TelloFPV

iOS

For troubleshooting see last pages!

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Main screen

1- Open Menu

2- Short press: RTH / Return to home - Long Press: Set new Home position

3- Short press: Set Point of Interest (POI) – Long Press: Open POI dialog

4- Open autopilot and flight mode menu

5- Stop button: Tello stops immediately. – Rapidly tap 4 times for emergency motor stop (Tello
will fall!!)

6- Camera Exposure: Change camera exposure

7- Camera switch: Toggle between photo and video

8- Short press: Photo shutter or start/stop recording - Long press: Start Self Timer

9- Terrain mode: When active Tello keeps same altitude above ground and follow changes in
terrain profile

10- Home indicator: Shows direction towards the takeoff point

11- POI indicator: Shows direction towards the POI (if POI was set and POI is in view)

12- 360 autopilot – makes a 360 degree video in video mode or starts panorama photos in
photo mode

13- Joystick – Small red dot shows commands sent to drone (also for external controller and
autopilots)

14- Bird - Shows Tello’s orientation for pitch & roll

15- Speed Mode: „S“ - Sport, “V” – Video, “C” – Cine. Short press to toggle S/V, long press to
toggle V/C
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 16- Short press: Takeoff / Land – Long Press: Hand Takeoff / Hand land

Quick guide
How to connect
1) Put the phone into airplane mode to get best video quality to Tello

2) Re-Activate only Wifi and connect to the Tello wifi from the iOS settings

3) Open TelloFpv

If the phone is connected to Tello’s wifi but TelloFpv fails to connect please check app
permissions!

Take off & Land

You can use automatic takeoff or throw-takeoff procedure and also use manual motor start and
takeoff. To start the motors bring the left stick into the bottom-right position and the right stick into
bottom-left position. Tello’s motors will start but Tello will not take off. Use the throttle joystick to
control the take off and altitude.

For automatic takeoff short press the takeoff button in the bottom center. For throw-takeoff long
press the Takeoff button. The motors will start to spin slowly and a countdown starts, now toss
Tello gently into the air before the end of the countdown.

To land short press the central button, for hand landing long press the central button. You can also
land Tello with throttle joystick fully down.

Speedmodes: Sport, Video, Cine

Sport mode gives more direct control over the drone, has a video stream with a wider field of view
and no electronic image stabilization. This mode is suitable for FPV and zipping around, but videos
are very shaky.

Video mode features electronic image stabilization and a narrower field of view, and is a very
sedate mode and slowing down movement (and reaction) of Tello. Even if you release the stick
Tello continues to move into its direction of travel while slowly losing momentum, and only after it
has almost stopped the VPS controlled hover is activated.
These two modes and their behavior are part of the Tello firmware and not configurable.

Cine mode is used for smooth indoor recordings. This is a sub-mode of Video mode that is further
slowed down & smoothened so Tello has a max speed of around 2km/h or 1.5mph.
You can only enter Cine mode from Video mode for safety reasons, a direct switch from Sport not
Cine is not supported (but from Cine to Sport is). To engage Cine mode long press the
Speedmode while in Video mode.

Onscreen Joysticks
The red dots mark the control commands sent to Tello. Due to tuning of stick the commands sent
to Tello may be different from the stick position. If headless mode is active they may even move
into different directions.
The red dot also moves on external controller commands as well as autopilot commands.

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The onscreen joysticks can be configured to auto-hide if an external controller is connected. They
will atomatically show up if you touch the screen or if the controller disconnects.

Whenever the onscreen joysticks are in use they overrule the external controller. So in case the
controller goes mad or loses connection you can still use the onscreen joysticks. You may change
this priority in the controller settings, but this is only useful for teacher-student situations where the
student uses the phone and the teacher keeps the controller to make sure he can overrule the
student's inputs.

External Controllers
Please set “enable external controllers” in the controller settings page. Turn on the controller and
press the “Scan Now!” button. TelloFpv will automatically connect to the first controller it can
identify. This can be a Parrot Flypad, a Gamesir T1D, a Gamesir T1S or an existing gamepad that
is already connected and supported by iOS.
In future sessions TelloFpv will automatically connect this controller if its present.

The Gamesir T1S controller needs to be in iOS mode to work in TelloFpv. To activate this mode
press & hold the Y button while you turn on the controller. The Apple symbol in the center bay of
the controller will light up and blink. Once connected the Apple symbol will X Symbol will light up
instead.
For some obscure reason T1S will not work correctly if a USB cable is plugged in when it is turned
on.

Any controller other than Flypad, T1D and T1S controllers may only be used if the controller is
supported by iOS. Please connect such controller (using Bluetooth or cable) and check with a
gamepad tester app that it is working correctly. There are hundreds on the markets so please
understand that I can not provide support for such controllers. If a controller does not work in a
gamepad tester app it will not work in TelloFpv.

You can select the different controller modes (1-4) and map all kinds of functions to different
buttons in the controller settings page.

Please note:
Any Bluetooth controller will cause interference with the video feed. That is a nature of the
communication protocol chosen by Ryze and the best way to improve video is to not use anything
bluetooth. A Wifi extender amplifies the video signal so its more easily recognized from the
Bluetooth noise and reduces the negative effects. For best video a wired controller is
recommended – or no controller at all.

STOP button & Emergency Motor Stop

Video and cine modes are inherently slow to react, due to filtering of controls to smoothen the
moves. Tello does not actively stop like in sport mode, it slowly drifts to a halt before it hovers in
place.
To help with situations where you want to stop quickly use the STOP button. It will momentarily put
Tello into Sport mode and actively bring Tello to a halt. All controller input is ignored while this
button is pressed, and Tello just hovers in place. If Tello was in video mode before, this momentary
switch into sport mode will change the video output (this is tello’s firmware, not possible to
change).

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Emergency Motor Stop:
Sometimes there is a situation where you need an emergency motor cutoff. For example Tello
drifts away in a strong gust, and you’d prefer to see it fall down rather than watch it drift out over
some river.
To activate this rapidly tap the stop button 4 times. Tello will stop the motors and fall down. Each
press has to follow the previous one in under 250ms, so you only have 1s to press four times. So
it’s like hammering the button in panic.
Again: Tello will drop out of the sky immediately !! You will also loose wifi connection at that
moment as Tello will re-start.

Photo / Video
Photo and video are automatically added to the iOS media gallery. Please make sure you grant
access permissions when asked, otherwise this won’t work.

Photos can be in low or high quality. High quality has larger filesize and takes longer to download
from the drone. TelloFpv offers a self timer with configurable delay. Long press the shutter button
to start the timer.

Videos are plain 1280x720 mpg files. You can manually start the video recording, or TelloFpv will
automatically start if you are using an Autopilot while in video mode. There is an option to activate
automatic start of recording on takeoff.
Please note: If you switch from sport mode to video mode (or press PANIC while in video mode)
the video will change its field of view according to the video stream that Tello sends to the phone.
In video mode the video is stabilized, in sport mode and photo mode there is no image
stabilization. This a Tello Firmware setting and can’t be changed.

Home indicator
The home indicator always points into the direction to the point of takeoff. If this point is outside the
field of view the home indicator will rotate sideway to become an arrow showing the direction in
which to turn to bring it into the center. If you bring the home indicator into the center of the screen
and fly forward Tello will return home (just like the Return to home autopilot).
You may set a new home position by long pressing the RTH button while inflight.

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VPS –Positioning without a GPS
Tello does not have GPS or compass but it carries a VPS – Visual Positioning System to provide
position data. The position data provided is always relative to the takeoff position. Without GPS
and compass Tello has no information about it’s true position nor true direction. But even with this
limitation the information provided can be very useful for autopilots to drive Tello back to the takeoff
point, circle a user-defined position, etc.

VPS is a vision based system which depends on the input of a down-facing camera at Tello’s
bottom. It is very accurate if Tello flies relatively slow in moderate altitude in no wind with good
light. Basically the down-facing sensor needs a good view of a ground with an identifiable pattern.
VPS becomes less accurate –and more likely to fail completely- on higher altitudes, higher speeds,
or stronger winds, or uniform grounds. There is nothing an app like TelloFPV can do to improve the
accuracy of the data coming from Tello. If Tello does for example not return to the exact takeoff
point it’s because VPS is confused and not because TelloFpv fails to execute the RTH command
correctly.

The VPS sensor requires a clear surface pattern to identify position, speed, direction, and even
altitude. If the surface itself is in move (grass in some wind, bodies of water, waves washing up a
beach) the VPS is deactivated until Tello flies above solid ground again. In very low light conditions
VPS may also be deactivated. If the surface itself is reflecting (polished granite tiles), uniform
(single color carpet or pavement) VPS gets confused and either reports wrong positions or is
deactivated. Another reason is exceeding the maximum altitude limit by taking off at some height
or flying over cliffs, flying alongside tall buildings, and flying low over trees. VPS will get confused if
Tello can’t make sense of the view it has from above because limbs and ground move differently.

These are inherent limitations of a VPS and cannot be solved by any app. If you need GPS like
accuracy Tello is inadequate choice - you have to buy a GPS drone.

Please note:
If the VPS is deactivated Tello won’t be able to hold its position and will drift in the wind. After
about 3 seconds Tello will try to auto-land!
If VPS is confused the home-position as well as positions concerning Point of Interest (POIs)
become inaccurate or just plain wrong. To reset fly back home manually and long press the home
button to set a new home position.

Autopilots:
All autopilot functions rely on the data provided by the onboard Visual Positioning System (VPS). If
VPS fails or is confused the autopilots will disengage, or go into the wrong direction. There is
nothing TelloFpv can do about this, as it has to completely rely on the data provided by Tello’s
sensors. VPS is not a GPS and can fail in many situations.
All autopilot features are controlled by the app based on data received from Tello’s onboard
sensors.
If you lose connection to Tello the drone just stops and hovers in place as per it’s firmware! There
is no magic “return to home” upon connection loss or in case VPS switched off!

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Whenever you use any stick that is not intended for user input during execution the autopilot this
will disengage immediately.
You can watch the autopilots do their job: the red dots in the onscreen controls show the
commands sent to Tello in realtime.

RTH - Return to home

Activated by short press on the home button. This autopilot will bring Tello back to the home
position in a straight line. The “home” position refers to the point of takeoff, or you can manually set
a new “home” position by long pressing the RTH button.

Once RTH is activated Tello will check the minimum RTH altitude defined in the RTH settings,
climb as required, at the same time turn into the direction of the home position and travel towards
the destination using a speed defined in the settings. Once arrived Tello descends to 1m, and may
automatically land (option in the RTH settings).

RTH will bring Tello back within ~20cm of where Tello thinks (!) the home point is. Again, this can
only work within the limitations of the VPS! Please don’t expect magic wonders: Accuracy after a
minute of slow flying over an easily recognizable surface should be within a meter, but after ten
minutes going fast in high altitude the calculated point of takeoff may be several meters away from
the real point, or even worse.
If the VPS was deactivated or confused Tello may be pretty much clueless where to go - so always
make sure you check direction first.

As mentioned all Autopilots require a working wifi connection between phone and Tello. However
the video link is typically far more delicate than the more robust control link. Often (but not always!)
video will stutter, get pixelated or stop before you lose control. As long as VPS data is consistent
and there is some data connection the RTH autopilot should bring Tello back towards home even if
you can’t see the video stream anymore.

POI – Point of Interest

Points of Interest are used to mark a spot that you are interested in. You set a POI marker at some
place you are interested in, then fly to a distance and use the Circle POI autopilot to circle around
this point, or use the POI Lock autopilot to lock heading towards the POI. It is of utmost importance
to get the position of the POI correct, or your video shots won’t look good because the POI is not in
the center of the screen.

The best way is to fly directly above the POI, then short press the “flag” button (next to RTH button)
to drop a POI marker at the current position. Then fly back to some distance to activate the
autopilot you want to use.
If you short press a second time (without moving much) the POI will be cleared.

How to set POIs which you can’t fly over, like towers or large buildings:
Fly as close as you can to the POI, with the drone facing the center of the point you are interested
in. Estimate the distance between drone and the POI center. Then long press the “flag” button to
open a dialog where you can enter the distance.

Available Autopilots
Autopilots are invoked via the Autopilot menu button “...”. Most open a small dialog where you can

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enter parameters for the autopilot, like distances, speeds, and a countdown timer. Parameters are
saved between sessions.

The following autopilots are available:

• RTH- Return to home

• Circle POI – Circle around a POI

• LOCK POI – You can move tello around and the heading automatically points towards the
POI

• Dronie – Fly up & away, followed by an optional 360 video

• Boomerang – Fly up & away, followed by an optional 360 video, then return to the starting
point

• Orbit – Fly up & away, followed by a circle around the starting point

• Pano 360 – Rotates slowly to create a panoramic video or does a number of photos to
create a panorama

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Menu functions
• Settings
There are a host of settings available from the main menu

• VR Mode
Opens the VR split-screen mode which can be used in standard VR googles

• Gravity calibration (only available in flight)

Adjust the flight controller parameters to changes in thrust (age & wear, propeller changes,
prop guards, etc).
Tello should hover in a place with good natural light, no turbulence and no wind. Ideally this
is executed in the middle of a large room in around 2m altitude.
During calibration the LED at the front of Tello will light solid purple. The process takes 10-
15s, when finished the LED will start to blink normally.

• Wifi Settings
Allows you to change Tello’s wifi settings (SSID and password). After changing these
parameters Tello is rebooted and you have to manually connect to Tello’s new wifi

Controller mapping
You can map the buttons of external controllers to many different functions. From flips over self
timer to Rate Boost.

The app recognizes short and long button press separately. You can use the same button for two
functions, like “Shortpress X” for shutter and “longpress X” for self timer. Or “shortpress Y” for RTH,
and “longpress Y” to set a new home position.

The following functions each require a button of their own because they operate on a push-button
basis (the function is on while the button is pressed, off when button is released):

• Panic / stop function - causes Tello to stop & hover in place

• Rate limit -temporarily reduces stick output, for smoother moves while staying in the same
speedmode

• Rate Boost -temporarily doubles stick output, for quicker moves while staying in the same
speedmode

• Cruise Control – Tello continues to travel towards the direction when activated while the
user can freely rotate the drone

Video settings
• Bitrate
The level of detail in the video depends on the bitrate. Higher values allow for more details
but at the same time the video feed becomes more fragile and suspect to corruption. A
corrupted video stream shows pixelated areas or garbage on the screen.

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 Lower values show less details but the video stream is more robust, and does not need to
be repaired as often.
If you have a perfect wifi link with no interference and want to record video chose3- 4Mbps.
If you expect an instable wifi link, chose a lower bitrate, especially for long distance FPV
“Auto” starts at 4Mb but drops the bitrate as the Wifi link quality is reduced over longer
distances. Manual settings give better results in my view.

• IFrame interval
As mentioned the video stream gets corrupted from time to time. In a noisy office
environment and when using a BT controller this may happen several times a second, in a
rural area without any interference maybe once every ten seconds. It’s a normal thing for a
video protocol like the one Tello uses.
TelloFpv identifies most corruptions and asks Tello for a new IFrame automatically to repair
the stream. But sometimes a corruption goes unnoticed and will cause some pixel garbage
on the screen until a new IFrame arrives, either because a new corruption is detected or
because the Iframe period is over. So the longer the IFrame period, the longer the garbage
can stay on the video.
In theory a low IFrame interval would be the solution, however each IFrame causes the
video to blur momentarily because an Iframe is a low resolution image that sharpens only
as subsequent frames arrive.
For really smooth and sharp video in a low interference environment you may try IFrame
rates up 10 or more seconds, or you may even switch periodic Iframes off completely. In
that case you can request a new Iframe manually by pressing the “Corruption indicator”.
That is of course only possible if the indicator is switched on in the settings.
For long distance FPV it is suggested to use low IFrame intervals and low bitrate as the
stream breaks up very often, and video stability trumps video quality in this case.

Video quality tips

First: Tello isn’t a 4k camera drone so don’t expect perfect videos. Video transmission isn’t the
best, is affected by RF noise including nearby Bluetooth and recovery from stream corruption just
isn’t the comparable with large drones. Check Tello footage on Youtube to understand what quality
level is possible in good conditions.

That said video quality in TelloFpv should be as good as or a bit better than the original Ryze Tello
app under the same conditions. If not something is wrong. There is no “Best settings for video” as it
depends on the conditions you are in, amount of interference, quality of the phones antennas, etc.
The default settings are a good start, though.

It is essential to put the phone into airplane mode, and re-activate only wifi to connect to Tello.
Both Bluetooth and cellular cause continued interference otherwise, which will cause low video
quality. Even if you have to activate Bluetooth to use an external controller you still should put the
phone in airplane mode first, and activate only Bluetooth and wifi. Some phone ROMs have a
background task that will otherwise cause some lag.

Most issues with video stream / recording cause the video stream to stutter, the recorded video to
jump, or introduces blurred / pixelated areas of the screen. In almost all circumstances these
issues are due to low wifi connection quality between phone and drone. Even a good wifi
connection can be disturbed by RF noise, most notably Bluetooth. So stay away from all RF

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sources, and turn off anything that uses Bluetooth (smartwatch, fitness tracker, headset, …). Make
sure to turn off the phone’s Bluetooth unless you really have to use it!

Overall it is hard to get good video quality in an office setting or a residential area. It’s much easier
outdoors.
Even outdoors sometimes seemingly innocent things like lamp posts can be a source for lots of
interference (old transformers, early LED converters, etc all emit a lot of RF noise)

Tips to get best results:

• Switch your phone into flight mode to turn off all RF emission

• Activate only Wifi and connect to Tello's wifi

• Make sure BT on the phone is switched off, as even if no device is connected it will disturb
the video feed

• Put away bluetooth / wifi accessories (fitness trackers, smart watches, PC, mouse,
keyboard …)

• Fly in an area with little interference (no wifi or Bluetooth sources)

• Use a wifi range extender, this really improves link quality significantly!
Place it a few meters away from you. Your phone and controller are a major source of
interference (especially if you use a bluetooth controller) and the repeater needs a signal
with as little noise as possible

• If you want to use a controller choose a wired controller connected via USB OTG adapter
over a Bluetooth controller.

• Bluetooth controllers are more flexible to use but not recommended for good video quality.
Bluetooth transmissions cause lost data packets which result in corruptions of the video
stream, which is then repaired but that repair takes time. The result is obscured video
showing artifacts, or stuttering because Tello has trouble to keep up repairing the stream
data.

• Make sure you don’t have jello!

Jello (aka “rolling shutter effect”) is a “warping” / wave / rippling effect visible in the videos.
Not only does it look bad, it also massively reduces the amount of detail in a video. The
video link is compressed by slicing the frame into tiny sections and encoding all movement
of these sections. Each tiny movement requires encoding time and bandwidth. The less
sections move, the less bandwidth is used for encoding movements, and the more
bandwidth is left for enriching these sections with additional detail. So reduce Jello to get
better details!
Jello is caused by caused by vibrations of the camera, so anything that causes vibrations
provokes jello and reduces details:
* Use good / new props
* Take off the prop guards
* Don’t record in strong winds
* Check your motors for misaligned / bent shafts
* Increase exposure time (less light, or add an ND filter)

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• Adjust video settings according to your environment and your intentions (video recording,
FPV, long distance FPV)

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App Notifcations
• Connecting to Tello

• Your phone is not connected to Tello’s wifi. You may press the wifi signal strength indicator
in the bottom bar to open the Android wifi selection dialog.

• Low light
There is not enough light for Tello to reliably position the drone using the VPS. All autopilots
will be somewhat inaccurate.

• VPS inactive
VPS has switched off, because of low light conditions, indistinguishable /monochrome
ground surface, reflecting surfaces, moving ground like water or grass, etc. Fly over solid
ground in good light conditions
Note: This also happens if the bottom camera is dirty, or if old / wrong props cause
vibrations!
The same message is shown if the wifi link is very weak and no VPS data is received for
some time.

• Wifi interference
Tello flies near a source of wifi interference (not necessarily Wifi, could also be some other
source of RF noise like a bad transformer).

• Wifi signal weak

Shown if Wifi signal drops below 40dB. Fly closer to your smartphone

• Battery low
One of the batteries is low. Warning threshold for the drone battery is configured in the
settings. Warning threshold for phone is fixed at 10%

• Landing…
Under some conditions Tello may decide by itself to initiate a landing. This happens on low
battery as well as VPS inactivity and possibly other error conditions. Most landings can be
cancelled by pressing the “Cancel Landing” button at the bottom or by pushing the throttle
stick. There is also an option available to auto-cancel landings. Some forced autolandings
(e.g. critically low battery) can’t be cancelled.

• Altitude limit
You are approaching the altitude limit defined in the settings

• Geofence reached
You are approaching the geofence limit defined in the settings

• Tello tilted
Most likely tello has crashed, or sits on a sloping surface

• Overheated, shutting down

Tello has overheated and is shutting down. If this error is shown Tello will inevitably shut
down

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• Battery problem
Tello reported error code 203 indicating some issue with the battery

• IMU calibration required

Tello reports that an IMU calibration is required. This needs to be done in the Ryze stock
app, please follow the instructions provided by Ryze

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Trouble shooting
App does not connect to the drone

• You have to manually connect to Tello’s wifi from the iOS settings, iOS does not allow app
to manage the wifi connections

• If connected to wifi but the app still does not connect you have not granted network
privilege. Please go into iOS app settings, select TelloFpv and grant network access

Photos / Videos are not stored, app mentions missing privileges

• Please go into iOS app settings, select TelloFpv and grant access to photo gallery

Video feed on screen looks distorted or has black bars at the side

• Tello sends different video aspect ratios, for video mode it’s 16:9 and for photo mode 4:3.
You can optionally stretch the video to fit the screen, see UI settings. Depending on your
phone’s display aspect ratio this will distort the image.

Gamesir T1d / Flypad are not found

• Make sure the controller is not paired or in use by any other app or device.

• Please go into iOS app settings, select TelloFpv and grant Bluetooth privileges

The gamepad controller doesn’t work, one of the gamepad buttons / sticks doesn’t work

• Try a gamepad tester app. Make sure the controller works reliably in the tester app.
If it doesn’t work in a tester app there is nothing TelloFpv can do to make it work. TelloFpv
does not come with drivers for special controllers.

VPS is frequently shown as inactive

• If TelloFpv shows such message frequently then Tello’s VPS has a problem. Please clean
the down-facing camera with a soft brush or pressurized air. Vibrations from prop guards,
broken / bent arms, old or modified propellers can cause this, too. Use only original OEM
propellers in good shape. If vibrations persist it may also be a bent motor shaft. Examine
closely and repair as required.
TelloFpv does not generate any such messages and is not the reason for such messages.
It only displays messages that Tello itself reports.

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