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It's not you, it's me

Hello fellow aviators,
After my son lost my Phantom FC40 in 300ft of water, I have decided to let it rest in peices and not to send my son down to fetch it, and have grounded him (for life) instead. So the positive is I could justify the cost to my Wife for that I neexex a new drone and for once she agreed with me!!!
Since I use GoPro for training videos it made sense to go for Karma. However, I am really concerned that so few people have one. Therefore, the Karma is either the Rolls-Royce of drones and the masses are jealous or I've made a huge error and have people who willb point and laugh when I bring it out.
Can anyone reassure me I have done the right thing or has my choice made me a classic-Dick?
Many Thanks for your time in replying and I'm also new to this UAV malarkey, so please be gentle with me.


There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old & bold pilots.
Hummingbird Media Productions


DON'T DO IT!! You'll end up in the same boat (maybe literally) when you watch this karma also crash to its death, possibly in water like we did and GoPro will not help you even if you have a warranty.

I’ve never been more infuriated and disappointed in a brand. Poor quality product and worst customer service team I have ever encountered!!! In case it's helpful, here's our story: We purchased this drone bundle prior to our honeymoon in hopes to use it many more times as we began our family. After only having it for less than 6 months, that was cut short. We took every precaution in configuring it correctly before our last flight, got the green light to go and after only minutes of flying it, the device said it was losing wi-fi connection, which triggered its autopilot mode. During its auto-flight back to us it, it lost control and crashed into a pond below it (that it had autopiloted over). I didn't realize until after, but in reading and researching further, this is actually a common problem. Because it relies on wi-fi it's extremely unreliable and can fall from the sky or hit objects in its path during the autoflight back pretty regularly. And when it does, GoPro refuses to take any accountability so you will not get your money back, even if you have a warranty on it.

We spent hours trying to retrieve it, but could not and deemed it too dangerous to attempt again and near impossible to find any ways. We contacted customer service to see what our options were since we had a two year warranty on it and were only met with robotic responses, a refusal to take any accountability and blame towards us as their consumers, with no real reasonable logic. There was absolutely nothing we could have done differently given the resources that GoPro had provided to have avoided that outcome. When prying to ask to see the flight logs they said they were confidential and would not share them with me, yet used that as an excuse to say that they decided it was not their fault. The main thing they used to blame it on user error was by saying we didn’t properly avoid the possible “wi-fi interference objects” and then they provided a list of objectives you should avoid when flying. The ONLY applicable object in this case was water! Yes, water! So all those advertisements you see on this page and throughout their website and other marketing materials with water on it, turns out you can’t actually do what they are falsely advertising and we should have known that as consumers!!!! For goodness sake, their main video has a man literally launch the karma drone off of his kayak in the middle of the ocean!!! But I should have known to not fly nearby a cranberry bog reservoir!? After months of arguing and being pushed from one terrible customer service representative to another, they offered to replace the least expensive parts, still requiring us to invest $700 for those parts to even work, and spend more money with a brand we no longer could trust. After even more arguing they offered a jokeable 20% discount. And finally, I spoke with an extremely rude and condescending customer service “supervisor”, who by no means should be in this business, that basically sternly told me to give up, take the discount and that they wouldn’t do anything else even if we found it. For a brand that thrives off of human experiences and leverages happy life milestones, they certainly ruined our honeymoon (all our footage was lost) and our babymoon, which we had hoped to use this on as well and were still arguing with them about, and did not deliver the least bit enjoyable customer service experience. I would NOT RECOMMEND buying products from this company unless you are okay wasting your money when they prematurely break and do not anticipate any understanding from the manufacturer. I hope this saves someone months of frustration in dealing with this company and some money.
 
DON'T DO IT!! You'll end up in the same boat (maybe literally) when you watch this karma also crash to its death, possibly in water like we did and GoPro will not help you even if you have a warranty.

I’ve never been more infuriated and disappointed in a brand. Poor quality product and worst customer service team I have ever encountered!!! In case it's helpful, here's our story: We purchased this drone bundle prior to our honeymoon in hopes to use it many more times as we began our family. After only having it for less than 6 months, that was cut short. We took every precaution in configuring it correctly before our last flight, got the green light to go and after only minutes of flying it, the device said it was losing wi-fi connection, which triggered its autopilot mode. During its auto-flight back to us it, it lost control and crashed into a pond below it (that it had autopiloted over). I didn't realize until after, but in reading and researching further, this is actually a common problem. Because it relies on wi-fi it's extremely unreliable and can fall from the sky or hit objects in its path during the autoflight back pretty regularly. And when it does, GoPro refuses to take any accountability so you will not get your money back, even if you have a warranty on it.

We spent hours trying to retrieve it, but could not and deemed it too dangerous to attempt again and near impossible to find any ways. We contacted customer service to see what our options were since we had a two year warranty on it and were only met with robotic responses, a refusal to take any accountability and blame towards us as their consumers, with no real reasonable logic. There was absolutely nothing we could have done differently given the resources that GoPro had provided to have avoided that outcome. When prying to ask to see the flight logs they said they were confidential and would not share them with me, yet used that as an excuse to say that they decided it was not their fault. The main thing they used to blame it on user error was by saying we didn’t properly avoid the possible “wi-fi interference objects” and then they provided a list of objectives you should avoid when flying. The ONLY applicable object in this case was water! Yes, water! So all those advertisements you see on this page and throughout their website and other marketing materials with water on it, turns out you can’t actually do what they are falsely advertising and we should have known that as consumers!!!! For goodness sake, their main video has a man literally launch the karma drone off of his kayak in the middle of the ocean!!! But I should have known to not fly nearby a cranberry bog reservoir!? After months of arguing and being pushed from one terrible customer service representative to another, they offered to replace the least expensive parts, still requiring us to invest $700 for those parts to even work, and spend more money with a brand we no longer could trust. After even more arguing they offered a jokeable 20% discount. And finally, I spoke with an extremely rude and condescending customer service “supervisor”, who by no means should be in this business, that basically sternly told me to give up, take the discount and that they wouldn’t do anything else even if we found it. For a brand that thrives off of human experiences and leverages happy life milestones, they certainly ruined our honeymoon (all our footage was lost) and our babymoon, which we had hoped to use this on as well and were still arguing with them about, and did not deliver the least bit enjoyable customer service experience. I would NOT RECOMMEND buying products from this company unless you are okay wasting your money when they prematurely break and do not anticipate any understanding from the manufacturer. I hope this saves someone months of frustration in dealing with this company and some money.

WoW! That's a hell of a bad experience and I empathise with loosing all your honeymoon footage. That has to be devastating!
I have been on here & had useful advice & encouragement, read the books, used the simulator and yeah I was confused with the "don't fly where there are other wifi networks". I don't think there's any where other than the remote Highlands that there isn't 'wifi networks'. I figured that was a 'get out clause' for almost anything that could go wrong. I was recommended to invest in a Range Extender and will certainly be doing that now.
I really appreciate your experience and I am sure everyone here will feel for you. It could always be a good excuse to have a second honeymoon?


There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old & bold pilots.
Hummingbird Media Productions
 
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Well I like it for the camera, it’s still one of the best cameras on a sub- 1,000 drone.
However, I’ve added the antenna booster to my controller which I believe helps 100%. Not using it professionally but you can pick them up cheap right now. However , I would add the antenna booster!


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Could you please tell me where did you got the antenna booster? I have seen them for 100$ and that doesn’t seem cheap for an antenna
 
Yes, they are in amazon and eBay, yes they are $100 but worth it!


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Yes, they are in amazon and eBay, yes they are $100 but worth it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I saw on this on eBay at;
$109 (okay there's no suppliers in [emoji636])
+ Delivery $14 (very fair I thought [emoji106])
+ US Tax $30!!! (What the actual [emoji90]?)! Is that a Trump thing? [emoji1412]‍♂️[emoji631]
Anyway I know you are passionate about this, so I took your advice and ordered it (only 4 left). Now I have to convince my wife to wait until next month for a birthday present... It's okay, I get a decent sleep on the couch... [emoji15][emoji17][emoji22][emoji24]


There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old & bold pilots.
Hummingbird Media Productions
 
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Reactions: Billybob
Is the range extender just plug and play or do you need an engineering degree to install it?
 
There is a long thread on this someplace. It is fairly simple to install, just takes a little care. Is same price direct from supplier. Is actually two patch style antennas. Remember transmitting on one and re diving on one and the 2x bigger than stock which just means double gain or so. Is d__n good “insurance. Pleas find old thread


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Try here. Wifi extender/repeater for Karma.
Wifi extender/repeater for Karma.


I did a little fix that is documented here to make installation at least more reliable.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I saw on this on eBay at;
$109 (okay there's no suppliers in [emoji636])
+ Delivery $14 (very fair I thought [emoji106])
+ US Tax $30!!! (What the actual [emoji90]?)! Is that a Trump thing? [emoji1412]‍♂️[emoji631]
Anyway I know you are passionate about this, so I took your advice and ordered it (only 4 left). Now I have to convince my wife to wait until next month for a birthday present... It's okay, I get a decent sleep on the couch... [emoji15][emoji17][emoji22][emoji24]


There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old & bold pilots.
Hummingbird Media Productions


Hope it works for you. I’ve had no instances of signal loss after installing it.

Good luck with it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
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Reactions: Hummingbird

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