward. I hope they give you a new drone. I don't think there is negligence on your part. You were very conscientious about regaining contact when it was lost and you weren't in any way stressing the drone's capacity via excessive speed. Though the lighting was not ideal for photography there was no indication that the level was too low for flying (which I believe the drone would have indicated). Skydio should definitely see your efforts as windfall beta testing that will benefit them in the improvement of their product. Keep us posted.
I'd agree. I think it was a combo of issues there. The drone never fully locked back on to the car as it's target. The low light conditions. And the still nature of the water at the time, creating a mirror reflection. All of those teamed up to confuse the drone and result in the water crash. Definitely not user error there. One thing I'm taking away as a Skydio 2 owner from this...If it loses a visual lock, I'm going to make sure that I get the drone a solid lock, before continuing to have it try and follow.
After watching this video, when I finally receive the drone I’ll be cautious around water. If it losses me I’ll probably try to take over fly control while it’s showing GPS tracking. It seems like when he went back for the drone it was still GPS tracking while he was visible. It must have still been looking for the car.
Hi Billy: Really enjoy your channel - you seem to have done more testing with the Skydio 2 than anyone else. For what it is worth, here is my opinion from a fellow Skydio 2 owner: At 10:16, you did a Dronie from INSIDE the car. The car is mostly a closed metal box, and not RF-friendly. If you were using the Beacon, it has no external antennas and depends on being OUTSIDE to get a good signal to the drone. Second, the battery level on your phone was very low. Not sure if that caused any problems, but I'm just showing you everything that may have contributed to your scuba dive. Then, at 10:47 you exit the car and the drone immediately re-connects. But at that point, it is waiting for you to click "OK" on the screen, which you never acknowledge. You need to look at your phone more often to see what it wants. At 12:11, it loses visual tracking and says "GPS TRACKING", and as the trees get thicker (which you mention), it stays on GPS TRACKING. Then, at 12:30, it goes around the trees, you comment it was "cool". However, it did NOT visually lock on to you. It had aimed itself at the water and said "GPS TRACKING" and showed the general area it was locked onto. At that point, I would have stopped and regained the visual track so the drone would track properly. You instead "put it behind us". Since it can't see you, it has no idea what the "back" is. You say "just keep goin." At that point, the beacon disconnected again. It is madly trying to find you, and gets into the trees again. Then it regains contact when you get out of the car, and you comment how the lighting isn't that great. At 14:01, it managed to find you, but still had no visual lock. Seconds later, it sees that mirror-like water and I think it got confused and maybe thought it was upside down so it flies into the water. There were several times where you could have stopped, landed, and started over again with a good visual track, but never did. So it looks like this could have been prevented by 1: keeping the drone in contact with beacon and 2: making sure that the drone was in both visual contact with the car and had good GPS signal. I would also look at the phone more often. Keep up the good work! Hope you get your Skydio 2 replaced!
Thank you for saying this! You are absolutely correct. I know I'm a year late, but I just got my Skydio 2 and have heavily been researching steps one can take to mitigate such tracking issues. The combination of no locked-on visual track and the large, glassy water surface are what did it in when commanded to go above said reflective surface. The autonomous system was missing any valid inputs to make a better decision, two of which were not its fault (lack of tracking confirmation, and the position it was commanded to track from). Put simply: the autonomous system is imperfect, but it could have been operated in a way to mitigate the risks of its flaws. This is what I seek to do as I learn to fly mine.
It looked like it never actually "locked" back onto you. I then looks like it may have gotten confused with the reflection of the upside down tree! Maybe. As a image based platform. I hope you get an answer for this.
Great video and thanks for showing the whole thing - this is how we all learn. Took my Skydio on it’s maiden flight yesterday and was amazed how it could fly through and around the trees ... it definitely flies differently than my M2Pro. I do remember early on DJI had a bunch of issues with flyaways (I’ve see 3 of them in the last 2 yrs myself with flying partners DJI drones - fortunately never one of my drones) but those days seem to be in the past. This Skydio tech is so infant that there are bound to be growing pains. I’m not an engineer, but I think in future versions, Skydio will need to implement some sort of sensor array similar to DJI that has over the years now been proven to be reliable. A DJI/Skydio hybrid solution is probably in our future (if the FAA doesn’t ruin our hobby first).
Remember the Skydio guarantee, if you are flying the drone in a normal fashion and it crashes they will replace the drone. Time to test that promise :)
JAS Aerial IG not for that warrenty this video would be a deal breaker. It’s still a concern because what if the drone harms someone when it freaks out.
Without knowing what the skydio instructions said (or how the sensors work) I "was" kind of on Billy's side on getting his drone replaced. BUT, already knowing from my P4P instructions to "operate with great caution" over monochrome, highly reflective objects, water or transparent surfaces, and NOW after just reading what is says on Skydio "Do not fly around transparent surfaces like windows or REFLECTIVE SURFACES greater than 60cm wide" I can't say I think Skydio should be replaced his drone 😢
I do not have knowledge about how this drone uses the sensors to stabilize and fly, but, would it be possible that here at 21:28 it thinks he is upside down and there is a conflict between the gyros and what the camera is showing ? If the image is frozen here, it looks upside down, since the lake reflects perfectly the image of the sky and the land . Just a guess . Cheers.
Dear friend Billy Kyle and Skydio Support, with a first look of the video @ 14:11 i can say that the Drone did override the GPS data and followed its HD color cameras to relocate, you can clearly see the reflection of the tree and the crystal water. I can assume that the drone had a vertigo, confusing the sky with water. It's like objects are mirrored, also add the parameter of the tree that maybe was recognised to be upside down and tried to maneuver. It's a really good effort from Skydio and in my opinion they won't lose the chance to prove their reliability as a company. Keep us updated of the outcome. Alex from Greece.
A friend of mine said "watch this" just before he purposely slid his car around a turn on a dirt road. He ended up hitting a tree (thankfully not hard/bad). So Watch This ended being our joke-statement before we did anything risky 😁
I think it may have confused imaging in the reflections of the water and in doing so tried to possibly avoid something in the water that may have looked like a tree branch or other obstacle.
Suddenly, a comment from someone that doesn't have their head up their ass. You are correct, water still as glass looks like a mirror and is bad for vision systems like this, and many other sensors, LiDAR is another that would freak out over this. Ultrasonics will fair better. This was entirely user error, no thought into the environment he was using the drone in.
Agreed - if you look at the altitude data it doesn't change from 30/31ft when over land even when it goes over water and splashes down..still registers 30' height.
@@dvmdoc yup, this can be compared to a fighter jet in a way where if the fly upside down the sky looks like water and if they dont use instrument navigation properly, they lose orientation and crash because both the up and the down look the same over water esp.
Whenever I accidentally drop any type of electronics in to water, I *immediately* disconnect the battery, or take it out, depending on what I dropped. The second thing I *immediately* do, is rinse off [whatever I dropped] with distilled water! You have to do it before the water it feel in, dries. Distilled water does not conduct electricity, so it won't hurt your electronics, but it will help wash everything off, that's not supposed to be in or on your device. Having said that. I never lost any device do to water damage. I hope Skydio is going to replace your drone. Thanks for posting.
Exactly. Also I don't think one day would allow the internals to dry completely. I bet that if it was disassembled and allowed to dry out completely it would work. Maybe I will have to do that with mine some day😲
@@youmakeitreal Good point. One day is not long enough. Like I said... I would have rinsed it with distilled water and it dry forever. However, let's not forget that it should have not happen in the first place. Curious to see what Skydio says the issue was... Thanks.
@@youmakeitreal Sensors would still be fubared by dried muck and grime though. It'd still have to be replaced unless you were happy with vastly diminished capabilities. These aren't simple little wooden toys like Santa used to make anymore.
My Skydio actually did the exact same thing, randomly divebombed a hillside and destroyed itself. I did it make a video because I didn’t have useable footage of the crash, thanks for uploading yours. Skydio ended up replacing my drone.
The way it crashed was kind of what I expected after you posted about it. Since the Skydio 2 purely relies on vision sensors and doesn't have any additional ultrasonic or infrared sensors, it'll get tricked by reflections just like our eyes. The vision sensors simply saw the reflections and thought it had more room underneath it than there actually is and there was no way for it to know that there was water beneath it. All in all, don't ever fly the skydio 2 near water even if they allow you to.
Actually no, since you forgot the beacon. Skydio 2 can use either visual tracking or GPS tracking. It will use visual tracking first when it can lock on the object of interest, and when the object is lost, Skydio 2 will turn into GPS tracking mode and follow the beacon around. If you check at 14:14 , the screen recording clearly shows "GPS Tracking", which means the Skydio 2 was basically following the beacon with the relative GPS position data. I'm not saying the reflection from the water wasn't a problem at all, but it would make more sense in visual tracking mode.
I ordered one of these knowing full well that we're at least one or two generations away from this drone seeing it's full potential. I've been holding out for a fully autonomous drone since seeing ads for that 'Lilly' drone many years ago. Skydio 2 is the closest thing to what I'm looking for to capture epic mountain bike descents and backcountry adventures.
I think it didn’t know you were the subject. By pressing the red button with the x in it you would stop the drone and put it into search mode. Then you could ID yourself and it b would follow you? Perhaps it became disoriented because of the reflections of trees on the mirror surface of the water. By rapidly descending it thought it would climb over the reflected trees? I dunno, but it’s fascinating.
The word 'splash' has no place in a drone video ;-) Makes me wince even saying the word in my head! I'm sure Skydio will sort you out. Great video, very entertaining, albeit cringe-worthy. Epic footage from the dronie shot.
If you look closely around 14:18 the drone is locked on the reflection of the tree in the water. Notice the blue GPS parenthesis, where the tree is locked on 14:26. And because it is a reflection, is the opposite to the real world. I think it was flying away from the tree reflection on the water, therefore, it flew into the reflected sky in the water.
Thanks for sharing man! It looks like it tricked itself to think that the still water was the sky. Hope they don't give you any crap man. rooting for you!
LOL! I would have been screaming FML! Etc if my expensive drone went in the drink. Then, after calming down enough that I was no longer seeing blurry I’d be heading to the pub for a couple of pints.
Billy sorry for your loss. It reacted similar to your video when you were ridding that trail in the woods, where it was following you then suddenly veered to the right, but it didn't descend in that instance. You sure handled your loss well, better than I would. Mike in N.C.
You cancelled your order because of user error? I mean probably a good idea if you don't understand that it's not the drones fault it crashed, cause you will likely make he same mistake.
@@martinjm1 Optical sensors over highly reflective surfaces don't mix. I dealt with vision systems over still water like this in the past, they don't work. I still deal with this with our LiDAR units today, they will not map standing water and instead leave a void in the model where the water was; effectively it is blind to it. When it crashes the water looks like glass, basically a mirror. The low light may have added to it, but it's mainly the water. A good pilot would have been aware and considerate of their surroundings and the system they are flying. Throughout the entire video he doesn't seem to have a clue why this happened, so he could blame ignorance, but blaming ignorance is an excuse for not thinking, which 100% makes it user error. You can blame ignorance if it's not obvious, I think this is something the average person would pick up on.
Remember this drones obstacle system relies on good lighting conditions so don’t fly after dark, golden or blue hours. This was user error but the manufacturer will cop the loss because they may not have provided sufficient warnings to the end user!.
Technology will always have its limitations but for the drone to careen off by itself in an area that presumably wouldn't have had any wireless or radio interference is definitely suprising. What is more confusing, if not alarming, is that the drone dived into the water. Drones are programmed to first hover and then manoeuvre to make a landing if signal is lost and battery gets depleted. Low light could have confused the drone? But still no excuse for it diving suddenly.
Sorry for your "loss" first off. I've had my Mavic Mini go in the ocean after an 11:58 flight (critical battery?) and I had a Fimi X8 SE go haywire and dive into the surf a few months ago for no reason at all. Even with cameras and sensors, I think there can be a glitch in the software that thinks the surface is somewhere else and it goes nuts. My prediction is that Skydio will quickly replace your drone and will not want a guy with 75k subscribers telling the world how their warranty didn't get honored. They should replace it and probably put out a fix in the firmware, too. My worry is how many owners will lose this drone and Skydio will call BS and claim it was too dark, don't fly it over water, etc. Thanks for the great video, as always!
You gotta turn the volume up, but you can hear it hit the water. I know my stomach would just drop hearing that sound!! Good luck with Slydio, Im sure they'll fix you up. Especially, with you having a channel like this and all.
Could the crash have something to do with you not pressing "OK" on your screen, when it said *connection regained*??? You never know. Maybe it's a bug where if you do not press OK, it's going to just land!? Just a thought...
crappy lighting, reflective surfaces, minimal tracking with only GPS, and no visual confirmation of target so pathing was borderline impossible....like bro...you what did you think was gonna happen. If it was me i wouldn't send you another one.
The skydio still thinks that the car is the subject and not you as person. I think that the skydio interpreted the dark tree reflection in the water as the subject. skydio sees that its angle relative to the tree reflection is too high (more than 45deg) so it tried to adjust by going down to reduce the angle (to about 30 deg or less). to make that angle, skydio would have to go below the water. it doesn't see water as an obstacle because of the reflection.
The manual clearly states not to fly it near highly reflective surfaces, up to the point of the crash the water's surface wasn't smooth or nearly as reflective as the the area where it did crash.
@@davidkrassoff6484 "Do not fly around transparent surfaces like windows or reflective surfaces like mirrors greater than 60cm wide." From the "Flying Safe" Section of the Skydio Safety and Operating Guide.
There's a lot of talk about reflective nature of the water, the fact it thought it was 30' high, avoiding the tree and even avoiding the reflection of the tree ... but none of these explain why it suddenly veered off to the right. Even earlier in the video (negotiating its way through trees to get back on the path) shows that it is easily capable of following directly behind (as it was being told to) between the trees on the left and the lone tree to the right. The lighting was fine, else it wouldn't fly (it won't even take off if the lighting is insufficient!). There were no accidental control inputs because you would have seen them on the screen recording. Seems to me to be a product software/sensor glitch, to be expected with trailblazing tech, and I hope Skydio have already shipped out your replacement.
I'm not familiar with the controls on the beacon, but I have to wonder if you accidentally put the Skydio in the mode where you point the beacon where you want the drone to go and inadvertently pointed the beacon at the water. Just a thought...
Regarding the lighting. The footage looks amazing. Probably the best I've seen so far. I think this camera seems to do well in low light, and cloudy applications. In bright sun light, I think that that ND filters will increase picture quality exponentially.
the main camera does well, but the camera's used for tracking have much smaller sensors, and should NOT be pushed in low light situations using tracking. Obstacle avoidance can only go so far when the lighting is bad.
@billykyle my Parrot Anafi fall from the sky, 15 mts arround, into the water, they doesn’t recognize the guarantee because I was flying over a reflective surface. The Anafi stop the motors and filming and all the activity and simply fall. I think that here happen exactly the same. I don’t understand why the protocol on the drone is... if fly over reflective surface cut the energy and fall, against hover in the place or back to home or other action less dangerous
although i still have one on order there have been enough videos that show/prove that the Skydio at times is completely unpredictable and has a mind of its own. the reality is if it goes nuts at a time when near traffic or unsuspecting humans it could cause and accident. imagine had it crashed into moving traffic. that makes it a liability risk that could end up costing the pilot money or worse a lawsuit. im glad we are seeing some cold reality with this drone because when it came out everyone AND I MEAN EVERYONE though it couldnt screw up. thank you to billy kyle for sharing this video.
hi Billy... May I ask you for advice? I got my skydio2 and plan to record my jetsurfing watersports activities with a beacon. I just realized the beacon is missing the basic "return home" button and obviously I cant use app while surfing in the water. Do you have any tips how you return the drone home with a beacon?
There is just too much inconsistency and frustrating characteristics of this drone to make it worth purchasing now. I think someone’s original review was 100% right: amazing potential drone and tech but not fully baked and tested to ensure reliability
Billy take a look at the footage again. it got confused with the reflection from the lake on the large tree and thinks the was the uo and in reallity is down. so moved down into the water.
My impression is the problem was the extremely calm conditions of the water, and the very low light situation. If you notice it created almost a mirror like scenario for the drone to discern between the actual land and water. It had to be a very confusing for the sensors to discern what was what. Throw in the gps tracking and it became really confusing. If you look at the very end before dive bombing, you can see the reflection of your vehicle and tail lights in the water. I think at this point it recognized the vehicle but could not discern it was a perfect reflection in an inverted type of dimension and it went for it. Thus, the dive bomb into the water, thinking it was actually increasing altitude into the sky. Good video Billy as this has actually created the perfect scenario to actually confuse the drone totally. Had the water been choppy, and better lighting conditions, this would have never happened. This possibly may a scenario that probably cannot be rectified without some really expensive mods and software, which definitely take it out of the consumer realm and make it possibly high end professional or even a military quality surveillance drone. So, in conclusion, my opinion is the Skydio is definitely is a truly amazing product and is only going to get much better with things like this happening. Hats off to the Skydio team for this amazing tool for drone photographers. I have my deposit down for one but probably won't be able to finish the purchase due to now being on a retirees income which does not keep up with inflation. Hopefully, a stroke of luck will let me get one to fly in the future and add to my aging drone photography arsenal.
I agree with you 100% if when you put your drone up and can’t trust it why would you want to fly it. My opinion contact manufacturer and let them know what happened since according to the video you did exactly what this drone was intended for and all of the sudden it dive bombs into the water geez.
Not exactly... Just before the accident, drone lost connection, and instead of restart and inspecting it, Billy entered in the car. For now SkyDio has the best AI for drones, that's enough for me to order one. ;)
Just FYI and to help others who may have their drone go into the water - here's a suggestion. First thing would be to get some distilled water, enough to fully submerge the drone and battery. Secondly, put it into the water and get all the bubbles out so that the water comes into contact with all the parts. Finally, let it soak for a day or so and then put it into a vacuum chamber. What that will do is evaporate the distilled water, leaving no deposits behind. The vacuum will get into all the cracks and crevices where the water was and evaporate it. Maintain that vacuum for at least two days. This process isn't guaranteed, but is your best option when you know for a fact that if you do nothing, your drone will be toast anyway. So you have nothing to lose by trying it. Why does this work? Because the distilled water replaces the contaminated water and makes it so that the new water will leave no deposits behind when it evaporates. The vacuum ensures that ALL the water will evaporate, even water inside optics like the camera. The only downside is that distilled water is slightly corrosive, so it is possible it could corrode some contacts if left in too long. But if you do it right away after your drone goes into contaminated water, you stand a chance.
As someone who works with machine learning all the time, the mirror sheen on the surface of the water looks to the drone like a dark sky. The deep learning system is now probably confused by this. My guess is, it is seeking to figure out which side is up. The question is, what are the rules it is following for navigation. The low light didn't help. I think it was in a low-confidence condition, unable to figure out what course of action was best.
The way stereovisual distance measurement works is it searches for similar objects on two photos and then measures distance between them on 2 photos which gives distance when distance between eyes is known. On water it can't find any similar stuff so it thinks there is nothing there... As of why it didn't see you, well it was tracking a car not you so it couldn't reacquire a target. Then it probably thought it can leap around the obstacle .... by leaping UNDER it which is why it dove. They really need to think of something to make it see water...
Man Billy you and water! 14 minutes of great video coverage too boot! If I which I might after all the a, b, and c people get their Skydio 2 get there’s I’ll make sure after the battery reaches 30% I’ll bring it home. As you and I know we can fly DJI to almost 0% I guess different company means different performance. Great video Billy and so sorry for what happen. You had the battery power left and the specs failed ya. I believe you did nothing wrong!
Hi Billy. You got a low battery warning about half way through the flight. Possibly one of the battery cells not balanced as it didn't repeat the warning again. Hopefully you get it replaced.
Billy, Thanks so much. I'm my mind this should not have happened. I can't want to hear what Skydio has to say about this crash. Their response will determine the future of this company. I'm in batch three. I'm still hanging on to see how Skydio responds and what they do to remedy this and other problems.
“Not trustworthy.” Like you I feel the same way about this drone. Something is just not right. I hope they don’t say it was tooooo dark as the reason it took a tumble into the water. Good luck with getting it replaced. Hope it works out.
Famous last words, "but the good thing is the drone didn't end up crashing" 😢 After reading other comments I'll add that cloudy days aren't good for solid GPS signal (it still said 30Ft where the video stopped) and I also wondered what it thought about the reflections in the water 🤔 I tagging a tree branch with my P3P = it was in a pond for 20+ minutes. After driving it home (4 hours in air conditioned car) and then putting it in a bag with 10+Lb of RICE (for about 30 hours) to my surprise my P3P worked almost perfect. I said almost because it lost and regained GPS signal many times during my short (close to me and the ground) test flight. So back in the bag of rice it went for another night/day and (again to my surprise) that P3P has worked 100% perfect ever since. Yes I know I got EXTREMELY lucky!!!
From 12:30 to 14:04 it's so clear that the Beacon GPS coupled with the 4G coverage evident on his phone recording shows weak GPS signals in such a territory. Thus, the drone supposedly stays in a dilemma where exactly is the Beacon GPS and the preference was given to the GPS as clearly seen on his phone at that moment, the vision elements weren't taken into consideration by the drone. Why it dives in water, that's hard to know regardless there being enough battery power but rest is clear.
The couple of days drying it out, was the unit opened up and packed in dry/raw RICE for that time? I know that rice saved my IPhone X after being submerged. I didn’t think it would work. If I had not been on a vacation, on a lake far from anywhere and in civilization, I would not have been so patient and probably would have done the insurance claim and replaced immediately. BUT after 3 days in Rice began working again. 7 months later good as new.
It seems for me that there was 2 things... you had the beacon and the app both working at the same time, but in 10:35 the app told you that the beacon was not connected to the app so both were working together but independently... if the beacon were connected to the app could had an extra point of reference for the skydio...at that point it will be looking for the last following that had connection which means the app...remember that it connects trough GPS and you are into a car which has roof and metallic presence... therefore, loss of connection spots. At that moment you went out and try to get it back with the beacon, which for me it’s more powerful than the app...at 13:18 seems that it just got crazy as there was a hard view line with the connection...and later on at 14:17 the reflection could cause an image problem with the skydio, as it works more with cameras that could happen... but something that called my attention was that, were… way better to assume control but this tests are the ones that makes better the feedback to solve problems on this skydio and they can improove on such thing....
@Billy Kyle How are you showing what the phone see's while your flying? Are you having an app on the phone do a screen capture while your flying or what? I am interested in this due to some of the odd things my Skydio2 is doing. Thanks and keep up the great videos.
I think drone was confused. The issue IMO is the reflection in the water. You can see the sky and vehicle in the water. I think the drone got confused trying to compensate for what it was essentially seeing an upside down car. Not sure how they do tracking but seems like what happened to me. Randomly saw this video as I research the Maverick Mini. Glad they will give you a replacement. Hopefully engineering see's this comment.
Given that the majority of your tracking problems began when your phone went into "Low Power Mode," I suspect this may have had a lot to do with the crash, since "Low Power Mode" pauses networking: "Low Power Mode does a number of things to save battery power. It automatically changes some settings to save battery power, like disabling automatic fetching of new mail, reducing your screen brightness, and automatically locking the phone and powering off its display more quickly. Apps can detect low power mode is enabled and choose to disable animations and other battery-hungry features, too. "Motion effects and animated wallpapers are also disabled. Background activities and networking are paused to prevent unnecessary power drain in the background. Your iPhone even automatically reduces the performance of its CPU and GPU, which makes it perform a bit slower but saves battery life. Tests have found that this slows iPhones by about 40 percent when Low Power Mode is enabled." There were still problems with how the drone tracked before the crash. Take a look at the dronie that you did . Mode was "Back," drone was in "Left - Back" position when the dronie was initiated. The drone continued to execute a "Left - Back" maneuver and then returned to the "Left - Back" position before reorienting to the "Back" position. Probably didn't help that you got out of the car, facing the drone and then while it was trying to again re-position behind you, you turned around and got back in the car. That's a lot of position adjustments in a very short time period. Also, probably not a great idea to change follow modes during a turn. It messed up the video shots as it was trying to recalculate and orient itself based on the new positions. It also appeared that the gimbal orientation for the video did not match the picture you were seeing on your phone. In many cases, the car was centered in the phone display, but the video was either to the left or right. Great test, though.
All of these videos are a great help to us S2 owners and Skydio to see how this bird acts in the wild. Skydio engineers can't replicate every scenario during development. So we are sort of beta testers. I had a gimbal shudder event today. Will try to reproduce it to ensure it wasn't a freak occurrence.
Skydio will replace it man, I'm sure of it ,as it wasn't user error as someone stated. I got mines 2 days a go, and I flew over a pond,at about 12 feet or, more ,I let it hover for a second and mines tried to land in the water. .I saved because I pushed up on the sticks with the controller. 15 minutes later I flew over the water again and it tried to land a again with 80 percent on the 2 battery . Anyway I dont believe it was your fault good luck.
The way to save a drone in fresh water is to rinse it in distilled water in a bucket. Then remove and rinse it with 90% alcohol. Then leave in a hot car in the sun for a day. After that you're ready to go. Same process for a laptop dunked in water. A Li-Ion battery in water is 50:50 recoverable.
I. noticed that the drone was disconnected from the Beacon at the time of the crash. So was it only connected to your phone at the time of the crash. I wonder if this would have happened it you were using the controller.
It looks like when you did the dronie shot it never reconnected to the car and was just GPS tracking the beacon. Just my observation. Watching your replays - it looked locked onto the tree reflection. Very strange. Good Luck Billy.
Rather like autonomous cars, the technology is still not fully there. As manufacturers of cars have discovered, there are simply too many situations where the current level of computing power is not yet up to the task.
I kept saying how the GPS tracking is sketch to Skydio before. It's not where I actually am w/ the beacon. DJI is smart and has follow-me mode break and have it hover. It seems like this issue may never ever be fixed unless you are getting reference tracking from another method than how everyone else has been doing it with GPS and visual vision.
I don't even care about drones but I just subbed bc you told me when the good stuff happens. I'm going to let the ads play all the way through too. Thank you.
Interesting. I've got my Skydio 2 and will be interesting to see if Skydio improves the software based on this video. I'm thinking the combination of the 'dark' lighting you mentioned, and the pretty noticeable reflections in the water played a part in this. The software locked onto the vehicle initially (while you had the beacon) but wonder if the software got confused later because you got out of the car (still with beacon) and your outline wasn't matching the car outline. Perhaps still looking for the vehicle even though you had the beacon in your hands. Certainly a combination of factors here.........
Fabulous video. Great to hear that skydio commented. I got mine and bought it to get close up shots of vehicles. (Opposite of your desires) I also don't fly near water. My guess is that the combination of the lighting being low, and the reflection of the water was just too much for skydio 2. I'm stoked I have one. ( even with this problem) I only wish it was faster
I'm guessing here but the video has to be compressed first before writing to the card ( _e.g. .mp4 is a compressed video container format_ ) so maybe it didn't have time to write to the card before the water got in?
@@davidadams421 I think the key question is, why Skydio 2 would shut it down so quickly from all the crash videos. Is that due to some kind of protection mechanism? It does take some time to process the video before transferred to the SD card, but the live feed video on the phone should be almost in real-time, and should at least stay on for at least quite a few seconds before the battery is done.
@@jungha496 A fair point. If you look at the frame from the drone footage just before it blacks out it is the exact same frame being displayed on the screen recording. Maybe the drone's software crashed (ala 'blue screen of death') which then _caused_ the physical crash? Assuming Billy did a good job syncing his audio, that final frame was displayed nearly a full second before you heard the actual splash (makes me wince saying that word on a drone video!).
@@davidadams421 I agree. The cause can also be due to the software crashdown. Overall, due to its highly autonomous property, probably only the Skydio company can give a reasonable answer.
I've been pondering(lol) this for a bit and the only thing I could think of was the drone looking at the water thinking there's was more air beneath as the water was still maybe thinking it had double the airspace. Just a though
There so many ifs! What if it was too dark for the sensors? What if the reflection of the water caused diorientation? I believe Billy was tempting the extremes that the Skydio2 couldn't cope with? I hope that answers will be provided by Skydio2 technicians with Billy's help.
The water was like a mirror before it hit, not a ripple on it. Could the reflection of the sky have confused the drone into thinking it had a whole load more sky beneath it in which to fly?
Looking for a drone to follow a wakesurfer. THis would be perfect, but concerned about possible water landings. Do u know if there are drones with same features that also are built with water resistance? I have several RC cars that use lithium and other electronics and can be driven at the bottom of a pool.
How does it loose connection with the beacon? Ive seen many videos where the drone looses sight of the target with the beacon. But in their commercial it says it can follow the beacon even without vision of the target. It seems like its still mainly using vision :S
Seems pretty obvious to me what when wrong, it is on the Skydio website, "Still, calm water is especially unsafe to fly Skydio 2 over, as it can resemble a reflective, mirror-like surface that can confuse the drone's visual obstacle avoidance systems. We do not recommend flying Skydio 2 at lower altitudes over still, reflective water. Low relative-altitude flight over bodies of water may degrade or impair autonomous flight performance."
Thanks for the video man it was great. I believe this will help Skydio improve confusing water reflection tracking. The drone had not locked in to you and it locked into a reflection of a tree clearly. I still think this is an amazing drone and this video will help Skydio improve otherwise they would be foolish not to do so
Skydio algorithm chooses the nearest void in its recontructed 3D obstacle map. That's why it dived into the mirrored image from the water surface. This is hard to rectify merely via computer vision algorithm given a perfect mirror. Additional supersonic or infrared sensors are needed.
Regarding "Y can't the drone shoot in the middle", who ever programmed this drone understands "Rule of Thirds", and video composition. As a cameraman myself, that side angle is what we do all the time. The subject in the center of frame is considered armature, unless it's being used for a certain affect. Next time you see a movie, watch how a lot of scenes are framed with Rule of Thirds in mind. But maybe they should have it programmed for Rule of Thirds or Center shot.
Billy. I just got my Skydio last week. Three times, I have had to go back and get it after it stopped following. It has also crashed once (minor crash). Also, what do you think about the drone being voice controlled? Like to tell “follow me from behind,” “follow front,” “return to home,” etc. And voice commands into the beacon?
Just a shot in the dark but I was wondering if the skydio gets its altitude info from gps? If so do you think the altitude was off by as deep as the water in the bog? Maybe the GPS data is for when there is no water in the bog. Still no excuse for the crash, just curious. Been thinking about getting the skydio 2. I currently have the original mavic pro and was considering getting a mavic 2 until I started watching videos on the skydio 2. But instances like this make it hard to make a decision! Thanks for the content! Great as always.
*** UPDATE **** - Skydio determined that the drone did behave abnormally and has decided to REPLACE the drone. More info to come.
Way to go Billy!
But is the wait list still to end of 2020? Do replacements get priority?
People who are in Q4 will be bumped into Q5 or even Q6 when this is all said and done.
Thanks for the update. Hopefully, they will fix the problem and send out notifications and updates,
Please test the new one at the same location so the rest of us can have confidence.
Hey Billy, our engineers would love to have access to this flight log to see what caused the water landing. Would you mind uploading them so we can see what went wrong here?
Skydio so much for billy going through the warranty process as “just a normal person”. 😂. For real though I think this was just a case of the computer vision getting mixed up, can’t wait to hear the results of the engineers investigation
Nathan Stowell The first step for any warranty replacement is to collect the flight logs so we can see what happened. No preferential treatment here.
Reached out to support, thanks for the comment!
Pretty cool that Skydio chimed in here. That's some great customer service, IMO. I'd love to hear some details of how they analyze the flight data and their conclusions.
I do love the expression "water landing" as if it was designed to do that! 😏
Billy, the clear very reflective water is probably the reason it believed it could fly lower using its optical system. Skydio is big on warning about flying over water and near reflective items. This is why I think the SKYDIO version 3 requires bottom ultrasonic sensors to detect such things. I'm sure SKYDIO will help you out with a repair/replacement since you were doing what many of us would do and not trying to crash it.
"version 3 requires bottom ultrasonic sensors to detect such things. "
My frustration doesn’t come from a lack of hardware, it comes from the fact that the drone decided to veer to the right when I had it set to follow me from behind.
“Good News is the drone didn’t end up crashing”
Skydio 2 “Hold my beer”
I knew someone would point that out😂
I'm usually so tired of the "hold my beer" jokes, but this literally had me on the ground laughing my ass off! Thanks for bringing a huge smile to my face, I needed a good laugh! Great start to a Friday, ha ha :)
RADER FPV I’ve heard so many “hold my beer” comments, that it’s obviously the latest cliche.
@@rzu7120 Yeah, totally agree. But dang this one was funny 👍
I think, one again, the lighting is too dark, I could see the headlights of the car on the ground. The sky is overcast but bright, and the lakes are smooth and reflective. The drone mistook the lake's reflection for the sky, and did swan drive into it. This drone needs an IMU to tell it which side is up when the optical sensors start going wonky.
Would Skydio replace a non influencers drone in this situation?
Vision system took water as empty space.
Since telemetry was wrong, the drone thought it had more vertical space to go down.
This raises a lot more questions, like if you start a flight at the top of a mountain, while tracking you does the drone ever go below the 0ft line according to telemetry?!
Or even the other way around, if you start at the bottom and when you reach the top there is a lake will it guess the lake as being a "hole"?!
This is important because the 0ft line would be the only way it could be sure it wouldn't go into the water since cameras will mistake reflections as empty space.
As I wrote this I also realized the dangers of flying near buildings or other structures with reflective surfaces like mirrors or windows.
Lots of stuff that could be mistaken as empty space.
Here's what I noticed. At 7:00 minutes you had a low battery warning pop up on the center of the phone screen (near 30% I think). This didn't match the telemetry at the top of the phone. Just before the crash there is a segment where the drone is trying to get by a puddle that the car has gone through. The drone looks like it has a lot of difficulty analyzing the puddle but it finally passes over it. As you come into the area where the drone does crash the water is exceptionally still and mirror like. Everywhere else where you have been flying the open water is rippled except in a narrow band near the shore edges. I think the drone was unable to distinguish the true direction of the sky in the near perfect and expansive reflection it suddenly came upon and considered itself to be upside down and flew in the direction it thought was skyward.
I hope they give you a new drone. I don't think there is negligence on your part. You were very conscientious about regaining contact when it was lost and you weren't in any way stressing the drone's capacity via excessive speed. Though the lighting was not ideal for photography there was no indication that the level was too low for flying (which I believe the drone would have indicated). Skydio should definitely see your efforts as windfall beta testing that will benefit them in the improvement of their product. Keep us posted.
I'd agree. I think it was a combo of issues there. The drone never fully locked back on to the car as it's target. The low light conditions. And the still nature of the water at the time, creating a mirror reflection. All of those teamed up to confuse the drone and result in the water crash. Definitely not user error there.
One thing I'm taking away as a Skydio 2 owner from this...If it loses a visual lock, I'm going to make sure that I get the drone a solid lock, before continuing to have it try and follow.
After watching this video, when I finally receive the drone I’ll be cautious around water. If it losses me I’ll probably try to take over fly control while it’s showing GPS tracking. It seems like when he went back for the drone it was still GPS tracking while he was visible. It must have still been looking for the car.
Hi Billy: Really enjoy your channel - you seem to have done more testing with the Skydio 2 than anyone else. For what it is worth, here is my opinion from a fellow Skydio 2 owner: At 10:16, you did a Dronie from INSIDE the car. The car is mostly a closed metal box, and not RF-friendly. If you were using the Beacon, it has no external antennas and depends on being OUTSIDE to get a good signal to the drone. Second, the battery level on your phone was very low. Not sure if that caused any problems, but I'm just showing you everything that may have contributed to your scuba dive. Then, at 10:47 you exit the car and the drone immediately re-connects. But at that point, it is waiting for you to click "OK" on the screen, which you never acknowledge. You need to look at your phone more often to see what it wants. At 12:11, it loses visual tracking and says "GPS TRACKING", and as the trees get thicker (which you mention), it stays on GPS TRACKING. Then, at 12:30, it goes around the trees, you comment it was "cool". However, it did NOT visually lock on to you. It had aimed itself at the water and said "GPS TRACKING" and showed the general area it was locked onto. At that point, I would have stopped and regained the visual track so the drone would track properly. You instead "put it behind us". Since it can't see you, it has no idea what the "back" is. You say "just keep goin." At that point, the beacon disconnected again. It is madly trying to find you, and gets into the trees again. Then it regains contact when you get out of the car, and you comment how the lighting isn't that great. At 14:01, it managed to find you, but still had no visual lock. Seconds later, it sees that mirror-like water and I think it got confused and maybe thought it was upside down so it flies into the water.
There were several times where you could have stopped, landed, and started over again with a good visual track, but never did.
So it looks like this could have been prevented by 1: keeping the drone in contact with beacon and 2: making sure that the drone was in both visual contact with the car and had good GPS signal. I would also look at the phone more often.
Keep up the good work! Hope you get your Skydio 2 replaced!
@jimlips Agree 100%. I’m watching the video for the first time screaming click ok at the screen. For the love of god just click ok.
Thank you for saying this! You are absolutely correct. I know I'm a year late, but I just got my Skydio 2 and have heavily been researching steps one can take to mitigate such tracking issues. The combination of no locked-on visual track and the large, glassy water surface are what did it in when commanded to go above said reflective surface. The autonomous system was missing any valid inputs to make a better decision, two of which were not its fault (lack of tracking confirmation, and the position it was commanded to track from).
Put simply: the autonomous system is imperfect, but it could have been operated in a way to mitigate the risks of its flaws. This is what I seek to do as I learn to fly mine.
It looked like it never actually "locked" back onto you. I then looks like it may have gotten confused with the reflection of the upside down tree! Maybe. As a image based platform. I hope you get an answer for this.
Why did it lose LOCK in the first place? It seems like a normal slow flight pattern
Doesn’t mean the drone should lock on to the water then go into it lol
Seems like the drone has too many things confusing the tracking between gps and visual like too many cooks in the kitchen and it wanted out
My thoughts exactly! It confused the smooth unbroken reflection as the sky and it probably got all confused.
It's not actual in low lighting due too the cameras.
Great video and thanks for showing the whole thing - this is how we all learn. Took my Skydio on it’s maiden flight yesterday and was amazed how it could fly through and around the trees ... it definitely flies differently than my M2Pro. I do remember early on DJI had a bunch of issues with flyaways (I’ve see 3 of them in the last 2 yrs myself with flying partners DJI drones - fortunately never one of my drones) but those days seem to be in the past. This Skydio tech is so infant that there are bound to be growing pains. I’m not an engineer, but I think in future versions, Skydio will need to implement some sort of sensor array similar to DJI that has over the years now been proven to be reliable. A DJI/Skydio hybrid solution is probably in our future (if the FAA doesn’t ruin our hobby first).
Remember the Skydio guarantee, if you are flying the drone in a normal fashion and it crashes they will replace the drone. Time to test that promise :)
JAS Aerial IG not for that warrenty this video would be a deal breaker.
It’s still a concern because what if the drone harms someone when it freaks out.
Without knowing what the skydio instructions said (or how the sensors work) I "was" kind of on Billy's side on getting his drone replaced.
BUT, already knowing from my P4P instructions to "operate with great caution" over monochrome, highly reflective objects, water or transparent surfaces,
and NOW after just reading what is says on Skydio "Do not fly around transparent surfaces like windows or REFLECTIVE SURFACES greater than 60cm wide" I can't say I think Skydio should be replaced his drone 😢
This is great customer service , watching the video and asking for the logs and trying to figure it out. First Rate Skydio!
I do not have knowledge about how this drone uses the sensors to stabilize and fly, but, would it be possible that here at 21:28 it thinks he is upside down and there is a conflict between the gyros and what the camera is showing ? If the image is frozen here, it looks upside down, since the lake reflects perfectly the image of the sky and the land .
Just a guess .
Cheers.
Dear friend Billy Kyle and Skydio Support, with a first look of the video @ 14:11 i can say that the Drone did override the GPS data and followed its HD color cameras to relocate, you can clearly see the reflection of the tree and the crystal water. I can assume that the drone had a vertigo, confusing the sky with water. It's like objects are mirrored, also add the parameter of the tree that maybe was recognised to be upside down and tried to maneuver. It's a really good effort from Skydio and in my opinion they won't lose the chance to prove their reliability as a company. Keep us updated of the outcome.
Alex from Greece.
“The drone didn’t end up crashing”
5 seconds later... SPLASH!!
🤣🤣🤣
Tempting fate there Mr Kyle.
The “Commentators Curse”
A friend of mine said "watch this" just before he purposely slid his car around a turn on a dirt road. He ended up hitting a tree (thankfully not hard/bad). So Watch This ended being our joke-statement before we did anything risky 😁
El Smeghead it was like the hell im not crashing
I think it may have confused imaging in the reflections of the water and in doing so tried to possibly avoid something in the water that may have looked like a tree branch or other obstacle.
Best comment...
Suddenly, a comment from someone that doesn't have their head up their ass. You are correct, water still as glass looks like a mirror and is bad for vision systems like this, and many other sensors, LiDAR is another that would freak out over this. Ultrasonics will fair better. This was entirely user error, no thought into the environment he was using the drone in.
Agreed - if you look at the altitude data it doesn't change from 30/31ft when over land even when it goes over water and splashes down..still registers 30' height.
@@dvmdoc yup, this can be compared to a fighter jet in a way where if the fly upside down the sky looks like water and if they dont use instrument navigation properly, they lose orientation and crash because both the up and the down look the same over water esp.
Very Good Comment, @skydio This is the Direct Cause
Whenever I accidentally drop any type of electronics in to water, I *immediately* disconnect the battery, or take it out, depending on what I dropped. The second thing I *immediately* do, is rinse off [whatever I dropped] with distilled water! You have to do it before the water it feel in, dries. Distilled water does not conduct electricity, so it won't hurt your electronics, but it will help wash everything off, that's not supposed to be in or on your device. Having said that. I never lost any device do to water damage. I hope Skydio is going to replace your drone. Thanks for posting.
Exactly. Also I don't think one day would allow the internals to dry completely. I bet that if it was disassembled and allowed to dry out completely it would work. Maybe I will have to do that with mine some day😲
@@youmakeitreal Good point. One day is not long enough. Like I said... I would have rinsed it with distilled water and it dry forever. However, let's not forget that it should have not happen in the first place. Curious to see what Skydio says the issue was... Thanks.
@@youmakeitreal Sensors would still be fubared by dried muck and grime though. It'd still have to be replaced unless you were happy with vastly diminished capabilities. These aren't simple little wooden toys like Santa used to make anymore.
My Skydio actually did the exact same thing, randomly divebombed a hillside and destroyed itself. I did it make a video because I didn’t have useable footage of the crash, thanks for uploading yours. Skydio ended up replacing my drone.
Mind shooting me a DM on Twitter or Instagram? Handle is @billykyle
The way it crashed was kind of what I expected after you posted about it.
Since the Skydio 2 purely relies on vision sensors and doesn't have any additional ultrasonic or infrared sensors, it'll get tricked by reflections just like our eyes.
The vision sensors simply saw the reflections and thought it had more room underneath it than there actually is and there was no way for it to know that there was water beneath it.
All in all, don't ever fly the skydio 2 near water even if they allow you to.
Skydio needs more sensores
Actually no, since you forgot the beacon. Skydio 2 can use either visual tracking or GPS tracking. It will use visual tracking first when it can lock on the object of interest, and when the object is lost, Skydio 2 will turn into GPS tracking mode and follow the beacon around. If you check at 14:14 , the screen recording clearly shows "GPS Tracking", which means the Skydio 2 was basically following the beacon with the relative GPS position data. I'm not saying the reflection from the water wasn't a problem at all, but it would make more sense in visual tracking mode.
Wow...that dive bomb into the water just lost my purchase of a Skydio 2.
I ordered one of these knowing full well that we're at least one or two generations away from this drone seeing it's full potential. I've been holding out for a fully autonomous drone since seeing ads for that 'Lilly' drone many years ago. Skydio 2 is the closest thing to what I'm looking for to capture epic mountain bike descents and backcountry adventures.
Listen reaaaally closely at 14:19 to hear the Skydio’s splash in the water😅
Great video I hope Scott gives you a new drone which I think they will.
They do not need to lose sales at this point.
Keith Kuhn
I think it didn’t know you were the subject. By pressing the red button with the x in it you would stop the drone and put it into search mode. Then you could ID yourself and it b would follow you? Perhaps it became disoriented because of the reflections of trees on the mirror surface of the water. By rapidly descending it thought it would climb over the reflected trees? I dunno, but it’s fascinating.
Small tip, add "crash" into your title, probably more people will try searching for "skydio crash"
The word 'splash' has no place in a drone video ;-) Makes me wince even saying the word in my head! I'm sure Skydio will sort you out. Great video, very entertaining, albeit cringe-worthy. Epic footage from the dronie shot.
@@KTHKUHNKK They also need to fix the inherent problem.
If you look closely around 14:18 the drone is locked on the reflection of the tree in the water. Notice the blue GPS parenthesis, where the tree is locked on 14:26. And because it is a reflection, is the opposite to the real world. I think it was flying away from the tree reflection on the water, therefore, it flew into the reflected sky in the water.
Thank you for your honesty and integrity, Billy.
Thanks for sharing man! It looks like it tricked itself to think that the still water was the sky. Hope they don't give you any crap man. rooting for you!
Your reaction to this event is sooo much different than mine would be..lol
Brandon Burghall I mean he had to figure he’d get a free one. Think about if you had a lot of followers
LOL! I would have been screaming FML! Etc if my expensive drone went in the drink. Then, after calming down enough that I was no longer seeing blurry I’d be heading to the pub for a couple of pints.
Greg Appelgren Skydio offers a complete warranty if it crashes within the first year
DiabolicalPlotTwist That’s an incredible warranty. It’s a beautiful drone. It has been great to watch the advancements in this field.
that's because he knows he'll be making money with it (thumbnail) and you would be losing money
Billy sorry for your loss. It reacted similar to your video when you were ridding that trail in the woods, where it was following you then suddenly veered to the right, but it didn't descend in that instance. You sure handled your loss well, better than I would. Mike in N.C.
Seeing all this gives me comfort about canceling my pre order.
You cancelled your order because of user error? I mean probably a good idea if you don't understand that it's not the drones fault it crashed, cause you will likely make he same mistake.
Klockworx, can you explain please, why do you think this was a Pilot error? thanks
@@martinjm1 Optical sensors over highly reflective surfaces don't mix. I dealt with vision systems over still water like this in the past, they don't work. I still deal with this with our LiDAR units today, they will not map standing water and instead leave a void in the model where the water was; effectively it is blind to it. When it crashes the water looks like glass, basically a mirror. The low light may have added to it, but it's mainly the water. A good pilot would have been aware and considerate of their surroundings and the system they are flying. Throughout the entire video he doesn't seem to have a clue why this happened, so he could blame ignorance, but blaming ignorance is an excuse for not thinking, which 100% makes it user error. You can blame ignorance if it's not obvious, I think this is something the average person would pick up on.
@@KlockworXMusic Someone has to beta test these autonomy claims.
@@randymcneely4983 There is a difference between testing and not thinking. This is the later.
Remember this drones obstacle system relies on good lighting conditions so don’t fly after dark, golden or blue hours.
This was user error but the manufacturer will cop the loss because they may not have provided sufficient warnings to the end user!.
Billy: the good thing is the drone didn’t end up crashing
Drone: hold my propellers
insanedb 😂😂😂
It really looks like the drone got confused by the reflection in the water and thought it was flying up relative to the “tree” it saw in the water
Nathan Stowell I definitely think that you are right. That reflection in the water, to me, looked at clear as the real scenery.
Well crap Billy.........sorry man. I'm can't believe that Skydio won't replace the drone in this kind of situation.
Technology will always have its limitations but for the drone to careen off by itself in an area that presumably wouldn't have had any wireless or radio interference is definitely suprising. What is more confusing, if not alarming, is that the drone dived into the water. Drones are programmed to first hover and then manoeuvre to make a landing if signal is lost and battery gets depleted. Low light could have confused the drone? But still no excuse for it diving suddenly.
Sorry for your "loss" first off. I've had my Mavic Mini go in the ocean after an 11:58 flight (critical battery?) and I had a Fimi X8 SE go haywire and dive into the surf a few months ago for no reason at all. Even with cameras and sensors, I think there can be a glitch in the software that thinks the surface is somewhere else and it goes nuts. My prediction is that Skydio will quickly replace your drone and will not want a guy with 75k subscribers telling the world how their warranty didn't get honored. They should replace it and probably put out a fix in the firmware, too. My worry is how many owners will lose this drone and Skydio will call BS and claim it was too dark, don't fly it over water, etc. Thanks for the great video, as always!
You gotta turn the volume up, but you can hear it hit the water. I know my stomach would just drop hearing that sound!! Good luck with Slydio, Im sure they'll fix you up. Especially, with you having a channel like this and all.
Could the crash have something to do with you not pressing "OK" on your screen, when it said *connection regained*??? You never know. Maybe it's a bug where if you do not press OK, it's going to just land!? Just a thought...
crappy lighting, reflective surfaces, minimal tracking with only GPS, and no visual confirmation of target so pathing was borderline impossible....like bro...you what did you think was gonna happen. If it was me i wouldn't send you another one.
The skydio still thinks that the car is the subject and not you as person. I think that the skydio interpreted the dark tree reflection in the water as the subject. skydio sees that its angle relative to the tree reflection is too high (more than 45deg) so it tried to adjust by going down to reduce the angle (to about 30 deg or less). to make that angle, skydio would have to go below the water. it doesn't see water as an obstacle because of the reflection.
The manual clearly states not to fly it near highly reflective surfaces, up to the point of the crash the water's surface wasn't smooth or nearly as reflective as the the area where it did crash.
Thanks ! but please, where exactly in the manual ? I can't find it
@@davidkrassoff6484 "Do not fly around transparent surfaces like windows or reflective surfaces like mirrors greater than 60cm wide." From the "Flying Safe" Section of the Skydio Safety and Operating Guide.
There's a lot of talk about reflective nature of the water, the fact it thought it was 30' high, avoiding the tree and even avoiding the reflection of the tree ... but none of these explain why it suddenly veered off to the right. Even earlier in the video (negotiating its way through trees to get back on the path) shows that it is easily capable of following directly behind (as it was being told to) between the trees on the left and the lone tree to the right. The lighting was fine, else it wouldn't fly (it won't even take off if the lighting is insufficient!). There were no accidental control inputs because you would have seen them on the screen recording. Seems to me to be a product software/sensor glitch, to be expected with trailblazing tech, and I hope Skydio have already shipped out your replacement.
I'm not familiar with the controls on the beacon, but I have to wonder if you accidentally put the Skydio in the mode where you point the beacon where you want the drone to go and inadvertently pointed the beacon at the water. Just a thought...
Regarding the lighting. The footage looks amazing. Probably the best I've seen so far. I think this camera seems to do well in low light, and cloudy applications. In bright sun light, I think that that ND filters will increase picture quality exponentially.
the main camera does well, but the camera's used for tracking have much smaller sensors, and should NOT be pushed in low light situations using tracking. Obstacle avoidance can only go so far when the lighting is bad.
Ouch Billy! That's terrible. Good luck with the warranty!
Hi
@billykyle my Parrot Anafi fall from the sky, 15 mts arround, into the water, they doesn’t recognize the guarantee because I was flying over a reflective surface. The Anafi stop the motors and filming and all the activity and simply fall. I think that here happen exactly the same. I don’t understand why the protocol on the drone is... if fly over reflective surface cut the energy and fall, against hover in the place or back to home or other action less dangerous
although i still have one on order there have been enough videos that show/prove that the Skydio at times is completely unpredictable and has a mind of its own. the reality is if it goes nuts at a time when near traffic or unsuspecting humans it could cause and accident. imagine had it crashed into moving traffic. that makes it a liability risk that could end up costing the pilot money or worse a lawsuit. im glad we are seeing some cold reality with this drone because when it came out everyone AND I MEAN EVERYONE though it couldnt screw up. thank you to billy kyle for sharing this video.
You don't fly it around traffic, great way to get sued.
@@RidefreakTV exactly but with the Skydio 2 nearly everyone is flying over traffic and people even on their maiden flights. billy even did it.
hi Billy... May I ask you for advice? I got my skydio2 and plan to record my jetsurfing watersports activities with a beacon. I just realized the beacon is missing the basic "return home" button and obviously I cant use app while surfing in the water. Do you have any tips how you return the drone home with a beacon?
There is just too much inconsistency and frustrating characteristics of this drone to make it worth purchasing now. I think someone’s original review was 100% right: amazing potential drone and tech but not fully baked and tested to ensure reliability
It's a work in progress. The potential is there but at what cost to the buyer?
My sentiments too.....I feel early adopters are still beta testers!
Billy take a look at the footage again. it got confused with the reflection from the lake on the large tree and thinks the was the uo and in reallity is down. so moved down into the water.
Bingo! Exactly what I noticed.
Famous last words. . "The good thing is, the drone didn't end up crashing." 🤪. Sorry bro.
And that footage just looks so CLEAR and SHARP! My Mavic Mini couldn't hope to look nearly this clear, even up close!
My impression is the problem was the extremely calm conditions of the water, and the very low light situation. If you notice it created almost a mirror like scenario for the drone to discern between the actual land and water. It had to be a very confusing for the sensors to discern what was what. Throw in the gps tracking and it became really confusing.
If you look at the very end before dive bombing, you can see the reflection of your vehicle and tail lights in the water. I think at this point it recognized the vehicle but could not discern it was a perfect reflection in an inverted type of dimension and it went for it. Thus, the dive bomb into the water, thinking it was actually increasing altitude into the sky.
Good video Billy as this has actually created the perfect scenario to actually confuse the drone totally. Had the water been choppy, and better lighting conditions, this would have never happened. This possibly may a scenario that probably cannot be rectified without some really expensive mods and software, which definitely take it out of the consumer realm and make it possibly high end professional or even a military quality surveillance drone.
So, in conclusion, my opinion is the Skydio is definitely is a truly amazing product and is only going to get much better with things like this happening.
Hats off to the Skydio team for this amazing tool for drone photographers. I have my deposit down for one but probably won't be able to finish the purchase due to now being on a retirees income which does not keep up with inflation. Hopefully, a stroke of luck will let me get one to fly in the future and add to my aging drone photography arsenal.
I agree with you 100% if when you put your drone up and can’t trust it why would you want to fly it. My opinion contact manufacturer and let them know what happened since according to the video you did exactly what this drone was intended for and all of the sudden it dive bombs into the water geez.
Not exactly... Just before the accident, drone lost connection, and instead of restart and inspecting it, Billy entered in the car. For now SkyDio has the best AI for drones, that's enough for me to order one. ;)
Just FYI and to help others who may have their drone go into the water - here's a suggestion.
First thing would be to get some distilled water, enough to fully submerge the drone and battery.
Secondly, put it into the water and get all the bubbles out so that the water comes into contact with all the parts.
Finally, let it soak for a day or so and then put it into a vacuum chamber. What that will do is evaporate the distilled water, leaving no deposits behind. The vacuum will get into all the cracks and crevices where the water was and evaporate it. Maintain that vacuum for at least two days.
This process isn't guaranteed, but is your best option when you know for a fact that if you do nothing, your drone will be toast anyway. So you have nothing to lose by trying it.
Why does this work? Because the distilled water replaces the contaminated water and makes it so that the new water will leave no deposits behind when it evaporates. The vacuum ensures that ALL the water will evaporate, even water inside optics like the camera.
The only downside is that distilled water is slightly corrosive, so it is possible it could corrode some contacts if left in too long. But if you do it right away after your drone goes into contaminated water, you stand a chance.
As someone who works with machine learning all the time, the mirror sheen on the surface of the water looks to the drone like a dark sky. The deep learning system is now probably confused by this. My guess is, it is seeking to figure out which side is up. The question is, what are the rules it is following for navigation. The low light didn't help. I think it was in a low-confidence condition, unable to figure out what course of action was best.
The way stereovisual distance measurement works is it searches for similar objects on two photos and then measures distance between them on 2 photos which gives distance when distance between eyes is known. On water it can't find any similar stuff so it thinks there is nothing there...
As of why it didn't see you, well it was tracking a car not you so it couldn't reacquire a target. Then it probably thought it can leap around the obstacle .... by leaping UNDER it which is why it dove. They really need to think of something to make it see water...
That's so unlucky bro, but love your videos man!
Thank you!
What seems like the obvious reason for it crashing into the water is the glare off the water confused the skydio into thinking it was just that a sky.
Man Billy you and water! 14 minutes of great video coverage too boot! If I which I might after all the a, b, and c people get their Skydio 2 get there’s I’ll make sure after the battery reaches 30% I’ll bring it home. As you and I know we can fly DJI to almost 0% I guess different company means different performance. Great video Billy and so sorry for what happen. You had the battery power left and the specs failed ya. I believe you did nothing wrong!
Hi Billy. You got a low battery warning about half way through the flight. Possibly one of the battery cells not balanced as it didn't repeat the warning again. Hopefully you get it replaced.
Billy, Thanks so much. I'm my mind this should not have happened. I can't want to hear what Skydio has to say about this crash. Their response will determine the future of this company. I'm in batch three. I'm still hanging on to see how Skydio responds and what they do to remedy this and other problems.
I can't wait to hear what they have to say also.
Keith Kuhn
Agreed
These compannies never learn they go to starbucks like they desireve it and they dont
“Not trustworthy.” Like you I feel the same way about this drone. Something is just not right. I hope they don’t say it was tooooo dark as the reason it took a tumble into the water. Good luck with getting it replaced. Hope it works out.
Skydio needs a light sensor to warn the user about possible difficulty in flying around obstacles in poorly lit conditions.
Famous last words, "but the good thing is the drone didn't end up crashing" 😢
After reading other comments I'll add that cloudy days aren't good for solid GPS signal (it still said 30Ft where the video stopped) and I also wondered what it thought about the reflections in the water 🤔
I tagging a tree branch with my P3P = it was in a pond for 20+ minutes. After driving it home (4 hours in air conditioned car) and then putting it in a bag with 10+Lb of RICE (for about 30 hours) to my surprise my P3P worked almost perfect. I said almost because it lost and regained GPS signal many times during my short (close to me and the ground) test flight. So back in the bag of rice it went for another night/day and (again to my surprise) that P3P has worked 100% perfect ever since. Yes I know I got EXTREMELY lucky!!!
Skydio 2 should have sonar sensors in it to reduce such a low level mistake.
From 12:30 to 14:04 it's so clear that the Beacon GPS coupled with the 4G coverage evident on his phone recording shows weak GPS signals in such a territory. Thus, the drone supposedly stays in a dilemma where exactly is the Beacon GPS and the preference was given to the GPS as clearly seen on his phone at that moment, the vision elements weren't taken into consideration by the drone. Why it dives in water, that's hard to know regardless there being enough battery power but rest is clear.
The couple of days drying it out, was the unit opened up and packed in dry/raw RICE for that time? I know that rice saved my IPhone X after being submerged. I didn’t think it would work. If I had not been on a vacation, on a lake far from anywhere and in civilization, I would not have been so patient and probably would have done the insurance claim and replaced immediately. BUT after 3 days in Rice began working again. 7 months later good as new.
It seems for me that there was 2 things... you had the beacon and the app both working at the same time, but in 10:35 the app told you that the beacon was not connected to the app so both were working together but independently... if the beacon were connected to the app could had an extra point of reference for the skydio...at that point it will be looking for the last following that had connection which means the app...remember that it connects trough GPS and you are into a car which has roof and metallic presence... therefore, loss of connection spots. At that moment you went out and try to get it back with the beacon, which for me it’s more powerful than the app...at 13:18 seems that it just got crazy as there was a hard view line with the connection...and later on at 14:17 the reflection could cause an image problem with the skydio, as it works more with cameras that could happen... but something that called my attention was that, were… way better to assume control but this tests are the ones that makes better the feedback to solve problems on this skydio and they can improove on such thing....
@Billy Kyle How are you showing what the phone see's while your flying? Are you having an app on the phone do a screen capture while your flying or what? I am interested in this due to some of the odd things my Skydio2 is doing. Thanks and keep up the great videos.
I think drone was confused. The issue IMO is the reflection in the water. You can see the sky and vehicle in the water. I think the drone got confused trying to compensate for what it was essentially seeing an upside down car. Not sure how they do tracking but seems like what happened to me. Randomly saw this video as I research the Maverick Mini. Glad they will give you a replacement. Hopefully engineering see's this comment.
Given that the majority of your tracking problems began when your phone went into "Low Power Mode," I suspect this may have had a lot to do with the crash, since "Low Power Mode" pauses networking:
"Low Power Mode does a number of things to save battery power. It automatically changes some settings to save battery power, like disabling automatic fetching of new mail, reducing your screen brightness, and automatically locking the phone and powering off its display more quickly. Apps can detect low power mode is enabled and choose to disable animations and other battery-hungry features, too.
"Motion effects and animated wallpapers are also disabled. Background activities and networking are paused to prevent unnecessary power drain in the background. Your iPhone even automatically reduces the performance of its CPU and GPU, which makes it perform a bit slower but saves battery life. Tests have found that this slows iPhones by about 40 percent when Low Power Mode is enabled."
There were still problems with how the drone tracked before the crash. Take a look at the dronie that you did . Mode was "Back," drone was in "Left - Back" position when the dronie was initiated. The drone continued to execute a "Left - Back" maneuver and then returned to the "Left - Back" position before reorienting to the "Back" position. Probably didn't help that you got out of the car, facing the drone and then while it was trying to again re-position behind you, you turned around and got back in the car. That's a lot of position adjustments in a very short time period.
Also, probably not a great idea to change follow modes during a turn. It messed up the video shots as it was trying to recalculate and orient itself based on the new positions.
It also appeared that the gimbal orientation for the video did not match the picture you were seeing on your phone. In many cases, the car was centered in the phone display, but the video was either to the left or right.
Great test, though.
All of these videos are a great help to us S2 owners and Skydio to see how this bird acts in the wild. Skydio engineers can't replicate every scenario during development. So we are sort of beta testers. I had a gimbal shudder event today. Will try to reproduce it to ensure it wasn't a freak occurrence.
Skydio will replace it man, I'm sure of it ,as it wasn't user error as someone stated. I got mines 2 days a go, and I flew over a pond,at about 12 feet or, more ,I let it hover for a second and mines tried to land in the water. .I saved because I pushed up on the sticks with the controller. 15 minutes later I flew over the water again and it tried to land a again with 80 percent on the 2 battery . Anyway I dont believe it was your fault good luck.
Can you command the drone to follow a car even if you're riding a skateboard etc to get the furthest following distance?
The way to save a drone in fresh water is to rinse it in distilled water in a bucket. Then remove and rinse it with 90% alcohol. Then leave in a hot car in the sun for a day. After that you're ready to go. Same process for a laptop dunked in water. A Li-Ion battery in water is 50:50 recoverable.
Could had it been that the battery on your phone was dying??
I. noticed that the drone was disconnected from the Beacon at the time of the crash. So was it only connected to your phone at the time of the crash. I wonder if this would have happened it you were using the controller.
It looks like when you did the dronie shot it never reconnected to the car and was just GPS tracking the beacon. Just my observation. Watching your replays - it looked locked onto the tree reflection. Very strange. Good Luck Billy.
Rather like autonomous cars, the technology is still not fully there. As manufacturers of cars have discovered, there are simply too many situations where the current level of computing power is not yet up to the task.
I kept saying how the GPS tracking is sketch to Skydio before. It's not where I actually am w/ the beacon. DJI is smart and has follow-me mode break and have it hover. It seems like this issue may never ever be fixed unless you are getting reference tracking from another method than how everyone else has been doing it with GPS and visual vision.
I don't even care about drones but I just subbed bc you told me when the good stuff happens. I'm going to let the ads play all the way through too. Thank you.
It almost seemed as the GPS locked on to the tree image reflecting from the pond towards the last 2 seconds..
GPS has nothing to do with Imaging...
Interesting. I've got my Skydio 2 and will be interesting to see if Skydio improves the software based on this video. I'm thinking the combination of the 'dark' lighting you mentioned, and the pretty noticeable reflections in the water played a part in this. The software locked onto the vehicle initially (while you had the beacon) but wonder if the software got confused later because you got out of the car (still with beacon) and your outline wasn't matching the car outline. Perhaps still looking for the vehicle even though you had the beacon in your hands. Certainly a combination of factors here.........
Fabulous video. Great to hear that skydio commented. I got mine and bought it to get close up shots of vehicles. (Opposite of your desires) I also don't fly near water. My guess is that the combination of the lighting being low, and the reflection of the water was just too much for skydio 2.
I'm stoked I have one. ( even with this problem) I only wish it was faster
Why there is not a video of the splash in the water after 14:19?
I'm guessing here but the video has to be compressed first before writing to the card ( _e.g. .mp4 is a compressed video container format_ ) so maybe it didn't have time to write to the card before the water got in?
@@davidadams421 I think the key question is, why Skydio 2 would shut it down so quickly from all the crash videos. Is that due to some kind of protection mechanism? It does take some time to process the video before transferred to the SD card, but the live feed video on the phone should be almost in real-time, and should at least stay on for at least quite a few seconds before the battery is done.
@@jungha496 A fair point. If you look at the frame from the drone footage just before it blacks out it is the exact same frame being displayed on the screen recording. Maybe the drone's software crashed (ala 'blue screen of death') which then _caused_ the physical crash? Assuming Billy did a good job syncing his audio, that final frame was displayed nearly a full second before you heard the actual splash (makes me wince saying that word on a drone video!).
@@davidadams421 I agree. The cause can also be due to the software crashdown. Overall, due to its highly autonomous property, probably only the Skydio company can give a reasonable answer.
I've been pondering(lol) this for a bit and the only thing I could think of was the drone looking at the water thinking there's was more air beneath as the water was still maybe thinking it had double the airspace. Just a though
There so many ifs! What if it was too dark for the sensors? What if the reflection of the water caused diorientation? I believe Billy was tempting the extremes that the Skydio2 couldn't cope with? I hope that answers will be provided by Skydio2 technicians with Billy's help.
The water was like a mirror before it hit, not a ripple on it. Could the reflection of the sky have confused the drone into thinking it had a whole load more sky beneath it in which to fly?
Looking for a drone to follow a wakesurfer. THis would be perfect, but concerned about possible water landings. Do u know if there are drones with same features that also are built with water resistance? I have several RC cars that use lithium and other electronics and can be driven at the bottom of a pool.
You can clearly see the reflection of your vehicle in the water, it looks as though it confused the reflection with the actual target.
Doesn't change my mind one bit on getting this drone. So far it's #1 on my list.
How does it loose connection with the beacon? Ive seen many videos where the drone looses sight of the target with the beacon. But in their commercial it says it can follow the beacon even without vision of the target. It seems like its still mainly using vision :S
Seems pretty obvious to me what when wrong, it is on the Skydio website, "Still, calm water is especially unsafe to fly Skydio 2 over, as it can resemble a reflective, mirror-like surface that can confuse the drone's visual obstacle avoidance systems. We do not recommend flying Skydio 2 at lower altitudes over still, reflective water. Low relative-altitude flight over bodies of water may degrade or impair autonomous flight performance."
Thanks for the video man it was great. I believe this will help Skydio improve confusing water reflection tracking. The drone had not locked in to you and it locked into a reflection of a tree clearly. I still think this is an amazing drone and this video will help Skydio improve otherwise they would be foolish not to do so
Skydio algorithm chooses the nearest void in its recontructed 3D obstacle map. That's why it dived into the mirrored image from the water surface. This is hard to rectify merely via computer vision algorithm given a perfect mirror. Additional supersonic or infrared sensors are needed.
Regarding "Y can't the drone shoot in the middle", who ever programmed this drone understands "Rule of Thirds", and video composition. As a cameraman myself, that side angle is what we do all the time. The subject in the center of frame is considered armature, unless it's being used for a certain affect. Next time you see a movie, watch how a lot of scenes are framed with Rule of Thirds in mind. But maybe they should have it programmed for Rule of Thirds or Center shot.
Billy. I just got my Skydio last week. Three times, I have had to go back and get it after it stopped following. It has also crashed once (minor crash). Also, what do you think about the drone being voice controlled? Like to tell “follow me from behind,” “follow front,” “return to home,” etc. And voice commands into the beacon?
Just a shot in the dark but I was wondering if the skydio gets its altitude info from gps? If so do you think the altitude was off by as deep as the water in the bog? Maybe the GPS data is for when there is no water in the bog. Still no excuse for the crash, just curious. Been thinking about getting the skydio 2. I currently have the original mavic pro and was considering getting a mavic 2 until I started watching videos on the skydio 2. But instances like this make it hard to make a decision! Thanks for the content! Great as always.
Straight off the bat, that first shot of the car and track looks rad.
Well done Skydio. Another happy customer.
I can see it now; Skydio 3wp
(Water Proof)