FreeFlight Is Buggy
However, not all is good with FreeFlight. Remember that flight that I showed you with the flight profile in the lower right hand corner? This flight ended in a crash when a bug in FreeFlight reared its ugly head: the video and controls inverted on the screen midflight, causing me to lose control and hit a tree. It appears that the IOS6 version has an issue with undesired screen rotation mid flight. In addition, the wifi performance in the IOS6 version is much worse than the prior release, causing the drone to lose contact with the control device after it gets about 15 feet away from you. Normally, losing wifi lock will cause the drone to fly back towards you, but in this version, it keeps flying in the current direction which can be a problem if you are flying near a building or tree. I suspect an issue with the device firmware on the wifi and flyaway issues, but really can’t be sure.
This review was delayed as I wanted to see if Parrot could resolve the bugs in FreeFlight, but with each release, new bugs have been apparent. This mars an otherwise very fun experience. I have not tried this app on Android since the Academy feature is not present, but the last three releases of FreeFlight on IOS have not been matched on the Android side, and judging from the issues being noted on the support forum, I can’t recommend Android for you without calling Parrot and asking if your device is supported. And that is a bummer.
Customer Support
The bad news keeps on coming here. I had an issue with the Academy on the iPad, and sent an email to Parrot’s support people asking for help. Actually, I sent two, via the website contact form. Neither were ever acknowledged or answered, which is not acceptable to me.
I also posted up on the support forum, where there are helpful users and a few mods answering questions. As well as plenty of Polish and Russian spammers posting photos and ads for various and sundry things. There is next to no moderation of the support forum, meaning that I spend about half of my time there reporting spam, and not getting or providing answers to other users. Unfortunately, the spam is so bad that only 10 users or so are actively posting, rendering the support forum nearly useless.
Unfortunately, unless you have a warranty issue that they have to respond to by law, you are pretty much on your own. Parrot’s customer support is woeful. Now to be fair, the mods that have responded to me (after I flamed them in a direct message, by the way), were professional, courteous and helpful, but not responding to support requests and not properly moderating the support forum is just not acceptable.
Overall Evaluation
I’ve struggled a bit with this review. On the one hand, flying this device is a pure joy. Look at this video that I captured from about 80 feet above my neighborhood:
A hot air balloon was landing in a neighbor’s yard and I caught it by accident on the way down. Now how cool is that?
Also, this device is a real crowd pleaser. My neighbors have all asked for stick time, and they came away impressed with the ease of flight controls and the video capture capability.
However, the poor Android support, buggy mobile apps and lack of proper customer support can not be overlooked.
Overall, I give this a 3/5 rating. Fixing the Android support and resolving the iOS bugs quickly would raise this to a 5/5 rating, even though the support is woeful. That is how much I like to fly this device.
If you are on iOS and love to fly, this is a device that is right up your alley and I’d buy one, warts and all. If you are on Android, place a call to Parrot before you buy to make sure that your device will be supported. And don’t be surprised when something does not work right. But when it does work, oh what fun this can be to use!
