Chapter 1: Out of the box, calibrated accelerometers and compass a total of three times (compass in three different locations). In two flights, hover was very unstable laterally, with drift side to side and forward and backward that did not correct itself over distances of more than ten feet. (Vertical stability was very good.) Called Yuneec USA tech support and, after description of the problem and after I sent them the telemetry from the flights, they sent me a return authorization and UPS label for return to Yuneec USA to correct the defect. Total flight time thus far: 5 minutes. Estimated time in transit and repair: 4 weeks. So far: great Yuneec support -- bad Typhoon availability. We'll see.
Update (Chapter 2): Typhoon was shipped to Yuneec in California and delivered there July 7. I spoke with Yuneec USA customer support July 12 and was told that they wouldn't know anything about when it would be repaired and returned until, at the earliest, July 19.
Update (Chapter 3): Got an email from Yuneec yesterday saying they have finished the repair ("GPS Module Circuit Board") and shipped it back to me (they provided the UPS tracking number). Yuneec turned the H around in seven days, which is a week faster than I expected. Yay! Now the H will spend seven days in the care of UPS (unavoidable, but Boo anyway). Total turnaround time: 21 days. Can't wait to see how it flies.
Update (Happy Ending!): (I'm about to lose my position as top critical review.) After four batteries worth of flying in the last 24 hours, I am pleased to announce the Typhoon H has straightened up and flies right. First a review of the platform, then the camera. In a hover it is stable enough to park it at 10 feet and take your eyes off it while you fiddle with the camera settings (or read the instruction manual for the fifth time to try to figure out how "journey" works). Rock solid stability, even in 12 mph gusty wind. It is very responsive and moves fast if you want it too (it climbs like a missile.) But if you don't want the go-fast mode, the rate slider slows it down enough for really smooth photography and nice slow soft landings. In addition, the "advanced" channel settings allow you to add expo curves to the rates to flatten out control response around the centers of the stick positions -- sorta get the best of go-fast and slow-and-soft. All the flight modes seem to work as advertised. In orbit and POI it does a very good job of keeping the camera on the subject. Same with "watch me". I did a very primitive test of "curve cable cam" (e.g., waypoints), and it follows the path the way I would expect. Journey mode somewhat eludes me, but I'm working on it. I leave testing of "obstacle avoidance" to people who have more money than I do. Battery life: longer than my ability to look up in the air -- 20 minutes the one time I ran the battery down to the level where the Typhoon started to complain. A note on the user manual: The very abbreviated (to be charitable) explanations of the flight modes and the camera pan modes sort of boil down to "get it up in the air and experiment until you understand how it works". Fortunately, it didn't do anything very alarming while I was experimenting, so I'd say there's nothing wrong with that approach.
Camera: It's a very good 4K camera, and a really good gimbal, for the price point (the next step up goes for $3500 or more). The gimbal works very well and the video is very smooth, even with the platform jerking around in go-fast mode. The CGO3+ is a good match for the platform, but it seems to me that the platform could also handle some of the more expensive stuff. I was lucky enough to get both cloudy and bright sun, and the camera took perfectly presentable (actually spectacular) 4K video using the "full auto" settings. However, to get really great video in sunshine, I know I'll still have to use filters, slow down the shutter speed and fool around with exposures (hence the need to be able to park the thing in the air while you fiddle with the camera settings). (There's a lot of good stuff on YouTube about how to use filters on these cameras -- see Tigger's RC reviews among others -- it's easy and cheap and produces incredible results).
ST16 controller: mostly positives. Well balanced, and easy to hold with no neck strap. I'll never find an RC radio screen that's bright enough for my tastes, but this is pretty close. Some three-way switches that control two-way functions, but nothing that really confused me. I encountered software updates for both the H/CGO3+ and ST16, and the update procedure worked exactly the way the instructions said (more importantly, it all booted up and worked after the update). The ST16 is Android-based, so hack away!
Conclusion. If you want instant out-of-the-box gratification this might not be the one. It's a little bit leading edge, particularly for the price, and it took a three week excursion back to the mother ship to get it working right. But now that it's working ain't nobody gonna take it away from me. It's everything I hoped for. One other note: I'm not happy that it needed a trip to Yuneec USA for fixing, but the process of working with Yuneec customer support was as painless as I can imagine. I debated four or five stars: one point penalty for not working out of the box, or forgive the three week trip because it worked fine in the end. Five it is. So long "critical review".
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This Item  Yuneec Typhoon H Pro with Intel RealSense Technology - 4K Collision Avoidance Hexacopter Drone, Carbon Fiber (YUNTYHBRUS) | Recommendations  |  |  |  | |
| Price | Currently unavailable. | -17% $249.99 List: $299.99 | $999.00 | $419.00 | -11% $894.00 List: $999.00 |
| Delivery | — | Get it as soon as Thursday, Mar 20 | Get it as soon as Thursday, Mar 20 | Get it Mar 26 - Apr 3 | — |
| Customer Ratings | |||||
| Sold By | — | Potensic® | SPECTA | WHSJMC | QanHorse |
| model name | Typhoon H Pro with Intel RealSense | ATOM SE | Specta Air | Mini 3 | DJIAIR2SGR |
| weight | 12 pounds | 0.55 pounds | 0.72 kilograms | 248 grams | 595 grams |
| control type | Remote Control | Remote Control | Remote Control | Remote Control | Remote Control |
| maximum range | — | 4000 meters | 20000 meters | 10 kilometers | 7.5 miles |
| capacity | 2000 milliamp hours | 2500 milliamp hours | 4241 milliamp hours | — | — |
| material | Carbon Fiber | Plastic, Carbon Fiber | — | — | Carbon Fiber |
| media type | Micro SD | SD | SD | Micro SD | Micro SD |
| video resolution | 4K | 4K | 4K FHD 2.7K | 4K | 5.4K |
| wireless tech | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi |
— | JPEG | JPEG | JPEG, PNG | JPEG | |
| video capture format | 4k | 4k | MP4 | MP4 | MP4 |
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From the manufacturer
Award Winning Innovation
Winner of the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show 'Best of Class'
The Typhoon H provides capabilities for enthusiasts previously only found in high-end professional drones, yet at a consumer price.
Easy and Safe to Fly
With GPS stabilized flight control, 5 Rotor Fail-Safe, and 8 smart flight modes including auto takeoff and land, the Typhoon H requires no experience to fly.
Feature Highlights
- Android powered ST16 Ground Station features a 7-inch touchscreen
- CGO3+ 4K UHD camera
- Retractable Landing Gear
- 6 Rotor Safety with 5 Rotor Fail-Safe
- Sonar Collision Prevention
- 8 Smart Flight Modes
- Up to 25 Minutes Flight Time
A Full 360° View Of The World
5 Rotor Fail-Safe
Sonar Collision Prevention
No Extra External Device
Smart Features
Orbit Me
Typhoon H flies a circular path around you, keeping the camera trained on you the whole time.
Point Of Interest
Select a subject and Typhoon H will orbit that subject autonomously, all the time keeping the camera trained on the point of interest.
Journey Mode
Typhoon H will go up and out, as far as 150 ft, and capture the perfect aerial selfie.
Curve Cable Cam
Easily program an invisible route for Typhoon H to fly along. Typhoon H will fly between pre-set coordinates while independently controlling camera position.
Yuneec Does Not Acknowledge Defect That Caused Crash and Yuneec Support Very Difficult to Work With
Summary:The Typhoon has a defect that causes it to not behave as claimed | advertised in Smartmode. Since the Typhoon did not behave as expected and I thought the Typhoon was in Angle mode, the flight resulted in a crash. Yuneec support is extremely disjoint and at times combative on getting to the bottom of this case based on evidence in the flight log. They do not consider all the facts found in the Typhoon flight logs. They only go by what they see in their proprietary simulator which does not present key information gleaned from their logs.Typhoon H 4k Collision Avoidance Hexacopter w/ Battery, Charger, ST16 Controller and Free Wizard Wand ControllerDetails:2016 Jun 12I take the Typhoon H on my 3rd flight with it. I believe that the Typhoon H is in Angle Mode and I fly it accordingly. My planned flight route was to fly it between two houses while taking a look at the roof of one of them. I stand facing the house. I have the Typhoon take off in front of the house and then strafe to the left side of the house. I walk to the side of the house that I plan on having the Typhoon fly next to. I next had the Typhoon turn 90 degrees to face the side of the house. Around this point in time, I lost control of the craft. It did not respond to commands. It flew towards a tree that was now behind it. None of my attempts to fly the Typhoon away from the tree worked. It clipped some leaves and fell to the ground. The flight log showed the drop to be about 12 feet. Several props broke. Two arms broke. The case cracked. The gimbal sheared from the mounts and wires were ripped out. The battery dislodged. The glass on the camera broke.2016 Jun 15 1:30 PMI call Yuneec and get Mike from Tech support on the phone. He tells me how to retrieve the flight logs from the Ground Station. I send the flight logs to him for analysis.2016 Jun 15 4:15 PMMike call me and tells me that the Typhoon was in Smart Mode rather than in Angle mode as I thought. He says that it was operating as it should and followed me into the tree. That was why it did not respond to my commands. With the realization that I was in Smart Mode rather than Angle mode I asked Mike why the Typhoon was not behaving according to Smart Mode parameters earlier in the flight. If it behaved as it should have, I would have realized that I must of inadvertently switched the mode and either landed the Typhoon or switched the mode back. I told Mike that the issue was that I was close to the Typhoon during the entire flight. Smart Mode is supposed to keep the Typhoon 26 feet away from me. Mike suggested that I send in the Typhoon so they can analyze it.2016 July 1 6:30 PMI sent in the Typhoon. It is expensive to ship. It arrived at their facilities on June 24. The first message I get from Yuneec is an e-mail with a price quote for repair. The e-mail asks me to contact them to approve and process the repair. I call in and get Christine on the phone. She is very nice but knows nothing about my case. I explain it to her. She talks to a manager and tells me she'll call me the next day to update me on my contention that the Typhoon has a defect and the repair should be under warranty.2016 July 6 10:15 AMI don't hear anything from Yuneec. I call in and get Sergio. He knows nothing about my case. I explain it to him. He then looks and sees that Mike has the case and told me he will ask Mike to call me after he gets in. Between the phone calls, I also use e-mail to contact Yuneec about my case. The employees who answer my e-mails seem to know nothing about my case. I get the feeling they do not have a good customer service system. Internal Yuneec communication seems poor. I have not encountered other companies I deal with whose customer support is this disjoint.2016 July 13 12:30 PMI call and speak to Brandon. He tells me I owe $185 to get it fixed. He tells me to either pay or threatens that Yuneec will send me back my drone as is. He is very combative and made me feel like s***. At this point, I'm mad. I've always been polite and my customer service experience with Yuneec has been terrible. I can't say much for my limited experience with their drones but customer service certainly stinks and Brandon tops the list here. In short, I had to insist hard and several times to get him to allow me to speak to a tech about my case.2016 July 13 ~1:00 PMMike calls me and discussed the situation. He focused on the crash event. He tried to convince me that other parts of the flight are not relevant. I asked him to consider the fact that the Typhoon did not behave as it should in Smart Mode. If it did, I would have either landed it or changed the mode. The flight would not get to the point where it crashed. Mike resisted this point. I said if I was driving a car that was on fire, I would not continue driving it until it crashed. The fire would tell me something is wrong. If the Typhoon behaved like it should in Smart Mode, I would have known something was wrong and would not continue flying it and it would not have had an opportunity to crash. I told him that I will examine flight and he will agreed to examine the earlier part of the flight logs. If the early log shows that I was indeed less than 26 feet from craft, then there is a defect.2016 July 13 ~3:00 PMMike sent me an e-mail and called me to discuss his findings. He told me that he looked at the logs with a colleague and said that the Typhoon darted off to get away from me and was operating like it should in Smart Mode. I thanked him for looking at the logs and asked him to give me time to analyze them myself. His description was not in sync with my memory of the flight or that of my friend who was watching the flight with me. My friend said that I was in control of the flight until the end when the Typhoon crashed. I felt the same way. I don't recall the darting away that Mike described.2016 July 15 3:15 PMI called Mike after analyzing the flight logs myself. Before I write about my conversation with Mike, here's what I did. The Typhoon H produces 3 logs. The Telemetry log and the RemoteGPS log contains information regarding the location of the Typhoon and the Ground Station. I matched up the records in the two logs and calculated the horizontal distance the Typhoon was from the Ground Station, and thus me. I then used the calculated horizontal distance and the altitude of the drone to calculate the line of sight distance between the Typhoon and me. The resulting figures show that the Typhoon was 25.7 feet from me at most. It was at that distance for one data point out of 91. The Typhoon did not try to maintain the safety envelop of 26 feet as Mike and Yuneec claims. I sent my calculations to Mike and called him. Mike told me that his warranty denial stands. He said he only looks at the logs as processed through their system (which no customer can use or analyze). I asked and he told me that the Yuneec system does not show distance between Typhoon and Ground Station. I asked how he can ignore the fact from the logs that the Typhoon did not operate as claimed. He did not relent. There is a defect and Yuneec and Mike will not acknowledge or address it.I gave up talking to them. I have a very bitter taste in my mouth from this experience. I will be looking at other drones in the future and perhaps you should too. On another note, my friend who was with me is a chemical engineer with a specialty in adhesives. He examine the drone after the crash and commented that Yuneec saved about $4 by not using a more durable plastic that would have helped the drone survive the crash.2016 July 27Yuneec refused to acknowledge a defect that their own flight logs indicate. I was forced to pay to fix the drone or end up with a $1300 brick. I paid to fix it. They ship it back without props. Perhaps it is the only way they can guarantee this thing won't crash. Buy a drone from someone else.2016 Aug 8On July 28, they decided to ship me props. I find out today, after I ask them, why I have no props yet. They tell me that the props are back ordered. Let's see. I paid $1300 back in the beginning of June. I flew it 3 times over 2 days before defect causes crash. Yuneec has no answer to why their drone does not operate according to parameters they lay out as indicated in their logs. I have to pay another $230 in shipping (to & from) and repair costs and I still don't have a working drone. As of today, Amazon lists the price of this POS at $1,097.40. I also filed a BBB complaint against Yuneec after I first posted this log. They never replied to it. Best of luck to future purchasers of this drone.2016 Aug 10I filed a BBB complaint on 07/18/2016. Yuneec responds today. They reiterate what they told me over the phone. Essentially, what they are doing is what people do to prove what they want. They play with the sample size. If you define the sample size to what you want, you can make your point. They selectively look at a subset of the logs and ignore the log entries that are not convenient to them. What a genius way to screw customers.2016 Sept 1Final note from BBB says that Yuneec stands by its position and will not take back their defective drone.
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