Swellpro Splash Drone 3 Plus Waterproof Drone with Payload Release (to Drop Fishing Bait or Life Jacket): PL3

Great drone for fishing. GPS mode may sometime affect flying and can be easier to crash.

I am writing this review to save you time and money; I paid 1400 dollars for this drone on eBay, which is a great deal for what I received (4K camera and gimbal, PL3 payload, & drone). The package was brand new in the box, never used. I have had nothing but problems out of this thing ever since; whether it be GPS cables coming apart, a poorly connected remote sensor, or complete engine failure after only 4 uses of the drone. I strongly suggest you get something different.THE WHOLE STORYI got it out to test it on the first day and it flew great. I then took a mini-vacation to the beach for some surf fishing; I calibrated the drone properly, set it up, and dropped bait. It was incredible... until I accidentally flipped it over on the sand. The controller no longer would respond. Days later, when I literally took the drone apart, we found out why; the connection for the control receiver was loose and it had fallen out.We fixed the problem and attempted to go fishing again. This time, the GPS would not work. Upon inspection, we noticed that the wires on the plugin for the GPS were coming out, after VERY LITTLE use. I fixed that, it flew again, it was great. After all of the issues, the fishing trip was all but ruined, 75% of it was spent trying to fix this turd of a drone.Well we thought the problems were over, time for another mini-vaca. We booked it and got to the shore, set the drone up and turned it on; once the engines were armed, one of the CCW motors would not turn. Now I had to spend another 40 dollars for a motor, completely disassemble the drone again, and replace the motor... that was used for three days. What a literal hunk of trash.The next drone I buy will be the Gannet Pro; its not much more expensive and it uses the DJI flight boxes. Also, it has like a 7lb payload; you can shark fish your heart out with baits that weigh that much. I am really hoping that the Gannet is a little more dependable. I am not sponsored by anyone, just would like to have gotten value for my 1400 dollars worth of drone. I'm not mentioning the other 5 batteries I bought, look up the price of those things. All seems like a waste.

Great fishing drone. Took it out 3 times so far no issues.

I love my Splashdrone 3+ , I think it’s awesome! I’ve been flying it since October 2018. I live in south Texas and flown it at least 50 times in high winds off the gulf coast while shark fishing. It’s never let me down. Just so you know, I’m not affiliated and/or represent the company in China that makes this thing, I’m just giving my opinion on what I know is a great waterproof drone with a payload release mechanism great for surf fishing and awesome waterproof HD 4K camera.The reason I’m writing this (which normally I don’t do) is to let you know that most, if not all the negative reviews you’ve seen here are mainly the result of people not reading and carefully following the instructions it comes with, and therefore having a bad experience with this drone.

What can you really say good about this drone? About the only thing is it is powerful, and can lift a good amount of weight. The bait release is strong and works well. And that is pretty much it. It is built with ancient components that barely work together, and requires a LOT of technical expertise to make it fly. Customer support is non-existent, and worse, they mock and belittle their customers who post actual questions or have problems. The company absolutely will not admit this product is as horrible as it is, so just read the reviews. Not just mine, read all of them. For mine, the PL3 camera was permanently stuck in low resolution mode, recorded only in MOV format, and the majority of videos were lost because I forgot to flip a switch on the controller after landing to tell the camera to save the video. The display on the remote is black and white, and the video feed from the drone goes to static in less than 200 feet. On 2 occasions, the drone started to fly away when in GPS mode and I had to switch to manual ATTI mode to keep it from going wherever it decided to fly. The landing gear is unstable and results in the drone trying to flip over on landing. The battery barely fits inside the drone and the charger makes horrible noises when charging. This drone is basically a collection of random parts thrown into a pretty good frame with powerful motors. If they put in a decent video transmitter and modern flight controller it could be worth the money. So much potential squandered saving a few bucks. If this were a $500 drone, it might be worth it for the task. But is priced like a high-end drone and certainly does not warrant it.

Drone was great

I paid 1750 dollars for this in January of 2019. I registered for the warranty. I bought it straight out of the factory in China and paid via PayPal. Within 4 flights without any crashes the flight controller failed and it refused to fly. AFter a few weeks of back and forth they sent me another one. While I was trying to install it the tiny little clip on the motherboard broke. They assured me they would make a video on how to fix it. I ofereed to pay for the new parts. I reached out again and again. Months went by and they were avoiding me. I called to the US repair facility and they said they cant honor the factory warranty in china, and then tried to sell me another POS bare drone for 800 bucks. They said the cost of the repairs would cost more than another drone. I contacted the factory repeatedly to make this right at different numbers and email accounts. No reply. I have now put it up for sale as used for parts not working. The batteries have swelled up and stopped working after just 1 year. This is a piece of junk and I spent more time fixing it than flying it. I didn't even get 6 flights out of it. I would urge you to save your money and don't support a company that deals with customers like this.