Next up in our “Ask Drone Girl” series is about whether you actually need a cell phone plan to fly a drone. If you have a question for Drone Girl, contact her here.
I am a complete newbie but have bought my first drone. I don’t have a cell phone, so my question is: can I just buy a cheap cell phone and use it in my controller, or do I have to buy a cell phone plan? Thanks if you can help.
Can I just say that I kind of LOVE that you don’t have a cell phone?! The peace!
Now to answer your question — and I’ve got good news for you. You do not need a cell phone plan to fly your drone. A cheap smartphone with no SIM card and no active plan works just fine for most drone flying purposes.
You will need a smartphone of sorts, though a tablet (like an iPad) could also work. When choosing a smartphone or tablet, some specs you’ll want to prioritize:
- Big, bright screen: They sell sun shades, but I still recommend prioritizing brightness if you’re flying on sunny days)
- Long battery life: Drone apps drain battery, and flying at full brightness drains battery even more so
- Fast processor and sufficient RAM: A laggy phone makes for a frustrating flying experience. Aim for something relatively recent even if it’s inexpensive.
So how does it actually work that you don’t need a true cellular connection?
The connection between your controller and your drone is handled by the controller’s built-in radio — not your phone’s cellular connection. Your phone just acts as a display screen, running the drone’s app (like DJI Fly, for example) and showing you the live camera feed, your flight telemetry and your map. None of that requires a data plan.
The one thing you will need for map data is a Wi-Fi connection at some point — but only to download maps in advance. Many drone apps let you cache maps for offline use while you’re at home on Wi-Fi, so they’ll be available when you’re out in the field with no signal. Once the maps are downloaded, you’re good to go even in the middle of nowhere.
A few practical tips for buying a cheap phone for this purpose:
(Generally speaking), go Android over iPhone. This is purely because I want to save you money! Budget Android phones are plentiful and work well for drone apps. Budget iPhones are harder to find, and iOS devices tend to be overkill for this use case.
Bigger screen is better. Within your budget, a larger screen makes it much easier to see what your drone’s camera sees, especially in bright sunlight. Reading your altitude, battery percentage, and flight telemetry at a glance is much easier on a large phone screen or a tablet than squinting at a small phone screen, especially in direct sunlight. A lot of experienced pilots specifically prefer flying with a tablet for that reason.
Check your drone manufacturer’s compatibility list with the software first. DJI, for example, publishes a list of compatible Android and iOS devices for each of their apps. Not every cheap phone will work well — some have processors that struggle to handle the live video feed smoothly. Checking compatibility before you buy will save you headaches.
Ensure the size fits, too: It’s not just software compatibility that matters. Though you can make it work with any size smartphone or tablet, I do recommend ensuring the controller is compatible with the size of what you buy.
Controller mounts vary, and some are designed with phones in mind rather than full-sized tablets. A smaller tablet like an iPad mini tends to be the sweet spot: big enough to give you a great view of your camera feed, small enough to fit most mounts without issue. A full-sized iPad (10-inch and up) can work too, but you may need a third-party mount or clamp to hold it securely on your controller. Those are inexpensive and easy to find on Amazon — just search your specific controller model plus “tablet mount” and you’ll find plenty of options.
Otherwise, you can just hold the tablet separately, but that can add a layer of complication you likely don’t want to deal with.
Other considerations when connecting
One last thing worth knowing: while you don’t need cell service to fly, some airspace authorization apps — like LAANC tools for flying near airports — do require an internet connection to submit authorization requests in real time. With a cell phone plan, you could submit that without having Wi-Fi.
Since you won’t have a cell phone plan, you’ll just have to be more diligent about planning ahead. Connect to Wi-Fi beforehand to pre-authorize your flight. Otherwise having a hotspot available can be helpful.
I’m guessing you’ll be doing recreational flying in uncontrolled airspace, in which case a Wi-Fi-only phone is completely sufficient.
Welcome to the world of drones!
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