I have been been using the Flytrex Live 3G for my flights for quite some time and I think it’s a lot of fun and it gives me comfort that I will still find my quad if it loses GPS lock and lands somewhere I can’t quite see it. But this was with my Phantom and now I am flying an Inspire 1 and though I find the DJI Pilot app to be a great step forward in recording the flights compared to DJI Vision, if my Inspire loses GPS and I can’t regain control, I could still lose it. I also love the badges for the certain achievements. My personal speed record is 86.3 km/h with a stock Phantom 2 but I guess I must have had some back wind there. Still kinda cool to know and have record of it. I am also planning to get the Phantom 3 as soon as I can get one. When I sold my Phantom 2, I kinda felt funny not having the little Flytrex box under the body and my flights online.

I am worried no more as Flytrex just introduced new units supporting both the Inspire 1 and Phantom 3 quads. The fine folks at the company told me that the Inspire 1 units will ship sooner, but Phantom 3 will be available soon to. There are installation adapters available for both units, so you can get them hooked up to your bird in no time. You can actually pre-order your units now to be among the first ones to receive it with a special $38 discount! This way you can grab the black box for $151.99 instead of the regular $189.99 price tag.

I will install the Live 3G on both my units and be back with a hands on review, but check my experiences in general below for the time being!

Hands On With the Flytrex Live 3G

So I reached out to the Flytrex guys and they were kind enough to send me a review unit. I guess this is one of the perks of running a drone site :). It was just around the time when the Live 3G was actually announced, but I still got the unit very quickly, within just a few days. I did not get charged for any customs duty or anything, but of course I can’t guarantee that yours will also slip under the radar too in your country.

When my brand new Flytrex Live 3G arrived, I was a little surprised by the simple packaging, but it does the job. It came in bubble wrap envelope that’s similar to a simple letter in size, so I guess that is one of the reasons for not putting it in a fancy box. After all, would you pay extra shipping fees just to have a box that you will throw away right after you receive your tracker? Probably not.

Anyhow, this is what the unit looks like after unpacking:

flytrex live 3G review front

Flytrex Live 3G Installation

Ok, so you have unpacked your device and ready to install it. You have a couple of options. There is a plug-and-play option for a little extra cost if you are reluctant to do just a little bit of soldering. I have written an entire post on the plug-and-play installation of the Flytrex Live 3G using the recently added CAN-BUS adapter, so if you prefer that option, you can head over to that post. CAN-BUS adapters are available for different platforms such as the entire DJI Phantom 2 series and different flight controllers like the A2, Wooing, Naza, etc. If you enter the site and click on “Buy Now”, you land on a screen where you can select your platform or controller:

flytrex for inspire 1 phantom 3

 If you are happy to do a little soldering (it’s just 2 cables, about 3 minutes) and not worried about the chance of maybe losing warranty, than here is a quick overview of what you will have to do:

  1. Disconnect your GPS from your flight controller.
  2. Connect the GPS to the Flytrex Cable female socket – the only one available in the cable.
  3. Connect the male socket on the same side of the cable back to your flight controller GPS slot, where you just disconnected the GPS from.
  4. Connect the other side of the Flytrex Cable to the Flytrex Live GPS slot.
  5. Solder the two power wires (black and red) to your aircraft main distribution board.

Flytrex Live includes an LED indicator that provides feedback about the status of its connection at all times. I recommend mounting Live at the bottom of your aircraft, with the LED pointing downwards, so you could easily see it at takeoff. However, mounting it differently should be OK as well. Although the Live shouldn’t cause any interference at all, I recommend to avoid mounting it directly on the GPS antenna.

If you need a more detailed, step-by-step installation guide, you can find one here, I’d hate this article to scroll down to China :), so after signing up or logging in with your Facebook account, you can just find the link “Installation Guides” in the top left part of the site and you can select your particular model there.

Registering the Flytrex Live 3G

After installation, you will need to register your device online, so it is linked to your account. The easiest way to do that is through your smartphone. On the back side of the unit, there is a QR code which is unique to the particular unit that you have. Find any QR code reader for your phone and scan code that is on the back side of the Flytrex Live 3G.

flytrex live 3G review back

This is the code you will need to scan to register your unit.

After registration, all you will need to do is to insert a micro SIM card into the device. It goes into the slot that is impossible to miss and can only go in the right direction, so it is really foolproof. Try to get either a prepaid data SIM or one with a very low monthly data plan because the Flytrex Live 3G generates very little data traffic while you fly. If you would be flying all the time (which would be lovely, but not many of us get to do that actually), it would still only use something like 100 megabytes of traffic per month, so there is no way you run out of even the smallest package available. I bought a 1G monthly package, but you also have the option to just use your phone’s SIM card while you fly so you don’t need an extra subscription really. As a matter of fact, you don’t want to take calls while you fly anyway, so consider using your own SIM. If your SIM is a nano, you can still use a SIM card adapter that costs around $5.

Flying With The Flytrex Live 3G

 Ok, so now you are all set to go out and enjoy using your new black box. The one thing I realized is that it was really comforting to know that I can always find my quad in case it landed unexpectedly. In fact, I had a small emergency landing just a few days before I started using the Live 3G. I already had it installed and it was working, but I had no data SIM in the unit yet at that point. What happened is I was using an old battery which was still on something like 60% charge, but all the sudden I was receiving a low battery alert on my app. It was surprise and as the bird was out exploring at around 1500 feet away from me, the poor thing had no chance to head home. So what it did is it landed gently and was sitting there waiting for me to pick it up. The lucky part was that I was at my favorite airport (the on the map above) and could still see the Phantom sitting in the grass. It was just a white spot, but I still had line of sight, so I could just walk there and pick it up. If I would have done the flight towards another direction, I would have lost her. You can imagine I headed over to the cell phone carrier to buy the card right away. It will now cost me around $10 per month for 3 Gigabytes per month, but as the data traffic generated by the tracker is so little, I decided to buy it together with a pocket WiFi “router” so I can take advantage of the remainder of the data plan. I work out of cafe’s or even outdoors a lot, so it’s handy to always have my own WiFi with me.

Posting Your Flytrex Live 3G Flights on Social Platforms

Now you are airborne and your tracker is feeding your telemetry data live to the Flytrex cloud platform. One thing I did is I took my laptop with me, set it up to see my own account and checked how much lag there is compared to my live flight as I see the Phantom moving. It was surprisingly little actually. Anyhow, if you set the Live 3G up to automatically post your flights, they will appear on the social platform within the Flytrex site and your Facebook feed also. I just checked right now as I am writing this article and found a live flight in the UK. Here is what you can see based on Google maps:

flytrex live 3G review live flight

This is how others will see your live flight path and telemetry. Pretty nifty, right? After a flight is complete, they will still be available in your feed like this:

flytrex live 3G review posted flight

One thing you have to keep in mind that although your missions can be seen real time, the above post needs a little time to appear on your profile. In my case it was something like 10 to 15 minutes, so do not worry if you don’t see your flight appearing right away.

I am planning to write a full post for you guys on showing off your flight in social media, so I will not go into more detail on it here in this one. As you can imagine, there are badges for certain achievements and you can also share your flights in groups, etc. but more on that in the next post.

I hope you like this review and it provided you some useful insights into tracking and showing off your flights. If you would also like to get a Flytrex Live 3G, I have great news for you. Dronethusiast readers can now get a special $38 discount on the Live 3G! This way you can grab the black box for $151.99 instead of the regular $189.99 price tag.

Summary
Flytrex Introduces Black Box for Inspire 1 and Phantom 3
Article Name
Flytrex Introduces Black Box for Inspire 1 and Phantom 3
Description
Fyltrex Introduces Black Box for Inspire 1 and Phantom 3 quadcopters. Pre-order yours now!
Author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *