Nebli Drones carries a drone's live video, and MAVLink telemetry where the aircraft supports it, from the field to the people who need it. How you get there depends on what you fly: DJI drones push straight to the Nebli Drones cloud from the DJI app already on your controller or phone, while everything else runs the Nebli Drones relay on a field machine and a command-post machine. If you haven't met the vocabulary yet, Concepts is a two-minute read that makes the rest of this page faster.
1. Sign up and create your organization
Go to dash.nebli.ai/signup and sign in with Google or with a one-time email code. On first sign-in, Nebli walks you through a short setup: confirm your name, name your organization, and optionally invite teammates by email.
When you finish, Nebli creates your organization, a default tenant, a default team, and your first deployment automatically, all on the free Pilot tier. You become the Org Admin.
2. Which path is yours?
What you do next depends entirely on what you fly. Pick one:
3. Install the relay
Path B from here down. Steps 3 to 5 set up the relay. If you fly DJI, you're already finished on this page; pick your DJI guide instead.
The relay runs on two machines: one on the drone's local network (Linux, macOS, or Windows), and a command-post machine (Windows or macOS) where the operator runs their ground-control software (GCS). Both need an internet uplink. No firewall changes are needed, because the field side only makes outbound connections.
Install on both machines. There are two ways to run the relay: the Hover CLI (a command-line tool) or the Hover Relay desktop app (a point-and-click version of the same roles). Use whichever fits each operator.
The CLI
One line per platform:
- macOS and Linux:
curl -fsSL https://get.hoverfeed.com/install.sh | sh - Windows (PowerShell):
irm https://get.hoverfeed.com/install.ps1 | iex
On macOS this installs through Homebrew; on Linux and Windows it downloads the signed release, verifies its checksum, and puts hover on your path. Confirm it worked:
hover --version
Then sign the CLI in to your account:
hover login
This opens your browser to the same Google sign-in, then stores a token on that machine. (See the CLI guide for flags, headless login, and running the relay as a service.)
The desktop app
A note on names. The product is Nebli Drones; Nebli is the platform it runs on. The programs you install are still published under the older Hover name, so the download is Hover Relay and the command-line tool is hover. Same software, same account; the renaming just hasn't reached the installers yet.
Prefer not to use a terminal? Download Hover Relay for macOS, Windows, or Linux from the download section on the homepage. On first launch it asks whether this machine is in the field or at the command post, then signs you in with Google. It runs the same two roles as the CLI.
4. Create a deployment
A deployment is one field unit you operate, usually one drone. Signup already made your first one, so you can skip ahead. To add more, open Deployments in the dashboard and create one; it mints its own credentials, so there's nothing to copy by hand. From the CLI you can list and select the deployments you have:
hover deployments list
Note the deployment you want to use; the relay commands below take it with --deployment, and the CLI resolves its connection details for you.
5. Pair and see your first feed
Pairing connects the two sides through the relay. Run one role on each machine.
On the field machine (next to the drone)
hover proxy start --deployment <deployment-id>
The proxy connects to the drone on the local network, registers with the relay, and starts forwarding video and MAVLink. (In the desktop app: pick the deployment on the Relay tab, set the drone's address, and press Start.)
On the command-post machine
hover client start --deployment <deployment-id>
The client exposes the drone locally: video at rtsp://127.0.0.1:5554 and MAVLink on a local port. Point your existing GCS (CCA3, Mission Planner, QGroundControl) at 127.0.0.1 as if the drone were on the same desk, and the video plays. Watch link health in the Hover Relay app, or with hover logs <deployment-id>.
No drone yet? Try it end to end first. On one machine, hover simulate --deployment <id> stands in a fake drone (your webcam plus synthetic telemetry) and runs the field side. Run hover client start --deployment <id> alongside it, then hover videofeed --rtsp 127.0.0.1:5554 to pull the stream. When videofeed prints PLAY ok, video is flowing the full path: drone, proxy, relay, client, viewer.
That's the whole loop. From here, How it works explains how the relay holds the link up over cellular networks. Once you're flying, the dashboard adds recording, sharing, and more.
Want the architecture behind the relay?
How it works →