DJI Goggles Integra and Motion 2 – First Flight and First Impressions

Good day, folks! Shawn here from Air Photography. In today’s video, we’re going to be taking a look at the new Integra goggles that DJI has released and the new Motion 2 controller. I must apologize for the delay in getting this video out; life’s been a little crazy. I’m in the middle of packing and moving right now, but finally, I have a nice day with good weather, so we can get out and test them.

Just to give you some details, in case you’re not aware of these—which I’m sure everybody is by now—there have been some changes with these Integra goggles. They’re a little bit cheaper, coming in at $499, making them more affordable for some people.

The main differences include a built-in battery at the back, which is integrated—hence the name. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that yet. I think it’ll be fine, but if you’re a person who does a lot of flying in one day, that could be an issue because this battery is not replaceable. I have read that you can plug a power bank into it, and that will provide some extra power, but that is something I have to test out.

They have a nice little dial system at the back here to loosen and tighten it, and it actually works quite well. At the top, we now have an optional strap. You can wear it if you want, and it does take a little bit of pressure off the cheekbones when wearing the goggles. Personally, I like it on there; I think it fits quite well.

The fit of them is about the same, and the shape is exactly the same. For me, that’s good because the Goggles 2 fit me like a glove. It’s like they were tailor-made for my face! I actually really like them. Some people have problems with the fit, and I will admit they do put quite a bit of pressure on the nose. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe out of your nose because they pinch a little bit, but I really like the fit and the way they feel. That top head strap here actually really helps because, when you have a lot of weight on your cheekbones, it can distort your vision a bit, so that’s one thing to keep in mind.

The other thing that’s different is we still have the interpupillary distance adjusters, but we don’t have the diopters where you can adjust for your vision. Instead, DJI has included lenses in the box.

Myself, I have a -2 in one eye and a -1.75 in the other eye. I also have astigmatism, so they don’t really help with that. I just put -2 on both, and you know, they look pretty good at that. Unfortunately, if you have ordered custom lenses like those from Hans VR, they are not compatible with these goggles, so just keep that in mind. They do have new ones available on their website. I have a set on order, so it should be here later this week or early next week, and I will be doing a review of them.

Some other differences include the field of view on the Integra goggles, which is 44 degrees, while on the Goggles 2, it’s 51 degrees. I’m not quite sure what difference that is going to make; I’ll be testing that out when I do a test flight here in a minute, but I don’t think it’s going to make all that much difference.

This set of goggles doesn’t have the trackpad on the side; it went back to that joystick and button, which I actually prefer myself. I find that the touchpad on my Goggles 2, I was constantly touching it and moving things the wrong way and changing settings accidentally, so I actually prefer that.

GPS Built-In to the DJI Integra Goggles

There’s no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so you can’t do any type of streaming. But one big thing is that these have GPS built into them now. I cannot test that because I’m in Canada, and we don’t have Remote ID here. But now, because these have GPS in them, you no longer have to plug a phone into your goggles if you want to fly the DJI Avata, which is going to be a really nice feature for some people. I think that was a good move on DJI’s part. Unfortunately, I wish they had done that with the Goggles 2 as well.

The other thing is that these antennas are a little bit longer, not by much, but a little bit. Some people are saying they’re getting better range. I can’t verify that yet. I am going to do a range test with the two different goggles to see if there’s any difference, not in this video, but I will be doing that today as well. So keep an eye out for that video if you’re interested in that. They seem like a really nice pair of goggles, and I think a lot of people are going to like them if they have been wanting to pick up a pair.

DJI Motion 2

You can see here I have the original one, and beside it, I have the new Motion 2. The shape of them is identical for the most part. They function the same, but there are some new, really nice enhancements on the new controller. First of all, you can see here we have a joystick that moves up and down and side to side, which is great because it just gives you a little bit more fine control over your DJI Avata.

Especially if you get into a tight situation, like being in a group of trees, the other thing that they’ve done here is they’ve changed the trigger, and with it, you can now move in reverse. So again, if you have to get out of a situation or you want to fly backward, you’re able to do so now.

The other thing with this joystick is you can actually use it for taking off and landing. So, of course, you can still take off by double pressing and then holding and pressing, but if you want to double press to start the motors and then just press up on the joystick, the drone will take off. And again, if you want to land, you just hover it above your landing pad or however you’re landing, and just pull it down, and it will go into landing mode. And that’s really good for fine-tuned control.

That also replaces the brake, so the red button there, the lock button, is also your brake. So if you need to brake, you just press that once, and that will brake the drone.

We have our mode selector here; that’s also our return to home record button down below that, the same as the original one. The other thing they’ve done here is change the tilt of the gimbal switch that they had there to a dial. It’s a clickable dial; you can press it to click it, and that will bring up camera settings at the bottom – quick settings – and you can scroll through and change settings. So really nice, really handy, and a really nice updated design.

Now, whether it’s worth the upgrade, I guess it’s going to be different for every individual. If you’re a person who loves flying with your motion controller, I think it’s a worthy upgrade. Myself, I only fly once in a while with the motion controller, so I don’t know how worthwhile it was for me. DJI was offering a coupon like $90 off or $80 off, something like that, so that was what made me decide to purchase it.

First flight and first impressions

So yeah, today we’re going to go for a flight; we’re going to test out the new goggles and the new motion controller. So let’s get everything set up, and we’ll get up in the air. So, we are all ready to go for a flight, and I must apologize; there’s a lot going on here. I’m at my sister’s farm today, and there are a lot of farm activities, so there’s a lot of background noise. I mean, they even got a sledgehammer going at some point, or a hammerjack, or a jackhammer, or whatever those things are called. So yeah, it’s pretty noisy here, so hopefully, that won’t be too distracting. Plus, it’s pretty windy – maybe not the best day to be flying the DJI Avata and doing a test, but I’ve got to make use of the nice weather here in Canada. Spring has arrived; it’s a beautiful day. It’s supposed to reach up to 28 degrees Celsius, which is kind of crazy for this time of year, but we have to make use of those nice days when they come this time of year.

So, we’re just going to go for a flight. I am going to start by pressing record on the side button here because I have the drone set not to automatically record when I take off, so I have to do it manually. I’m going to hit the button.

As mentioned, we can take off differently now. What we’re going to do here is double-press the red button. You may not be able to see it, but the motors have started on the Avata. Now you can see it out there in front of me. All we have to do is press up on that joystick, and as you can see, the Avata starts to rise. Now, I’m going to lock the motion controller by pressing that red button just so I can set the controller down. Don’t ever set that controller down until you’ve locked it because otherwise, your drone will go crazy.

But what I do want to show you here is that there are some settings for using that joystick. They’ve actually added some gain settings – gain and expo settings. So let’s go into our menu here, bring up the menu, go down to settings, go to control, select motion controller, and you can see here we have gain tuning. What you’re going to notice right away is it’s set very, very slow. So if you’re reversing or moving up and down, it’s going to be going very, very slow. Let’s go to backward speed. As you can see, we can change it. So let’s get out of there. I’ll grab the motion controller again.

Just keep in mind, I’m going to be showing some of the goggle view, and it’s very windy today, so it’s going to be very unstable, but good enough to test things out.

The footage saved to the memory card will be smooth. It works just the same as the original motion controller. All you have to do is move your wrist, and the drone will move accordingly. You can tilt it up to go up, tilt it down to go down, and just like before, if you want to go straight down, you can point it straight at the ground. You see that arrow pops up, or the same thing if you want to go straight up, you can see that arrow pops up when you point it straight up. Or now, we can use that joystick. You can see if I pull down, I have it set pretty slow, but we are lowering in altitude, and again, I can press up, and it will raise our altitude as well.

It’s very slow right now, so let’s go for a little bit of a flight here. I’ll try to keep it as smooth as I can, but the wind is not in my favor today. In fact, let’s put it into sport mode here because it is flying a little slow. We’ll press the mode button, and you can see we’re now in sport mode, and off we go.

Worthwhile upgrade?

So, whether these upgrades are worthwhile, as mentioned, it’s going to be different for every user. The goggles, I think, if you have the Goggles 2, it’s kind of a downgrade unless you really want that remote ID fix and the built-in battery.

The Goggles 2, I think, are a better-performing goggle, so it may not be worthwhile to upgrade. But if you don’t have a set of goggles, maybe now is a good time to pick up a pair.

Let’s maybe head over to the forest here, or the tree area anyway; it’s not really a forest. And, the same with this motion controller: for some people, it’s going to be a definite yes; for other people, not so much. You know, I don’t know if I didn’t get that coupon, and I didn’t have this YouTube channel, I probably would have just kept the motion controller I have. It served me just fine the way it was.

But, yeah, it’s going to be a nice upgrade for some people, and it is nice to have that reverse capability. I think some of those other features aren’t as important to me, but the reverse is nice.

So, let’s just lower the altitude here a little bit, go by this tree. And yeah, it’s not going to be a very cinematic flight, just for the fact that, oh geez, almost hit that. In spring here in Canada, everything is still dead; there are no leaves on the trees, so everything looks a little boring. But we’re just testing the equipment today, so that’s okay.

Yeah, the DJI Motion Controller and the DJI Motion Controller 2, or the DJI Motion 2, I should say, are just an amazing way to fly. DJI did a really good job with its engineering; it’s so easy and intuitive. Literally, anybody can just pick it up and start flying.

Hopefully, the audio is tolerable today; I’ve just got a Sennheiser Lavalier plugged into my DJI Action 2, and that’s what I’m filming on. I wasn’t going to use the DJI mic, but I thought for today, I don’t really need the distance, the wireless feature. It was just as easy to plug in a Lavalier right directly into it, so that’s what I opted to do today.

Let’s maybe head over to these trees over here. We’ll go through a gap. It’s really easy to line up with the Motion Controller. If you’re nervous, just have to line up where you want to go, or where you want to go, I should say. I do have to watch; there are some hydro wires there, so I don’t want to be up too high. Hopefully, there are no tall trucks going by. I did take a quick look; I didn’t see anything coming down the roads.

So, yeah, it’s a fun way to fly, definitely. And, as mentioned, some say you can get better range with these new goggles. So, I will be doing that next. Actually, my next flight, when I’m done with this video, I’m going to do a bit of a range test between the two goggles. You can see that’s new at the bottom; you can see that orange bar came up there. That just means that our signal is getting a little weak. That was added with the latest firmware update, and, you know, that’s for the Goggles 2 as well. So, yeah, pretty interesting.

One other thing I should mention here, I haven’t seen anybody else talk about it, but the way you charge the new Motion 2 is a little bit different. With the old Motion Controller, you had to use a low wattage charger, like if you had that 65-watt charger that DJI sells, you could not plug it directly in. You had to actually plug one of those USB-A cables into the USB-A slot if you wanted to charge it. But they’ve changed that with this; you can now just plug a high, fast charger into it and charge it. I think it’s a little bit faster, but it’s nice you don’t have to bring another cable with you if you forget.

So, yeah, folks, that is the new Goggles and the new Motion 2. And I hope you enjoyed this video. Give it a thumbs up if you did. If you have any questions about it, just ask me in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer them or somebody else in the community.

Thanks a lot for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.