DJI Neo 2 Return to Home Settings Explained

Return to Home on the DJI Neo 2 is not one feature. It is a stack of half a dozen settings sitting inside DJI Fly, each of which decides a different part of how the drone gets back to its launch point when something goes wrong. Most new owners change none of them, fly the factory defaults, and assume the drone will sort itself out — until the first time it does not.

This is a full walkthrough of every Neo 2 RTH setting that matters: the three trigger types, the two Advanced RTH modes, the Auto RTH Altitude slider, and the Home Point itself. Understand all six and the Neo 2 will come home cleanly from almost any sensible flight site.

The DJI Neo 2 has three ways to trigger RTH and they all rely on the same Auto RTH Altitude

The Neo 2 manual is explicit on this point — return to home can be triggered in three ways, and the drone behaves much the same regardless of which one fires. The first is Smart RTH, where you actively trigger the return yourself — press and hold the RTH button on the remote, or press and hold the RTH icon in DJI Fly. The second is Low Battery RTH, which DJI Fly initiates when the remaining charge is only enough to reach the Home Point. The third is Failsafe RTH, which triggers automatically when the remote controller signal is lost for more than six seconds.

All three returns climb to the same altitude — whatever value sits in the Auto RTH Altitude slider — and all three use the Advanced RTH mode you have selected. Setting the Auto RTH Altitude deliberately before every flight is the single most important pre-flight habit on the Neo 2. The slider runs between 10 and 120 metres, and the value you pick must clear every tree, mast, and chimney on the likely return path. A default of ten metres will hit anything taller than a hedge.

Smart RTH lets you hand control of the return to the drone whenever you want it

Smart RTH is the trigger you reach for when something feels off — the wind has picked up, you have lost orientation, or you simply want a clean return without flying it home stick-by-stick. Press and hold the RTH button on the remote until the warning tone sounds, and the drone will brake, hover, plan a path, and head home.

There is no warning countdown on Smart RTH — you trigger it, the Neo 2 commits, and it executes. Exiting is straightforward: tap the on-screen RTH icon in DJI Fly, or press the RTH button on the remote a second time. After the exit, full control comes back to you. If you have any doubt about the Home Point — for example, you took off from a moving boat or the GNSS lock was weak — cancel Smart RTH and fly the drone back manually.

Low Battery RTH gives you a countdown to confirm or cancel, but ignoring it commits the drone

Low Battery RTH is the safety net for the drone pilots who push range. During flight, DJI Fly continuously calculates how much charge remains and how much is needed to get the drone back to the Home Point at the current altitude. The moment those two numbers meet, a warning prompt appears: confirm RTH or cancel.

If you tap confirm — or take no action before the countdown ends — the Neo 2 automatically initiates the return. If you cancel and keep flying, DJI Fly will continue tracking the charge. When the remaining battery is only enough to descend from the current altitude, the drone will land where it sits, regardless of what is underneath. You can steer horizontally during that descent, but you cannot stop it. The lesson is simple: treat the first low-battery warning as a firm instruction, not a suggestion. The Neo 2 ships with a small battery, the warning is calibrated tight, and cancelling it twice is how Neo 2s end up in trees.

Failsafe RTH only triggers if the Signal Lost Action is set to RTH rather than Hover or Landing

Failsafe RTH is the response to losing the remote controller signal. If the link is broken for more than six seconds, the Neo 2 looks at the Signal Lost Action setting in DJI Fly and acts on whatever you have selected. The three options are Return to Home, Hover, and Landing. Only the first triggers Failsafe RTH — pick Hover or Landing and the drone will sit in place or descend where it stands.

When the action is RTH and the lighting is good, the Neo 2 uses Advanced RTH to plan a sensible path home. When the lighting is poor and the vision system cannot work, the drone falls back to Original Route RTH. If the horizontal distance to the Home Point is more than fifty metres, the Neo 2 flies backwards along its original flight path for fifty metres before climbing to the set altitude and heading home in a straight line. If the distance is between five and fifty metres, the drone flies straight home at the current altitude. Below five metres, it lands immediately. Once Failsafe RTH commits, restoring the controller signal does not cancel it — the return continues, and you have to exit RTH manually from DJI Fly.

Advanced RTH offers two modes — Optimal plans a smart path, Preset forces a straight line at altitude

Inside DJI Fly Safety, scroll to Return to Home and you will find the Advanced RTH mode selector. The two options are Optimal and Preset, and the difference matters more than the menu makes obvious.

In Optimal, the Neo 2 uses the forward LiDAR and the omnidirectional vision system to plan the shortest sensible path home. The drone will adjust altitude on the fly, bypass obstacles where the sensors can see them, and ignore the Auto RTH Altitude when the path is clear. The point of Optimal is to use the least battery possible by flying the most direct route. It is the default, and it is the right setting for open countryside, parks, and any site without overhead hazards.

In Preset, the Neo 2 ignores the smart path-planning and climbs straight to the Auto RTH Altitude before heading home in a straight line. If the obstacle ahead is taller than the set altitude, the forward LiDAR will trigger a climb to clear it — but only if the obstacle is in the LiDAR's field of view and the height is within the drone's altitude limit. The Neo 2 manual is direct: set Advanced RTH to Preset if there are power lines or transmission towers that the drone cannot bypass on the return path. For built-up areas, masts, and any site with overhead cables, Preset is the safer pick.

The Home Point only records when GNSS is strong, and updating it during flight is a manual decision

Everything above falls apart if the Home Point is wrong. The Neo 2 records the Home Point at take-off only when the GNSS signal is strong — DJI Fly issues an audible voice prompt the moment it locks in, and you should not begin a serious flight until you hear it. If you take off without that confirmation and trigger RTH later, the drone has no recorded Home Point and may enter ATTI mode, ignore the auto landing target, or simply land where it sits.

During the flight, the Home Point does not move unless you tell it to. If you walk fifty metres down the field for a better viewing angle and then trigger RTH, the Neo 2 will return to where you took off, not to where you are standing. To shift it, open DJI Fly Safety and tap Update Home Point — the drone records your current position as the new Home Point, on the assumption your phone or remote has a clean GNSS lock. The exception is Mobile App Control with subject tracking — there the Home Point updates dynamically to the tracked subject's location. For everything else, treat the Home Point as a deliberate, one-shot decision.

RTH on the Neo 2 is not the single button most owners think it is. The trigger you used, the Signal Lost Action you set, the Advanced RTH mode, the Auto RTH Altitude, and the lighting all combine into how the drone gets home. Read each setting once, change them deliberately for each site, and the Neo 2 will do exactly what you expect.

Got a Neo 2 RTH scenario you want covered — a roof-top take-off, a coastal site with patchy GNSS, an awkward overhead-cable return? Drop a note to peter@hiredronepilot.uk and I will come back to you directly. If you prefer the video version of this explainer, the comments are open on YouTube.