DJI Lito Return to Home Explained: When to Use Optimal vs. Preset

What’s up, everybody? Shawn here from Air Photography. In this video, we’re going to demonstrate and talk about the differences between the two types of Return to Home on the Lito series drone.

If you’re brand new to it, you may have noticed there are two types of Return to Home. One called Optimal and one called Preset. And you might be wondering what the difference is and which one you should be using. Now, for the most part, most of the time you’re going to want to use Optimal. That’s going to be the most efficient and the most advanced. But there are times where you’re going to want to use Preset. So we’ll talk about the differences and when you should use each one. And I’m going to demonstrate them here in a minute, how they both work, because they are a little bit different.

How Optimal Return to Home Works

With Optimal, it builds a real-time map. So while you’re taking off, it can map really complex environments such as under a tree canopy or from a balcony, and it’s going to have a good understanding of the environment. You can even take off without satellite connection, as it will be using the sensors and the cameras to map its direction so it knows where it is.

The nice thing about that is, in the event of a Return to Home — whether you’ve manually initiated it on the controller or it’s a fail-safe or a low battery Return to Home — it can navigate really complex environments even if you lose satellite connection and come back to the home point safely. It can make bends and turns, go under objects, and it is the most efficient. So if it’s a low battery Return to Home, it’s going to get back to the home point most efficiently.

The Catch With Optimal: Thin Obstacles

Now, the problem with it is that, as mentioned, it will make its own decisions, which means it will lower its altitude. And for some environments, that may not be ideal because, although this does have obstacle avoidance and it will be using its obstacle avoidance on the return flight, obstacle avoidance has a really hard time seeing thin objects such as wires and thin branches.

So if you are flying near a bunch of wires — there’s hydro wires, telephone wires — and there’s a fail-safe Return to Home, it’s going to come in and could potentially run into one of the wires. So in that aspect, that’s where you would use the Preset Return to Home.

How Preset Return to Home Works

It’s very similar. The only difference between it and Optimal is that in the event of a fail-safe Return to Home, or you’ve manually initiated a Return to Home, it’s going to come to a stop and climb to your preset Return to Home altitude that you can set in the safety settings. So that’s great if you want to have a little bit more control if it’s a complex environment with a lot of wires and branches.

However, it will still map the environment on its outbound flight. So if you are taking off from under a tree canopy, it’s going to come back at that preset altitude, but when it gets near the end, if it has determined it’s going to have to do some navigation, it will lower its altitude and come in and navigate just like when we’re using Optimal.

Demonstrating Optimal in a Complex Environment

So now I’m just going to do a quick demonstration of both methods, and that way you can see how it works. All right, so I’ve got the aircraft out in front of me here. And as you’ll notice, it is a complex environment. We’ve got trees all above us. So what we’re going to have to do to get out of here, we’re going to have to fly straight, make a bit of a right, and then there’s an opening there we can go up and out. If we check our Return to Home, you can see I have it set to Optimal.

So let’s go ahead here and we’ll send the aircraft out. Take off. Home point updated. Send it out here. And as mentioned, right now it’s building a real-time map. And that way it knows how to navigate back to that landing pad on the Return to Home. So that should be good about there. So we’re going to put the drone up here, and then we’ll send it out a little bit. We don’t need to go too far. We’ll maybe send it out to about 200 m. That’s good there.

So now I’m going to initiate a Return to Home. Return to Home. So it’s going to plot its course, taking the most efficient way back. And if you look at the virtual Return to Home line, you can see at the end there, the tail end, it’s going to be going down below the tree canopy and navigating over to the home point. So I’m going to get out of the way here just so I don’t confuse it. So it’s above us now. It’s coming down.

And as you can see, it’s coming down below the tree canopy there. And it’s now navigating to make its way over to the home pad. I don’t know if you can see the drone there, but there it is. And there we go. We’re right above the home pad. So, yeah, that works extremely well. And as mentioned, it had to come down through the opening there, come under these trees, make a bit of a left-hand turn there, and then come down and land.

Demonstrating Preset Return to Home

So now I’ll demonstrate the Preset. Essentially, it’s going to work the same except before it returns to home, it’s going to go to the preset altitude. So let’s go to our settings here. I’m going to select Preset. And right now I have mine set at 80 m, so that’s what it’s going to climb to as an altitude. I think the default is 100, so you just want to set it higher than the tallest obstacle if you’re able to do so.

Again, let’s put the drone up here. Take off. Home point updated. And we’ll fly it out of this environment. It looks good. So we’ll put it up now. And we’ll go out. And again, we’ll put it out to about 200 m. Should be enough for this demonstration. So I’m going to initiate the Return to Home now, but this time you’re going to notice it’s going to climb to that 80 m Return to Home altitude height that we have set. And there it goes up.

And you’ll notice even though it is going to climb to that 80 m and then come back to the home point, it’s still going to navigate that complex environment. You can see down at the bottom, at the tail end there, it’s going to maneuver through those trees. So it’s just up above us now. It’s coming down. There it is out in front of us. Landing. And there we go.

Which Return to Home Mode Should You Use?

So there we go. That is a demonstration of the two types of Return to Home for the DJI Lito and Lito X1. Essentially, they both work the same no matter what drone you have. Whether it’s a Lito or Lito X1, the Return to Home functions the same on both of them.

Now, as mentioned, ideally you want to leave it in that Optimal Return to Home — that’s going to be the most efficient and get back to you the quickest. For myself, the only time I really use the Preset, as mentioned, is if there’s a lot of wires or a lot of thin branches and I want a little bit more control over where the drone and how the drone comes back to me.

Well, folks, hopefully you enjoyed this video and found it had value. Thanks a lot for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.

This article is based on a video from Air Photography‘s YouTube channel. You can find more of Shawn’s coverage on his DroneXL author page.