GoPro drives me nuts. I bought one of their (second or third gen) cameras in ~2012 that had a firmware limited number of photos I could take with it.
One of my goals was to do a bunch of time-lapse shots, taking photos every few seconds and then making a video out of them. They marketed this feature (take a photo every X seconds) quite a bit, so it was definitely a selling point to me.
I discovered the bug a few weeks after owning it, right before a big vacation I was hoping to record. It would take about 8 or 9 photos and then lock up. I couldn't turn it off or stop its capture. When I plugged it into my computer, I saw that there were hundreds of empty folders. I tried power cycling it by taking the battery out and putting it back in. I also wiped out the memory card both via the computer, as well as selecting the 'delete all' option on-camera, all to no effect. I emailed them, and their response was:
> Hi, Do you take many time lapse pictures? What may have happened, is you may have encountered a known issue with our current firmware, in which the camera is no longer able to save files after it has taken 9999 images. Could you please let me know what the name of the last successfully captured image was? If this is the case, we would need you to send in your camera, and would reflash your firmware to fix the issue.
So I had to shell out $20 in shipping and mail my (brand new) camera across the country for it to be reset. I wasn't able to record the trip I took. Still irks me today that they were selling cameras with a known, software-limited, number of shots you could take with them before they had to be sent back.
If their QA department took a photo every 1 second (as their product was advertised to be capable of) it would take 2.78 hours for them to discover this bug.
I'm shocked that they required you to pay for shipping. That takes some serious lack of customer service to do that without blinking, particularly for a firmware bug.
The funny thing is, I own a Hero 4 Session. You're supposed to be able to continuously record and have it loop every X amount of time. Well there is a bug and it doesn't even work. This is the NEWEST version too!
Me and my mates are big users of GoPro cameras. We use them for spearfishing, kitesurfing, surfing and filming our kids at the beach.
GoPro seem to be going towards smaller cameras (good) higher res (who cares - the camera lens is crap and fogs and is covered in water drops 90% of the time) and drones (who cares)
What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user.
[edit] I guess you guys may not be aware of Woo and Xensor which are gadgets you clip to your kiteboard, these measure GPS, jump height, speed etc. These are not sync'd to the video (they are different gadgets) but someone needs to make this work somehow. Not sure how they measure jump height in amongst the waves... it's all pretty neat.
If I'm reading you right, that's kind of exactly what Garmin's action camera Virb does. I got one for my dad to use mountain biking and it syncs up the video with the gps location, the speed he's traveling, etc. Those stats can be overlaid onto the video, it's kinda the angle that they're taking while trying to get into the action camera market. Not sure if it's exactly the thing that you were looking for, but it sounded close enough.
The Mobius ActionCam is even cheaper than the Xiaomi, and it's true that can only do 1080p30, but the very low price and the extremely small size (matchbox) make it perfect to carry around all the time on a keychain, or install it on a small drone without much lift capability.
I have both these cameras. I made a helmet mount for the Xiaomi and I carry it sometimes when riding my motorcycle. The Mobius recently went up on a model rocket and captured a PoV of the whole flight.
Exactly. I lost my GoPro Hero Black v3 rappelling down a canyon[1] in Bali, later borrowed a friend's v4 because I was considering replacing it.
The display was fancier but less functional, when I was handling the camera and pressing buttons it would dark out momentarily unlike v3, it had better specs but all stuff that doesn't matter anyway for the reasons you mention.
Sad to see that every great product like this seems to inevitably succumb to death by product management by piling feature on top of feature, instead of just doubling down on what makes it a great product in the first place.
1. Hit the plastic casing at exactly the wrong spot against a rock wall so it popped open and the camera flew into the river below
I feel like this would be a worthwhile pursuit, but it would be better as software than hardware.
If this were to be a hardware pursuit, you'd have to buy a bunch of sensors, all which have a price tag and their own limitations and issues. This might bring in $$, but also cause a lot of frustration that users would not find intriguing. Or, the sensors could be in the camera which would cause even more problems with power, heat, etc and the price tag.
Software, which can read data from a variety of sources such as GoPro, GPS, thermometer, whatever, and then integrate it all into a video timeline would be more practical. Then let the user overlay data onto the video using a variety of free and paid visual effects and templates.
GoPro should be working on a competitor to VIRBedit for this purpose. VIRBedit is great and doesn't require a Garmin VIRB cam etc. There is also http://www.traceup.com/ for snowboarding and surfing.
GoPro really missed an opportunity here, but it may not be too late.
People have mentioned the Garmin Virb being able to do this, and I have to mention that their software [1] is great and easily useable with any video file. I've used it to sync up my bike rides recorded with a Go Pro to my .gpx file and show speed, map etc.
You just have to manually sync the start of the file with a start point in the video, which is easy enough.
The GoPro software is horrendous in comparison as I could not even import my video files (one of 4,5 gb and another one of around 1,5) with over 25gb free space. Maybe it needed to convert before importing? In any case I just joined up the files with ffmpeg and imported in Virb and off I went, very recommended!
The Action Cams from Sony have built in GPS. After filming, you can add an overlay to your video with the help of their software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isxo89KqaRc
Exactly. They should offer optional plugin hardware with additional sensors for various sports. For example as a scuba diver I would be more likely to buy a GoPro if it could overlay depth, temperature, dive time, and GPS (start and end of dive, obviously not underwater). Motorsports enthusiasts would want an OBD2 interface, etc.
"What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user."
Even though you flipped it off, a drone does exactly this ;).
Anecdotally, I know a couple people who buy a GoPro for a specific adventure. They use it, it's cool, but then it gathers dust for months afterwards. It's not hard to find used ones locally. Or to have a friend who you can borrow from if you know you aren't going to use beyond your own single adventure of the year.
In terms of daily videos, the mobile phone is good enough for most people who want to capture moments.
My comment isn't meant to poo-poo the GoPro because the product definitely fits a niche, rather to say that it wouldn't surprise me to see GoPro hit a certain ceiling with just focusing on portable camcorders.
The report is about GoPro cutting a % of their workforce because lower than expected sales.
I see 3 different kind of comments for this entry:
-A comment about an opinion of a GoPro camera... this reflects on "I would not buy another because".
-A comment about internal politics about the company...
-People stating "I have one" why should I have another?
with that said, most of them are about "I have one" or "I don't see a reason to buy another", the market has got to a point where most of the people who have bought one doesn't see a reason and the company have not provide one.
How is possible that no one on GoPro had done a market investigation prior to set quarter goals? for me this is a failure of estimating sales where there were no sales to be performed.
The real question here is "What is this new feature that would make our users want to buy a new one?" that would reflect on stronger sales?
My understanding is that GoPro sells a small, rugged, waterproof digital camera that can easily be mounted on a bike/surfboard/whatever. It built a strong brand due to its first-mover advantage in the action sports community.
But beyond its brand strength, has there been anything preventing the commoditization of the GoPro product?
You need a certain amount of scale to stay close to the cutting edge (mobile) of imaging - GoPro uses the Ambarella chipsets and Sony sensors - if you want to talk to them directly (as opposed to 3rd parties), or the sensor manufacturers you need a level of scale/cash/backing. Also - in general its a tough market - if you look at the classic camera market their margins aren't great
I don't know about fitbit so much. The main advantage to me isn't the hardware, it's that it all uploads smoothly to their website for tracking. If I got a different device I'd have one website for steps, one for weight etc...
Well that tells me I know nothing about business. A few weeks ago I was thinking of having my first go at buying shares and thought GoPro could be an interesting company to look in to.
Last week, I went to Iguaçu Falls with my kids. I was impressed with the amount of GoPros I saw. Just the elderly tourists didn't have one. Groups of young tourists, everyone in the group had their GoPro in a stick. Now I know it is mainstream. Sport people aren't their public as they are from North Face.
I don't think this really surprises anybody. GoPro management is trying to pivot the company into a media company, which carries completely different stock valuations. It just looks like the decline in hardware sales is happening faster than anticipated.
Basically everyone who wanted one already has one. I have a hero 4, and even though I got it at a 50% discount, it still was too expensive for what it does imo.
I worked at Mivrosoft when Tony Bates - curent GoPro CEO - was Head of the Skype divison there. After the Microsoft aquisition, and Steve Balmer announced stepping down, Satya Nadella, Stephen Elop and Tony Bates were the front runners for the Microsoft CEO seat.
When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true.
I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable - but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never really an issue.
I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you, the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft easily footed the bill.
In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial results following.
Interesting, thanks. I knew a couple of recent GoPro hires, both good people, very capable. I wonder how the restructuring is going to hit the technical side of the house there.
We bought 6 Hero Pro 4 Black and a Freedom mount. Multiple issues with latest firmware, misleading advertisement info
a. Cameras freeze when are switched on and plugged in USB f PC. Have to remove battery to unfreeze them.
b. Not able to explicitly sync time on cameras with Studio
c. Not open in providing lens specs (it was proprietary information what kind of fisheye distortion happens), no focal length, no sensor size, nothing
d. UDP streaming is proprietary
e. Whatever you do, you need the Go Pro app, not possible to control from PC, no documentation
f. Not developer friendly (no REST API for developers)
g. Camera acts as a Wi-Fi router, you cannot put multiple of them in the same network as your PC.
h. Unintuitive UI in camera, too many clicks to achieve your goal.
i. For streaming, they forgot to tell you that you need a Micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter and a USB frame grabber, hidden extra costs.
Gopro was pretty much the first "reasonable" price 4k camera on the market. I've often wondered why they didn't move up market into the nikon/canon space starting with the small mirrorless replaceable lenses format. That space has been ripe for disruption for at least a decade.
bought one of the new session cameras to put on the bike for rear-view capture of douchebag drivers. it flat out did not work. tried several approved microsd cards, etc, etc..
big disappointment as I really need a decent solution that will run for many hours at a time...
It's an action cam, not a dash cam. Try the mobius action cam. The suggestion seems like a joke due to my first sentence but the makers worked with the users and added dash cam features to the firmware. Been using it as a dash cam for over a year and the quality rivals my GoPro. Under $100 too.
FWIW my brother has a Hero 3 Silver and got all kind of problem with it. Not booting, freezing, firmware etc. He serviced it and is supposed to have got back a new one, but years later it's worse and worse (I think it's a RAM problem or something, who knows).
Now the warranty is over and the customer service is still useless with their stock sentences.
So he need a new one and I'm guessing it's not gonna be a GoPro.
[+] [-] netinstructions|10 years ago|reply
One of my goals was to do a bunch of time-lapse shots, taking photos every few seconds and then making a video out of them. They marketed this feature (take a photo every X seconds) quite a bit, so it was definitely a selling point to me.
I discovered the bug a few weeks after owning it, right before a big vacation I was hoping to record. It would take about 8 or 9 photos and then lock up. I couldn't turn it off or stop its capture. When I plugged it into my computer, I saw that there were hundreds of empty folders. I tried power cycling it by taking the battery out and putting it back in. I also wiped out the memory card both via the computer, as well as selecting the 'delete all' option on-camera, all to no effect. I emailed them, and their response was:
> Hi, Do you take many time lapse pictures? What may have happened, is you may have encountered a known issue with our current firmware, in which the camera is no longer able to save files after it has taken 9999 images. Could you please let me know what the name of the last successfully captured image was? If this is the case, we would need you to send in your camera, and would reflash your firmware to fix the issue.
So I had to shell out $20 in shipping and mail my (brand new) camera across the country for it to be reset. I wasn't able to record the trip I took. Still irks me today that they were selling cameras with a known, software-limited, number of shots you could take with them before they had to be sent back.
If their QA department took a photo every 1 second (as their product was advertised to be capable of) it would take 2.78 hours for them to discover this bug.
[+] [-] brazzledazzle|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corp-a|10 years ago|reply
1. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-SJ4000-1080P-FHD-Sports-Car-Ful...
[+] [-] 05|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zackify|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zapu|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bduerst|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomanybeersies|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baby|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monk_e_boy|10 years ago|reply
GoPro seem to be going towards smaller cameras (good) higher res (who cares - the camera lens is crap and fogs and is covered in water drops 90% of the time) and drones (who cares)
What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a random user.
[edit] I guess you guys may not be aware of Woo and Xensor which are gadgets you clip to your kiteboard, these measure GPS, jump height, speed etc. These are not sync'd to the video (they are different gadgets) but someone needs to make this work somehow. Not sure how they measure jump height in amongst the waves... it's all pretty neat.
[+] [-] Vraxx|10 years ago|reply
Full disclosure, I work at Garmin.
[+] [-] Florin_Andrei|10 years ago|reply
The Xiaomi Yi is under $100 and can do 1080p60.
The Mobius ActionCam is even cheaper than the Xiaomi, and it's true that can only do 1080p30, but the very low price and the extremely small size (matchbox) make it perfect to carry around all the time on a keychain, or install it on a small drone without much lift capability.
I have both these cameras. I made a helmet mount for the Xiaomi and I carry it sometimes when riding my motorcycle. The Mobius recently went up on a model rocket and captured a PoV of the whole flight.
[+] [-] avar|10 years ago|reply
The display was fancier but less functional, when I was handling the camera and pressing buttons it would dark out momentarily unlike v3, it had better specs but all stuff that doesn't matter anyway for the reasons you mention.
Sad to see that every great product like this seems to inevitably succumb to death by product management by piling feature on top of feature, instead of just doubling down on what makes it a great product in the first place.
1. Hit the plastic casing at exactly the wrong spot against a rock wall so it popped open and the camera flew into the river below
[+] [-] DataJunkie|10 years ago|reply
If this were to be a hardware pursuit, you'd have to buy a bunch of sensors, all which have a price tag and their own limitations and issues. This might bring in $$, but also cause a lot of frustration that users would not find intriguing. Or, the sensors could be in the camera which would cause even more problems with power, heat, etc and the price tag.
Software, which can read data from a variety of sources such as GoPro, GPS, thermometer, whatever, and then integrate it all into a video timeline would be more practical. Then let the user overlay data onto the video using a variety of free and paid visual effects and templates.
GoPro should be working on a competitor to VIRBedit for this purpose. VIRBedit is great and doesn't require a Garmin VIRB cam etc. There is also http://www.traceup.com/ for snowboarding and surfing.
GoPro really missed an opportunity here, but it may not be too late.
[+] [-] mbesto|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bittersweet|10 years ago|reply
The GoPro software is horrendous in comparison as I could not even import my video files (one of 4,5 gb and another one of around 1,5) with over 25gb free space. Maybe it needed to convert before importing? In any case I just joined up the files with ffmpeg and imported in Virb and off I went, very recommended!
[1]: http://www.garmin.com/en-US/shop/downloads/virb-edit
[+] [-] pierrebeaucamp|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hwestbrook|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelrunyon|10 years ago|reply
The thing I really want from GoPro is a camera with a battery that lasts more than 30 minutes. They always seem to be duds for me.
[+] [-] pj_mukh|10 years ago|reply
Even though you flipped it off, a drone does exactly this ;).
[+] [-] kcarter80|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iofj|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colmvp|10 years ago|reply
In terms of daily videos, the mobile phone is good enough for most people who want to capture moments.
My comment isn't meant to poo-poo the GoPro because the product definitely fits a niche, rather to say that it wouldn't surprise me to see GoPro hit a certain ceiling with just focusing on portable camcorders.
[+] [-] xlayn|10 years ago|reply
I see 3 different kind of comments for this entry:
-A comment about an opinion of a GoPro camera... this reflects on "I would not buy another because".
-A comment about internal politics about the company...
-People stating "I have one" why should I have another?
with that said, most of them are about "I have one" or "I don't see a reason to buy another", the market has got to a point where most of the people who have bought one doesn't see a reason and the company have not provide one.
How is possible that no one on GoPro had done a market investigation prior to set quarter goals? for me this is a failure of estimating sales where there were no sales to be performed.
The real question here is "What is this new feature that would make our users want to buy a new one?" that would reflect on stronger sales?
[+] [-] tyingq|10 years ago|reply
There's also about 80 open positions there now (I didn't count internships). https://gopro.com/careers/jobs
[+] [-] kkapelon|10 years ago|reply
1)first mover advantage
2)Smart marketing with viral videos of athletes in various extreme sports
3)Selling proprietary accessories
However now that some time has passed and competitors have appeared GoPro is losing ground on all types of users
1)Casual GoPro users already have one and are not going to upgrade
2)Pro users are turning to models with better form factor (sony, contour etc)
The Sony action cameras come with built-in video stabilization a feature that GoPro cameras do not have yet.
[+] [-] freyr|10 years ago|reply
But beyond its brand strength, has there been anything preventing the commoditization of the GoPro product?
[+] [-] jimduk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] picardo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spraveen80|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbb555|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmsdnns|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkmurakami|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iDemonix|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neves|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt_wulfeck|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melted|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rodgerd|10 years ago|reply
And there are a gaggle of imitators at the bottom of the market (various Chinese brands) and the high end (Sony, Panasonic, etc).
[+] [-] gregdoesit|10 years ago|reply
When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true.
I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable - but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never really an issue.
I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you, the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft easily footed the bill.
In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial results following.
[+] [-] nhod|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mturmon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fithisux|10 years ago|reply
a. Cameras freeze when are switched on and plugged in USB f PC. Have to remove battery to unfreeze them. b. Not able to explicitly sync time on cameras with Studio c. Not open in providing lens specs (it was proprietary information what kind of fisheye distortion happens), no focal length, no sensor size, nothing d. UDP streaming is proprietary e. Whatever you do, you need the Go Pro app, not possible to control from PC, no documentation f. Not developer friendly (no REST API for developers) g. Camera acts as a Wi-Fi router, you cannot put multiple of them in the same network as your PC. h. Unintuitive UI in camera, too many clicks to achieve your goal. i. For streaming, they forgot to tell you that you need a Micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter and a USB frame grabber, hidden extra costs.
[+] [-] StillBored|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdxm|10 years ago|reply
big disappointment as I really need a decent solution that will run for many hours at a time...
[+] [-] post_break|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chli|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conradfr|10 years ago|reply
Now the warranty is over and the customer service is still useless with their stock sentences.
So he need a new one and I'm guessing it's not gonna be a GoPro.
[+] [-] Negative1|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freyr|10 years ago|reply