You are able to control a drone from inside your house, as most consumer level drones have a range of several miles from the remote control. Flying the drone from inside a building will likely cut down on your range and it is also likely not legal if you cannot maintain line of sight with the drone while it is flying.
What is the Range of My Drone?
A consumer drone can have a range anywhere between 90 feet to almost 20 miles. Obviously, this covers a broad spectrum of drones and the range on your drone could fall anywhere in this estimate. So let’s get specific on the range of a number of drones. The list below goes from the shortest range to the longest, based on the manufacturer specs. Your real world experience will probably be different.
- Syma X5C – 98 feet (30 meters)
- DJI Tello – 550 feet (170 meters)
- Yuneec Typhoon H Plus – 1 mile (1.6 kilometers)
- DJI Inspire 1 – 1.2 miles (2 kilometers)
- DJI Mavic Air – 2.5 miles (4 kilometers)
- Parrot Anafi – 2.5 miles (4 kilometers)
- DJI Phantom 4 Pro – 4.3 miles (7 kilometers)
- DJI Mavic Pro – 4.3 Miles (7 kilometers)
- DJI Inspire 2 – 4.3 miles (7 kilometers)
- Autel Evo – 4.3 Miles (7 kilometers)
- DJI Matrice 300 – 9.3 miles (15 kilometers)
- DJI Mavic Pro 2 – 11 Miles (18 kilometers)
- DJI Mavic Air 2 – 11.49 miles (18.5 kilometers)
Keep in mind though, that while many of these drones have flight ranges of several miles, in the United States you are required to fly your drone within an unaided visual line of sight. This requirement is to ensure that the drone pilot has their actual eyes on the drone and helps to keep all air traffic (manned and unmanned) in the national airspace safe.
This means that while your drone probably has the technical ability to fly very far, there isn’t a situation yet where that range will be of any use to you. Eventually, the FAA will provide rules on flying beyond line of sight, right now you would be required to get a waiver of the line of sight rule and these are notoriously difficult to obtain.
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What Factors Affect How Far a Drone Can Fly?
There are a number of different factors that will affect how far your drone will fly. Like we discussed above, each drone comes with a rating from the manufacturer for how far the drone is capable of flying and transmitting video. But there are a number of factors that can affect the range of a drone, including the frequency used by the controller, the drone antenna, any interference and the position of the controller and the drone.
Frequency of the Controller
When you really think about it, a radio wave are just a way to communicate. A drone controller uses radio frequencies to communicate with the drone. Because radio waves are invisible waves, the length of the wave has a lot to do with the range that the wave travels. Lower frequency waves tend to have greater range than higher frequency waves. Typically consumer drones use frequencies between 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz to control the drone. The frequency that your drone uses will affect how far it will fly before losing signal to control it.
Drone Antenna
Another factor is the antenna on your drone controller. The antenna on your controller will obviously transmit using a frequency that your drone also uses, but the type and size of the antenna can also have an affect on the range of your drone.
Additionally, the position of your drone antenna matters and if they are able to be moved on the controller, this can have a really big impact on your drone range. Ideally, you want the drone antenna to be fanned out from one another so that they can properly transmit a strong signal.
Interference
Another factor affecting how far your drone can fly is interference. If you are in an area with a lot of trees, buildings, or mountains, these obstacles will interfere with distance that the signal on your drone will travel. And this makes sense. If you are in the middle of a field, there is nothing to reflect the signal of the drone. But if you are in the forest, the radio signal will have to penetrate each tree and branch, which will cut down on the distance that radio wave can travel.
Another type of interference is electromagnetic interference. This can easily be pictured by thinking about using an old TV with an antenna. Most of the time the signal received by the TV will be less than perfect, and this causes the picture and audio quality to degrade. Things that can cause electromagnetic interference include ignition systems, cell phone networks, lightning, or solar flares. In fact, this type of interference is exactly how radio frequency jammers work. The existence of any of these things can also cause interference with the frequency used to control your drone and will affect the range your drone can fly.
Position of the Controller and Drone
This factor kind of brings all of the other factors together in that it looks at the location of the controller in relation to the drone, but also takes into account the frequency used by the drone, the position of the antenna, and any interference that exists between the drone and controller. If you think about it, the existence of trees or mountains near where you are flying probably don’t matter much unless they are positioned between your controller and your drone. Having a direct and unobscured line between your drone and your controller will make the most difference, which is another reason that flying within your line of sight is so important.
What Happens if I fly my Drone Beyond its Range?
The good news is that if you fly your drone beyond the range of your controller, it will likely continue to stay where it is until it receives a signal to do something else. This is good news because even if you are flying a drone without a return to home feature, you can probably just move closer to the drone until you gain control of it again.
If your drone does have a return to home feature, the drone will probably prompt you to have the drone return to home whenever it loses signal. Not only do you not have to move from where you are located, you can generally be sure that the drone is actively working its way back to its takeoff position.
Another benefit of the return to home feature is that most drones allow you to set the altitude at which the drone will fly back to home. If you are flying in an area with obstacles, the last thing you want to do is to have your drone return home at a low altitude and crash into a tree (or worse) when it does this. This feature will save you that hassle.
