What do the six small buttons do? FrSky Ethos Quick Tip

One of the great mysteries of Ethos has been solved. What do those six buttons on the bottom of the transmitter do? They are function switches. The true chameleon of FrSky's Tandem line these function switches are configurable to do a number of things such as being six momentary switches, six on/off switches, a true six way switch, and two 3 way switches. You do know that on a three way switch when one position is on, two are off? This only make sense. Then it only makes sense that on a six way switch that when you select a switch, when it goes to one position, the other five are offf? There is a six way switch option with off, which means if you press the button again it turns off and all six switches are off.

There are two main problems with the function switch. The first is that by default it's set to a six way switch. This means that when you press a function switch a second time after using it for the first time it does nothing. You have to select another function switch to make the last one you selected turn off. I believe this catches a lot of people off guard and though they feel they've configured the function swith properly, it doesn't work. And thus, people rapidly lose interest in the function switches as something viable.

The second issues is that the way to change the function switch is in the models menu/ Model Edit. Then toward the very bottom you find the section where you can change the function switch. It's pretty much located in one of the last places you'd expect to find it.

the functions switches are recessed and out of the way so that you don't accidentally hit them. This gives peace of mind when you're flying, but it also make the one not on your throttle hand difficult to work with in flight. However, this is a great place for a timer reset or throttle kill, especially if you're low on two position switches to use.

Jose has an older video from a couple of years ago that shows the switches working on his Tandem XE transmitter.    • The Frsky Series: Function Switches  

FrSky Ben has a video of using the function switches with vars. This is used instead of a pot for stabilization systems. Why? Because you will have to remember the pot position between models that have stabilized receivers. Using the function switches means that you set them once and never have to worry about them again.    • FrSky ETHOS Programming Model Template Fun...