How to Find and Adjust AR Preferences on DJI Drone
Peter Leslie
22 May 2026
If the live feed on a DJI drone is missing the Home Point marker, the return-to-home line, or the floating shadow under the drone — or you have the opposite problem and want to clear all three so the live view matches a clean recorded frame — the toggles you want are inside DJI Fly under AR Settings. They sit together in the Safety category on every current DJI drone, and each AR overlay is a separate switch you can flip independently.
Drones this applies to
DJI Neo 2, DJI Mini 5 Pro, DJI Avata 2, DJI Air 3 Pro, DJI Mavic 4 Pro. The same procedure works on any drone running DJI Fly v1.21.2 or later — only the exact list of available AR overlays varies very slightly between models, with the three core toggles (Home Point, RTH Route, Aircraft Shadow) present on every current drone.
Quick guide
To adjust the AR Preferences on DJI Drone, go to DJI Fly → Settings → Safety → AR Settings → toggle AR Home Point, AR RTH Route, or AR Aircraft Shadow. On draws each overlay onto the live feed; off clears it. The overlays are live-view aids only — the recorded clip is never affected.
Step-by-step: How to Find and Adjust AR Preferences on DJI Drone
Follow these top to bottom the first time, and the path is muscle memory the second time. The labels and order are identical on every drone in the callout above.
Open the DJI Fly Settings panel from the camera view
With the drone and the remote controller connected and the live feed on screen, tap the three-dot menu at the top-right corner of the camera view. The Settings panel drops down over the live feed with a row of category tabs along the top.
Tap the Safety category inside the Settings panel
Safety is the second tab in the Settings panel, sitting below Control. Tap it and the body of the panel updates to show every safety-related row for the connected drone — altitude limits, distance limits, RTH Settings, Advanced Safety, and the AR Settings sub-heading further down.
Scroll down to the AR Settings sub-heading inside Safety
Inside the Safety category, scroll past Max Altitude, Max Distance, RTH Settings, and the Advanced Safety entry. The AR Settings sub-heading sits near the bottom of the Safety page on every current drone, with the three AR overlay rows underneath it.
Tap the AR Home Point switch to show or hide the Home Point marker
Tap the switch on the AR Home Point row. With it on, DJI Fly drops a floating marker into the live feed at the spot it has stored as the Home Point, and the marker tracks the frame as the drone yaws. With it off, the marker disappears from the feed.
Tap the AR RTH Route switch to show or hide the return path line
Tap the switch on the AR RTH Route row. With it on, the live feed draws a line tracing the path the drone will follow back to the Home Point if a return-to-home is triggered. With it off, the route line clears and the feed reads as just the camera view.
Tap the AR Aircraft Shadow switch to show or hide the ground shadow
Tap the switch on the AR Aircraft Shadow row. With it on, DJI Fly paints a virtual shadow onto the ground directly beneath the drone in the live feed. With it off, the rendered shadow disappears and only any real shadow cast by the sun is visible in the frame.
Mix the three AR toggles to match the flight you are about to fly
Treat the three switches as independent — they do not have to be set the same way. A common combination is AR Home Point and AR Aircraft Shadow on for general flying, with AR RTH Route off so the route line does not crowd the framing. Set them to whatever the flight actually needs.
Close the Settings panel and confirm the live feed shows the chosen overlays
Tap anywhere off the Settings panel to close it and return to the camera view. The AR overlay state you picked carries straight over to the live feed — the Home Point marker, the route line, and the shadow appear or disappear immediately according to the three switches you just set.
Peter's tip
I set the AR overlays for the job, not for the flight. For a beginner-style flight where the priority is keeping the drone in the right place — over a beach, over a field, anywhere featureless — I switch all three AR toggles on so the Home Point marker, the route line, and the shadow are doing the spatial reading for me. For a paid cinematic flight where the live feed needs to match what is going to be recorded, all three go off before takeoff and stay off until I land.
AR Home Point vs AR RTH Route vs AR Aircraft Shadow
Three overlays, three different jobs. Use this table to decide before the flight which one earns its place on screen.
| Overlay | What it draws on the live feed | When to leave it on |
|---|---|---|
| AR Home Point | A floating marker dropped onto the stored Home Point coordinates that tracks the frame as the drone yaws and tilts. | Long-range legs, out-of-line-of-sight flying, or any flight where the takeoff spot is no longer obvious from the picture itself. |
| AR RTH Route | A line tracing the path the drone will follow back to the Home Point if a return-to-home is triggered right now. | Flights near hills, tree lines, or water where you want to see the planned return path before triggering an RTH. |
| AR Aircraft Shadow | A rendered shadow painted on the ground directly beneath the drone in the live feed, separate from any real sun shadow. | Flights over featureless ground — beach, field, car park — where reading height and position from the front-facing camera alone is hard. |
Frequently asked questions
What do the AR Preferences do on a DJI drone?
The AR Preferences control three augmented-reality overlays that DJI Fly draws on top of the live camera feed — the AR Home Point marker, the AR RTH Route line, and the AR Aircraft Shadow. Each one is a visual cue rendered into the feed by the app, not a change to the recorded clip. They are there to help drone pilots read where the drone is in real space relative to the ground and the Home Point, especially when the camera is high and the scale is hard to judge by eye.
Does turning AR overlays on change what gets recorded on a DJI drone?
No. The AR markers, the RTH route line, and the aircraft shadow are all drawn by DJI Fly into the live view, not baked into the file on the microSD card. The recorded clip stays clean of overlays regardless of how the AR Settings toggles are set. You can leave every AR overlay on for the flight and the export still comes off the card with no graphics on it.
What does the AR Home Point overlay show?
AR Home Point is a floating marker that DJI Fly drops onto the live feed at the spot it has stored as the Home Point — usually the takeoff location. The marker tracks the live frame as the drone yaws and tilts, so you can glance at the screen mid-flight and see where home actually is relative to what the camera is looking at. It earns its place on long-range or out-of-line-of-sight legs where the Home Point is no longer obvious from the picture itself.
What does the AR RTH Route overlay show?
AR RTH Route is the line DJI Fly draws into the live feed showing the path the drone will follow back to the Home Point if a return-to-home is triggered right now. It updates as the drone moves, so you can see whether the planned return takes the drone over a hill, through a tree line, or out over water before you actually trigger an RTH. Hide it when the route line clutters the framing and you would rather watch the feed unobstructed.
What does the AR Aircraft Shadow overlay show?
AR Aircraft Shadow is a virtual shadow that DJI Fly paints on the ground directly under the drone in the live feed. It is not a real shadow cast by the sun — it is a rendered marker that gives drone pilots a quick visual reference for where the drone is in plan view, which is hard to read from the front-facing camera alone. It helps most when the drone is over featureless ground like a beach, a field, or a car park, where you cannot easily tell from the feed how far above the surface it is.
Should I leave all three AR overlays on for every flight?
Only when the flight is genuinely benefiting from the extra information. For a beginner flight, a long-range leg, or a low-light flight over featureless terrain, the AR Home Point and AR Aircraft Shadow earn their place on screen. For a cinematic shoot where the camera view is meant to read as a clean shot, the overlays add clutter without adding flying value, so switch them off in the Safety category before takeoff.
Why are the AR overlays missing from the live feed even with the toggles on?
Most often the Home Point has not been recorded yet, so the AR Home Point and AR RTH Route have nowhere to anchor. Wait for the on-screen prompt confirming the Home Point is updated before takeoff, then re-check the live feed. If the AR Aircraft Shadow is the one missing, the drone may be too low for the rendered shadow to fit inside the frame, or the camera is tilted up and away from the ground — point the gimbal down toward the takeoff area and the shadow should pop back into view.
Can I change the AR Settings while the drone is in the air?
Yes. The Safety category in Settings stays reachable in flight, and each of the three AR toggles reacts to a tap immediately, so you can hide the Home Point marker, the RTH route line, or the aircraft shadow mid-flight without landing. Pause recording before you scrub through the toggles if the panel briefly covering part of the live feed is going to land in the middle of a clip.
The AR Preferences on a DJI drone are a live-view aid, not a flight feature — three switches you flip based on whether the spatial information helps the flight you are about to fly. Pick the combination that suits the job, leave the recorded file untouched, and you can rebuild the same live view next time in under a minute.
If you want a second opinion on which AR overlays earn their place for the kind of flying you are doing, drop the brief to peter@hiredronepilot.uk and I will come back to you directly. The video version of this walkthrough is on YouTube and the comments are open.
References
Primary source material for this article is the official DJI user documentation for each drone in the callout and DJI Fly. External links open in a new tab.
- DJI Fly — App download and release notes · The app where the camera view, the Settings panel, the Safety category, and the AR Settings sub-heading all live across every current DJI drone. Release notes record any layout changes between app versions.
- DJI — UK consumer drone product line-up · Per-drone user manuals carry the AR Settings options and the home-point handling under §Safety / §AR Settings.
- UK Civil Aviation Authority — The Drone and Model Aircraft Code (CAP2320) · The visual-line-of-sight rule that frames why a clear read of the drone's position relative to the Home Point matters during every flight.
Peter Leslie
Founder & GVC Drone Pilot
Peter is the founder of HireDronePilot. With thousands of logged commercial flight hours, he writes about drone technology, commercial surveying tactics, and UK aviation compliance.
Connect on LinkedIn