It wasn’t that long ago that word on the street suggested that some drones have zero latency video transmission. Even some drone companies at CES 2017 suggested that their drone had zero latency. While it is a nice thought, the reality is that every signal needs time to be transferred regardless if it’s at 2.4 GHZ or 5.8 GHZ. The only real zero latency one can have is with a mirror. Even so, light can take a time to travel to the mirror surface and reflect back. However, light speed is so fast, you would never notice any time lapse.
We decided to put this “theory” to the test and check out the video transmission latency on some of the drones we have here. Check this out:
The first observation was that the Inspire 2 has less latency than the P4P. Compared to the Phantom 4 Pro and the Phantom 3 Pro, such a small difference was really unexpected. With built-in and optimized video latency reduced a tiny bit, your chances probably to spot the difference is slim.
Why Video Transmission Latency Is Important?
The answer is simple: the less video latency, the earlier you will be able to spot the obstacle and make a decision to avoid it. Of course, Phantom 4 Pro and Inspire 2 have the Obstacle Avoidance, but on a drone like Phantom 3 Pro, you may want to know about these details. High video latency of 0.5 of a second can actually lead to a crash. In general, most drones that are using Wi-Fi for the video transmission tend to transfer the images with greater delay.
Thank you very much for reading! Hope your video transmission will always be smooth and you will never ever crash!
