Review: Walksnail Avatar Digital FPV System (Fatshark Dominator HD)

Walksnail and Fat Shark announced a new goggles – the Avatar / Dominator HD in May 2022 that use Walksnail’s Avatar digital FPV system. Image quality looks comparable to the popular DJI FPV system, with time it might get even better with full Betaflight OSD support and 1080p resolution given the more capable hardware.

Fatshark Dominator HD FPV goggles and Walksnail Avatar FPV goggles are the same thing just different colour, they both use Walksnail Avatar technology and share the same firmware.

Here is a complete setup guide of the Avatar System.

Where to Buy?

FPV Goggles

The Fatshark Dominator HD and Walksnail Avatar are basically the same goggles, just different in colour, hence the firmware are compatible too.

Walksnail Avatar Goggles	Fatshark Dominator HD Goggles
AliExpress RDQ .	Banggood GetFPV Amazon

Fat Shark Recon HD Goggles	Walksnail Avatar VRX
RDQ GetFPV .	RaceDayQuads GetFPV AliExpress

Video Transmitters

Walksnail VTX	Walksnail Mini 1S VTX (Review)
Banggood GetFPV RDQ	GetFPV RDQ AliExpress
– 22g – 25.5×25.5mm mounting – input voltage 6V-25.2V – 8GB Storage for recording – Up to 1200mW Output Power – 1080p/60FPS or 720p/120FPS switchable – 4:3 / 16:9 switchable – 170° FOV – Diversity dual antennas	– 6.8g light weight – 25.5×25.5mm mounting – input voltage 3.1V-5V – 8GB Storage for recording – Up to 350mW Output Power – 1080p/60FPS or 720p/120FPS switchable – 4:3 / 16:9 switchable – 170° FOV

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Avatar FPV System Hardware

New to FPV goggles? You can learn more in this buyer’s guide.

Fatshark Dominator HD / Avatar FPV Goggles

The new Fatshark Dominator HD FPV Goggles is similar size to the previous Fatshark goggles, very slim and compact. Here’s a comparison to my Orqa FPV.One Pilot.

There is another version by Walksnail, is there any difference between the Fatshark Dominator HD and Walksnail Avatar Goggles? The answer is no, apart from the color (the Fatshark is white, the Walksnail is Black), there is no difference in hardware, software and performance. They are basically the same goggles.

And it’s significantly smaller than the DJI goggles V1/V2. They weigh just over 300g without cables and antennas, which is about 150g lighter than the DJI Goggles V1/V2. If you normally fly a long time you’d probably feel more comfortable with the Avatar.

There are four RP-SMA connectors just like the DJI Goggles, however the provided antennas perform poorly (low quality, bad signal and easy to break), it’s recommended to get some aftermarket antenna as soon as you get them. Any 5.8GHz antenna should work just fine with this system.

They simplified the menu buttons a lot compared to previous Fat Shark goggles, now it’s just the same as the DJI goggles (even the actual buttons used here look identical!). There are DVR record button, cancel/back button, and a 5-way joystick button. But because the joystick is tilted at an angle it doesn’t feel very intuitive to use.

There’s nothing on the left side of the goggles, just a “shark” logo. On the top between the two RP-SMA connectors, there’s a slider switch which you can adjust fan speed with. The fans work really well, I have no screen fogging issue even on a hot summer day.

On the bottom of the goggles, you have two dials for IPD adjustment and focal adjustment. You can change IPD by pushing the dials in and out, and you can adjust the focus by twisting the dials.

Notice there’s an on/off power button next to the USB port!

The optics look identical to the Fatshark HDO2. The SD card slot is in the same location as other Fatshark goggles, right in the middle of the lenses. The DVR allows you to record 720p 60fps video just like DJI.

The face plate foam pad is attached by velcro and removable. The texture is fake leather, the quality is similar to the HDO2’s. It’s not very thick, but fits my face pretty well and doesn’t give me much light leaks (only a bit around the nose). I will probably upgrade to something similar to this which I had on my HDO2, it’s much thicker, puts less pressure on face and stops light leaks better. The goggles also come with four inserts to put between the faceplate and foam padding to increase thickness to accommodate different face shapes.

The faceplate is removable just like the previous Fatshark goggles. The headstrap buckles looks similar to the DJI’s but the screw holes are different distances. There’s no split in the middle, so the strap won’t pop out if you pull it too hard like the previous Fatshark goggles, which is great.

However the Avatar Goggles don’t support analogue FPV system – it has no receiver module bay nor AV input. You can’t use HDZero either as there’s no HDMI input. They are purely designed for the Avatar digital FPV system.

Avatar FPV Goggles Specs:

• Screen Resolution: 1080p 90FPS (the system can transmit up to 120FPS)
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• FOV: 46°
• Adjustable IPD: 56-70mm
• Adjustable Focus Range: +2 to -6 diopter
• Has a power button
• Built-in anti fog fan
• USB-C port for firmware update and HDMI video output
• 4 RP-SMA antenna connectors
• Input Voltage: 7-21V (2S-5S)
• Power Consumption: 8W

It comes with an XT60 to barrel connector power cable. You can power the goggles with a 2S-5S LiPo.

Avatar VRX

If you already own a pair of FPV goggles with HDMI input, you may consider getting the Avatar VRX. This is an affordable way to get into digital FPV system and without spending an additional $600 on a fresh set of Avatar Goggles or Fatshark Dominator HD goggles.

The Avatar VRX is a standalone video receiver that binds to the Avatar video transmitter and outputs an HDMI feed. You can use it on any FPV Goggles with HDMI input such as the Skyzone Sky04X, Orqa FPV.One and Fatshark HDO2!

The Avatar module is priced at under $200 in the pre-order sale! The bundles are sold at outstanding prices, not just the video receiver, it also includes two patch antennas and two onmi directional antennas, and an Avatar Mini 1S VTX/Camera kit! You can also upgrade to a better and bigger VTX/Camera kit with an additional $40.

Keep in mind that all existing analogue FPV Goggles with HDMI input have 60fps screens (except the upcoming HDZero goggles that support 90fps). That means they won’t get the 100fps refresh rate from the Walksnail Avatar system, and gives you a bit more latency compared to using the Walksnail Avatar Goggles, but at this price point it’s not a deal breaker IMO. In fact I think the HDZero goggles might be a great fit for the Walksnail Avatar VRX module. Not only they support up to 90fps (so lower latency than 60fps), they are also optimized for Analogue video system, so you can use 3 FPV systems on the HDZero goggles.

Specifications:

• Supports Betaflight Canvas Mode (full Betaflight OSD support, as well as INav and KISS)
• 4 antennas included – 2 directional antennas and 2 onmi antennas included, with a maximum transmission distance of 4km
• HDMI Output – Compatible with Analog Goggles with HDMI Input
• Supports 1080p 60fps,720p 100fps and 720p 60fps
• H.265 encoding
• MicroSD card slot for DVR (supports up to 256GB micro SD cards)
• Input voltage: 7-21V (2S-5S)
• Power connector: DC 5.5*2.1mm
• Dimension: 114*55*22mm
• Weight: 83g

Fatshark Recon HD FPV Goggles

Fatshark previously released the Recon for analog and HDZero systems, now they recycled the same design and put an Walksnail Avatar receiver inside. The Fatshark Recon HD goggles are a cheap way to get into the Avatar digital FPV system if you do not previous own any FPV goggles. One of the main downsides is that it only supports up to 1080p 60fps, so it won’t take advantage of the 100fps low latency mode in the Avatar system, which results in approximately 10ms higher latency than using the 100fps mode.

There are four directional antennas inside the goggles, and the Fatshark Recon HD is not designed to have them replaced easily. However those antennas are connected via UFL connectors so in theory you can swap them out by doing some DIY modifications. But those included antennas actually perform quite well in the many tests I have seen and definitely better than the ones that come with the more expensive Avatar Goggles.

The Recon HD is not designed for diopters, nor can you easily wear your glasses while putting them on. So if you have a special prescription you may be out of luck.

The Recon HD may not provide as nice experience as other higher end goggles, for example the clarity of the screen, IPD / focus adjustment, portability and weight etc. But these are surely compelling if you are new to FPV and don’t own a pair of FPV goggles yet. However they don’t have AV input nor HDMI input, so you can’t used analog or HDZero with them, you are locked into Walksnail’s ecosystem with the Recon HD.

Specifications:

• 5 Inch TFT display
• Resolution 1920×1080 60fps
• Field of View (FOV): 44° Diagonal
• Fixed Inter-Pupillary Distance (IPD) suitable for people with 55 – 76mm (Not adjustable)
• USB-C Video Out
• 4 Internal Directional Antennas
• Firmware upgrade via SD Card
• Micro SD card slot for DVR
• 5-Way button for OSD menu navigation
• Power connector: 5.1mm Barrel Connector
• Input Voltage: 7-21V (2s to 5s)
• Dimensions: 170 x 120 x 90mm
• Weight: 336.5 g

As an alternative, take a look at the Skyzone Cobra X with the Avatar VRX module. Personally I prefer the Skyzone Cobra X goggles, and this combo will allow you to use analog FPV system too. This would cost more, but it’s a more versatile setup.

Avatar VTX

The overall size of the Avatar VTX is smaller than the DJI Vista – a little wider and longer but much lower profile as you can see in this comparison.

The size is pretty much like a 30×30 flight controller, but for whatever reason they decided to go with 25x25mm mounting (like a whoop FC). The VTX weights only 16g, uses H.265 encoding and supports 720p or 1080p video with similar latency to the DJI system.

The antenna connectors are U.FL, there’s a metal retention bar to keep them from popping off.

Similar metal bar is used for the camera MIPI cable. The camera cable uses the same MIPI connector as DJI, however their camera and VTX are not compatible. HDZero uses a different size MIPI connector so you can’t even plug it in.

Binding is the same as DJI, there’s a bind button on the Goggles, and there’s a bind button on the VTX.

There are 4 wire connections to the flight controller, voltage, ground and UART (TX and RX) for the MSP connection (Betaflight OSD). The VTX doesn’t have a USB port, instead it has a 4-pin connector, which you can connect the USB type A cable to. (cable is provided with the VTX)

You can also record 1080p footage inside the video transmitter, pretty much like the DJI Air Unit. However it doesn’t have an SD card slot, instead it has 8GB internal memory. The advantage is that you don’t have an SD card that you can potentially lose, the downside is that it can only hold around 20mins of 1080p footage. By recording in the VTX, the resolution and video quality is higher than the goggles DVR, and video is not affected by breakup and blurriness due to signal strength.

It is NOT designed to be waterproof or water-resistant.

• Max Output Power: 1200mW
• Input Voltage: 2S to 6S (6V to 25.2V)
• Power consumption: 4.5W
• Dimension: 33.5×33.5×9.5mm
• Weight (together with camera and the two antennas): 28.6g
• Mounting holes spacing: 25x25mm

Accessories that come with the VTX/Camera kit:

Manual:

Avatar FPV Camera

The Avatar camera housing is fully metal, construction seems to be high quality. The lens looks identical to the original DJI FPV camera. There are two camera size options, micro (19x19mm) and nano (14x14mm).

It has a much wider FOV than the DJI OG cam and Nebula Pro. However due to its smaller sensor, low light performance is not as good as the Caddx Polar, even slightly worse than the DJI OG cam and Nebula Pro.

Specs:

• Image Sensor: 1/2.7″
• Resolution: 1080p 60FPS / 720P 120FPS / 720P 60FPS
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9 and 4:3 Switchable
• Lens: 2.1mm
• Field Of View: 170°
• Aperture: F2.0
• Shutter Style: Rolling Shutter
• Minimum Illumination: 0.001Lux
• Cable Length: Micro 140mm, Nano 90mm
• Dimensions: Micro 19x19x22mm, Nano 14x14x17mm
• Weight: Micro 6g, Nano 3.5g

Video Quality and Performance

Here’s a comparison to the DJI system.

The option labels in the setting menu look very similar to the ones in the DJI FPV Goggles. They have the same “low power mode” prompt, the latency and bitrate displayed at the bottom of the screen. The similar settings High/Standard frame rate (60fps vs 120fps), Standard/High bitrate (25mbps vs 50mbps).

Image quality reminds me of DJI system too. The OSD also looks familiar. Latency is not fixed like HDZero, but more like DJI with the same variable latency when you fly too far away or the signal gets weak. Also, just like DJI, maximum frame rate is 120fps.

Instead of having “high quality” and “low latency” modes in DJI, you have 1080p and 720p modes in the Avatar. Although the latency reading inside the goggles suggests the Avatar might have lower latency than DJI, tests by other reviewers have shown the latency reading in the Avatar is not quite accurate, in fact is higher in reality and similar to DJI’s.

The Avatar system is supposed to have a spectator mode (again… similar to DJI’s) so you can watch your friends fly (if they also fly Avatar), but currently (in Nov 2022) it’s still not available yet, hopefully it will be with future firmware updates.

The voltage display at the very bottom only shows the input voltage of the VTX, it doesn’t get voltage reading from the UART like DJI. This could be useful if you are using this VTX on an aircraft that doesn’t use a flight controller such as a fixed wing or RC card.

It’s a little unfair to compare the DVR side by side because DJI is 4:3 and Avatar is 16:9, and the Avatar has a bigger image. But when looking through the goggles, DJI appears to have a bigger image due to the bigger field of view.

The image quality looks similar in DVR between Avatar and DJI, but when looking through the goggles, the Avatar looks slightly sharper and more crisp due to the better OLED displays. The vertical field of views are similar, but the horizontal FOV is wider on the Avatar because it’s 16:9, which makes up for the slightly smaller screen size.

The Avatar has slightly dimmer image, probably just the default camera settings, some just turn up EV in camera settings.

They both handle high light and shadow in similar manner.

When it comes to low light performance, I would not fly any of these cameras at night. The Avatar cameras have a dynamic exposure that changes with the lighting condition, while the DJI appears to have a fixed exposure. However the exposure threshold in the Avatar seems a bit too high, if they get the threshold fixed I think it will perform overall better than the DJI OG cam in low light.

Is Avatar DJI?

As you can see, there are a lot of similarities between Walksnail Avatar and DJI FPV systems on both software and hardware. That makes a lot of people wonder if the Avatar is using DJI technology.

WTF.FPV team proved it might not the case. They teared down the goggles and VTX and confirmed they are NOT using the same chip and code.

With all the similarities, it’s clear that Avatar is at least heavily inspired by DJI. They took what are known to work well and run with it, maybe it’s not a bad thing after all as it makes the transition from DJI to Avatar easier.

Betaflight OSD

The Avatar system fully supports Betaflight OSD. You can operate the OSD menu using your sticks, and all the OSD elements can be dispalyed.

However DVR doesn’t record the OSD (like DJI). The OSD is actually drawn by the goggles, not by the VTX like its analog counterpart. If you turn off the VTX you can still see the OSD in the goggles. For that reason I believe it should be possible to record OSD in the goggle’s DVR and hopefully it would happen in future firmware update to have this as an option in the settings. At the moment if you want to record OSD, you need to output video via the USB-C port to an external device that has recording capability (such as a smartphone).

Should You Get DJI or Avatar?

This conclusion was last updated on 28th Nov 2022.

Avatar’s image quality wasn’t as good as DJI when it first came out, especially when the drone is moving quickly, it loses a lot of detail and the ground becomes blurry and blocky. But that’s no longer the case, the Walksnail Avatar system with the latest firmware is performing much closer to the DJI system in term of image quality, in some situation the Avatar is actually better.

In 1080p mode it does offer a slightly better image and it looks absolutely stunning for cinematic flying, while DJI can only do 720p. However, you get less latency in 720p and that’s important for faster reaction time. 720p and 1080p in the Avatar system make some difference but not that much. Personally I don’t feel any latency difference between the two systems when flying in 720p low latency mode. Also high bitrate (50Mbps) and low bitrate (25Mbps) in the Avatar system don’t make as much of a difference as in the DJI system, I hope Walksnail can improve on the high bitrate mode in the future.

Overall I think DJI still perform a bit more solid when it comes to video link, the bitrate/signal is just more consistent and stable especially when there’re obstacles between the drone and the pilot. But they perform similarly well in line of sight. One of the biggest advantages of the Avatar over DJI is maximum range. For whatever reason the DJI system cannot go beyond 14Km (you lose video at this limit), but the Avatar does not have such limit. Of course this does not matter if you don’t fly this far.

Another advantage of the Avatar is the OLED screens in the FPV Goggles, they look more constrasty and clearer than the LCD screen in the DJI’s despite having slightly smaller FOV (46° vs 54° compare FOV here). And the Avatar goggles are lighter and more compact, which makes them more compelling.

Both systems fully support Betaflight OSD now, however you do need to root your DJI goggles and Vista first, for Avatar it just works out of the box. DJI is a more mature system, it’s been proven to work, and the hardware is just so robust I hardly hear about broken Vista. On the other hand, Avatar is still catching up. The firmware update is more frequent, but in every update the improvement is noticeable and it’s making the decision harder for sure.

If you are already heavily invested in DJI, it’s probably not worth it to switch to Avatar (yet), but if you are coming from analogue or new to the hobby, this could be difficult to decide. If you fly a lot of micros that can take advantage of the 1S VTX, then the Avatar is a great option. Otherwise at this moment, I still prefer DJI because the hardware and video link are just solid, and the image quality are really close.

If the points I have raised so far aren’t enough to help you make a decision, it’s not such a bad idea to perhaps wait a few more months and see which system comes out ahead.

How about the latest O3 Air Unit and Goggles 2? Well, they are way more expensive and also don’t have small 1S VTX options. But if budget isn’t an issue for you and you simply want the best possible image quality for freestyle/cinematic builds, it’s a great option for sure! Personally I wouldn’t get them (just yet) because I already own 10+ drones with Vista, replacing them with O3 Air Units is going to cost a fortune. However, there’re rumours that the Goggles 2 will be backward compatible with the older Air Unit eventually, but no confirmed date yet. Oh, and the O3 Air Unit is compatible with the Goggles V2 (with reduced performance), that makes them even more compelling.

Edit History

• May 2022 – Published news about the Fatshark Dominator HD / Walksnail Avatar FPV system
• Aug 2022 – updated post with my initial review
• Nov 2022 – updated review based on the latest firmware, added info about the new Avatar VRX module and Fat Shark Recon HD goggles