12 ms·

Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

234 points by aanet 3mo ago

aanet 3mo ago
> While GoPro action cameras are built to withstand shock, the brand itself is looking distinctly shaky right now. Latest reports[1] are that founder Nicholas Woodman is propping the company up by extending it a loan of his own money to the tune of $20 million, at an annual interest rate of 6.5%, while a buyer is desperately sought. It’s believed GoPro may not survive the year without a new owner or fresh injection of cash, with Woodman’s intervention acting as a stopgap rather than bail-out per se.
- uxhacker 3mo ago
  Is this because of the cost of memory or because the product is no longer competitive?
  - wyclif 3mo ago
    This article is not very satisfying to read, because it doesn't explore the reasons why GoPro is on the ropes.
  - whycome 3mo ago
    Adventure cams lose a market when people can’t afford to go on adventures?
  - antasvara 3mo ago
    From the financials, it's a little of both? Memory is the acute issue causing their struggles; their most recent quarter saw a gross margin of 4.5% (that's revenue minus the direct cost of producing the cameras, divided by the revenue). That's a hefty fall from their previous margin of ~31%. This contributed to their operating loss of $57M in the last 3 months. Thag being said, they haven't had a positive quarterly operating income since the last quarter of 2022, even when the margin was higher than 4.5%. So it's not like they were succeeding before the memory crunch, just losing money slower.
- brookst 3mo ago
  $20m is really not much money to operate a company for 6 months. They must be close to break-even at least?
- blitzar 3mo ago
  Tale as old as time ... Make a bunch of money from your company, run it into the ground, be the hero that gets paid to keep it afloat. The harder path is not being a shit CEO.
donkeyboy 3mo ago
I had no ifea they were struggling. Tldr; their competitor Insta360 is battling them, and they have YoY revenue drop. Gopro has this cool reliable aura around them. How could they he struggling? So bizarre
- i_am_jl 3mo ago
  Their hardware is unimpressive and expensive, and their software is horrible.
  - wolrah 3mo ago
    > and their software is horrible As a long-time GoPro owner who recently added an Insta360 X5 to his collection, I can't really see any meaningful difference in software horribleness. They are both really really bad, with ads everywhere constantly pushing subscriptions to their cloud services. At least with the normal cameras the software can be entirely ignored, I can take video from my Hero5 straight in to any ordinary NLE and go from there, but the 360 camera requires their software to convert from the native format to anything usable, even if I'm keeping it as 360 footage. The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
    - doix 3mo ago
      > The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone. This is my biggest issue as well. It's actually the one "real" thing I use the iPad for. It still gets the mobile app interface whilst being on a bigger screen and being almost usable.
    - i_am_jl 3mo ago
      >The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone. This was my main gripe, but also: * Image stabilization (Hypersmooth Pro/ReelSteady) as a subscription feature. * Auto-rotate and orientation lock don't work in streaming mode. (I reported this as a bug on the Hero7, was told it was being looked at, still a problem on the Hero10 when I stopped paying attention) For what it's worth, DJI does offer desktop software for their Osmo action cams. They also have a direct NAS/cloud storage upload option from the camera, as well as allowing normal transfer over USB or by pulling the SD card.
amelius 3mo ago
These days you can buy mini cameras for a few bucks on AliExpress, so no wonder.
- mamonoleechi 3mo ago
  any recommendation?
  - brk 3mo ago
    Are you looking for Good or Great? If you just need Good, there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps with output that is more than sufficient for any non-professional use. I don't have a brand recommendation off hand, because the ones I've bought have been random names, but they've all been more than enough. As a reference, I've used them for capturing footage for training machine vision systems, and some general purpose marketing videos. I'm not a "creator", so I paid no attention to editing features, clip hosting, or any of those things. Amazon sometimes gets some hate here, but I usually just buy there because the returns process is so simple. In the random case I get a product that turned out to be deceptive advertising, I drop it at Whole Foods and have a credit before I leave the parking lot. And I have the product in hand in 48 hours at most.
    - embedding-shape 3mo ago
      > Are you looking for Good or Great? What about equal-or-better-than-the-same-or-similar-GoPro?
    - yathern 3mo ago
      > there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps I have to very strongly disagree with this sentiment. I have personally tested quite a few no-name "4K 60fps" cameras from Amazon and AliExpress. Many of them upscale from 1080 - which is fine I guess - but then in 60fps will use a crop sensor and upscale from like ~640. Even with the more recognizable SJCam and Akaso brands, unless you're paying ~$200 - you're going to get upscaling, bad color science, bad image distortion. When comparing against a GoPro 5 (first 4k 60 entry) or 8 (first with USB C) the difference is astounding. Though perhaps this is the difference between good and great that you refer to - but for me, it's certainly worth getting a used GoPro vs any of these modern cheap alternatives. Unfortunately current new GoPros don't improve on their existing line enough to justify paying current prices. I wish I could get a new 2018 quality GoPro knockoff for <$200
ValentineC 3mo ago
When I was looking to buy an action camera last year, I was deciding between Insta360 and DJI, with many YouTubers suggesting outright against GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality. Action cameras sound like a tough business, since most of them are built to last ages, and they need to keep the vast majority of content creators happy trying to increase image quality in a small form factor. Anyway, I bought the Insta360 Go Ultra I had my mind on from the start, which I'm still reasonably happy with.
- atourgates 3mo ago
  Having owned a number of GoPros, I made the same switch last year. The Insta360 has super annoying/intrusive software that always feels like it's trying to sell me something, but it's pretty excellent in terms of actual video quality.
  - ValentineC 3mo ago
    I don't really use the software, not even for updates. I copy out the footage directly using a USB-C cable (wish it had USB 3.0), and do firmware updates by just dropping the update file into the microSD card. It's friggin' fabulous that everything is doable without having to use an app. (Also the app takes up somewhere between 1-2GB of storage on my phone, and I don't have that kind of space.)
    - kristofferR 3mo ago
      That's fine for flat videos, but 360 videos usually need processing before they're usable. I'm unsure if there are other software options that handle Insta360 360 videos well.
      - dylan604 3mo ago
        When 360 videos first started to become viable, all we had were looking at the flattened image. It took a bit to get used to. Eventually, the filters caught up so you could slide the rotation around to keep action centered which made things simple in comparison.
IshKebab 3mo ago
This has been on the cards for about a decade. I guess Insta360's YouTube advertising barrage worked.
- i67vw3 3mo ago
  Saw some sponsored videos on YouTube where they out GoPro compeititor (Insta360 with it's logo) on a Korean/Chinese baby, and the baby enjoying his day. Very good marketing I would say. Attached Example (you will find many such videos on Social Media) https://youtube.com/shorts/2KNOx5oMXWk?feature=shared https://youtube.com/shorts/2KNOx5oMXWk?feature=shared
sen 3mo ago
I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition. They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and expensive, and didn’t have the features of GoPro. These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
- Forgeties79 3mo ago
  It also doesn’t help that you could probably get by with a hero 4 black even today lol Man I still can’t believe how bad the rollout of the karma was. I remember at the time everyone in my professional circles was buzzing about it. Then they started literally falling out of the sky. Feel like they never recovered
  - deleted 3mo ago
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  - antisthenes 3mo ago
    Apparently (checked with AI), Hero 4 Black was the first camera with 30 fps 4k video and was released 12 years ago already (how time flies) Frankly, after 4k/30 and 1080p/60, there are strong diminishing returns, because most people these days watch videos on their phones in suboptimal conditions (or older desktops that may still be on 1080p), so what are they going to do with your 5k/6k video? Sure, you can keep doing minor improvements to sensors and optics, but for a consumer it will not justify getting a new model for $500. Also, competing with smartphone cameras which have gotten better over the years. I bet 99% of people would not be able to tell a gopro video from a phone video.
    - kylecazar 3mo ago
      Transparency on AI use is a sin now, I guess.
rr808 3mo ago
I'm just surprised that an American brand making electronics lasted this long. Even Japanese companies are giving up. No one can compete with China. Apple somehow reigns supreme still. Anyone else?
- romanovcode 3mo ago
  Is apple making electronics? I thought they are made in India and China.
  - crazylogger 3mo ago
    Manufacturing is primarily in China - that's true for Go Pro & everyone else and almost needless to say. The point is China usually eats the design layer too, making Apple a little unique in that they survived Chinese competition completely unscathed.
  - haunter 3mo ago
    Mac Mini will be made in Houston (they already make their own servers there) https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-manufacturing-with-mac-mini-production/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...
    - crote 3mo ago
      Apple is one of the few brands I completely expect to be able to genuinely pull this off. Their volumes are high enough that they will literally build an entire factory from scratch to produce a single product line, they are far enough up the luxury ladder that a few extra dollar in labour won't hurt them too badly, and the contracts with their suppliers are significant enough that they don't need the short supply lines of a Shenzhen and can just demand their suppliers Get It Done. Having a domestic factory won't hurt Apple, and with an erratic President who'll flip on tariffs twice a week it's a sensible hedge against his inevitable next meltdown.
- steelframe 3mo ago
  Apple isn't exactly competing with China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China
keiferski 3mo ago
Red Bull really ran the marketing playbook that GoPro should have done: become known for athletes doing extreme things. Instead they stayed too technical and product-based and didn't build a brand beyond "we make action cameras."
- r3trohack3r 3mo ago
  There is an old saying that Red Bull is a marketing company that happens to sell energy drinks
  - keiferski 3mo ago
    yep, and there's no reason why a company with that brand couldn't be selling action cameras, or shoes (Nike), or anything adjacent to extreme sports
    - shmeeed 3mo ago
      GoPro would fit right in there with the Red Bull brand, as a matter of fact.
  - fy20 3mo ago
    Well that is pretty much true. It's founder was a marketing director for a consumer goods brand.
- deleted 3mo ago
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- harrall 3mo ago
  Red Bull doesn’t just market, they bankroll and support. Most companies just sponsor a team or something, but Red Bull has paid for the baseline infrastructure of many sports.
- atourgates 3mo ago
  They really have tried. They don't have the type of insane cashflow that RedBull does to sponsor tons of athletes and weird events, but their video contests are kind of a big deal in the action sports community. AKA, their Line of the Winter[1] competition for skiing, or their Best Line conest for MTB[2] that they used to run. And they're the title sponsor for the GoPro Mountain Games[3]. They're still THE action sports cameara carried in a lot of outdoor equipment stores, but the Insta360 has really dominated social media recently, and their products are currently a better value for cost/performance. [1] https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter [2] https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-best-line-contest.html https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-b... [3] https://mountaingames.com/ https://mountaingames.com/
james_hsiao 3mo ago
[flagged]
5701652400 3mo ago
didn't they moved actual hardware production elsewhere outside of US? typical story. first move out production, loose core competency, let competitors copy it with own brands in own jurisdictions, and shut down business.
- crote 3mo ago
  American manufacturing is a rounding error, especially when it comes to consumer electronics. Western manufacturing can't compete with a Shenzhen. Our supply lines suck, our labour is too expensive for any kind of manual work, and we didn't bother to invest in automation as decades of outsourcing made our manufacturers focus on low-volume high-margin products. No need to steal when our own companies willingly export core competency for a few cents of shareholder value!
  - junto 3mo ago
    This sounds like a choose your path story… You are a country. You have to decide on your country’s economic model before starting the game. Choose: - a free market economy. Companies are unhindered by the state to make their own decisions to maximize shareholder value. Decisions therefore lean towards short term profit margins rather than long term success. Influence of the state via elected politicians on a short term is expensive but effective to ensure you are unhindered by regulation. Success here is not aligned with the long term success of the state. - a quasi free market where there is partial state ownership and control, but also supports free market principles to encourage private investment. The state will heavily subsidize your economy and decisions can be made to prioritize long term global success rather than short term shareholder value. - a state controlled and state owned economy. All decisions are made by committee. There are no shareholders apart from the state. Success benefits all within the state. Failure also tied directly to the state. Long term goals are preference over short term goals. Choose carefully. Once your have made your decision the costs to change it are extremely high and will result in societal and economic collapse.
    - monocularvision 3mo ago
deleted 3mo ago
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lardosaurusrex 3mo ago
Gopro has been garbage for years now. Heck in youtube videos you'll occasionally hear "for some reason my gopro is really hot and smells like burning plastic". Happens to every big brand, really.
transitorykris 3mo ago
I loved the product early on, but they became the Adobe Creative Cloud of cameras. Play dumb subscription games win dumb prizes.
doctorpangloss 3mo ago
They could spur a lot of innovation by open sourcing their firmware or introducing plugins. They don't really have a channel to take asks like "ring buffer style recording" but I would do it myself.
- bogwog 3mo ago
  They already have Open GoPro: https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro Idk if the firmware is open source, but there's a whole SDK you can use to implement stuff like that
  - doctorpangloss 3mo ago
    I would want to put stuff on the camera, which this SDK doesn't do. But it's good it is part of their DNA.
SignalM 3mo ago
They missed the chance to make PC camera just before Covid or during it or now as another revenue stream. They have a hacky way to get it to work but they should have made one specifically for the PC and meeting settings.. Cisco and others make a killing in that space
- kawsper 3mo ago
  All GoPros since HERO 8 (released 2019) works as a webcam without any hacks, just plug it in.
  - randoments 3mo ago
    not on the macos. Hero9 (or 10 i dont remember) owner here.
intellix 3mo ago
we barely ever use our GoPro 8 BLACK. I decided to take it with me skiing and turned it on for a crazy ride down. When I got back I wanted to show my GF the footage and it just had frozen video, only playing sound. I thought they were meant to be really robust and hardy but it decided not to work when I needed it and now I don't really trust them tbh. It's sort of opposite of what the brand was leading me to believe.
Grombobulous 3mo ago
There’s a really good video out there about how GoPro fumbled their position: https://youtu.be/frrhSJF__Mc https://youtu.be/frrhSJF__Mc Insta360 is the company that has essentially taken over this space.
knes 3mo ago
no one is mentioning DJI? they are also crushing go pro with DJI Osmo lineup, action or nano.
varispeed 3mo ago
I don't see a use case for these cameras. Phone takes amazing pictures and videos and is always on hand and if I need something more polished, I just get DSLR. Sure DSLR is more expensive, but if I want to do something well, I'd rather go all in.
- seabrookmx 3mo ago
  The use case is niche but there. I ride mountain bikes and off-road motorcycles and have a GoPro on my helmet. A phone is the wrong form factor and a DSLR is too heavy. Same with surfers, or people who race cars etc. Having a physically small camera, with robust mounting and stabilization is not something a phone in a gimbal or a "real camera" can provide.
- rjrjrjrj 3mo ago
  Who is mounting a DSLR on bike, helmet, chest? Taking it in the ocean, etc.
- maratc 3mo ago
  When you want to film your kid jumping into a pool (from inside the pool), do you do it with your phone or with your DSLR?
  - varispeed 3mo ago
    Phone
    - maratc 3mo ago
      It doesn't work, as one can't control a wet screen with wet fingers.
      - varispeed 3mo ago
        Never had an issue. Filmed during holidays plenty of times, even under water.
Gravityloss 3mo ago
Many years ago had my first Gopro camera that seriously overheated, sent it for repairs, they said there was nothing wrong with it. It literally turned too hot to handle after taking a few clips and wouldn't work. I think there was some serious hardware issue that caused it to then drain the whole battery. Gave the brand a second chance some years ago. Couldn't export my videos from the app, it always hanged. So I couldn't share footage. Apparently a common long standing problem on forums. Woved to never buy anything from them again.
- phyzome 3mo ago
  Yeah, I've had multiple GoPros die in multiple ways, and way too quickly. They're just really poor quality and aren't suited for vibration, heat, cold, etc. -- exactly the things an "action camera" should be able to tolerate.
- jodiug 3mo ago
  I missed a lot of footage last year too, after buying a newer model GoPro. Turns out, they now ship a battery that cannot handle even mildly freezing temperatures. Impossible to film while skiing. Of course, you have to buy a special winter battery, and none of their product marketing mentions this.
- thephyber 3mo ago
  It's still an issue with the newest generation cameras. If you record at the highest resolution and FPS, the camera can't shed the heat fast enough.
andmarios 3mo ago
Contrary to the popular opinion in the rest of the comments, I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware, a lot of thought into usability for professionals, many accessories, and hackable with official firmware from the company. The "problem" is that I don't use it that often. Most people do not need action footage regularly. It was more like a impulse/hobby buy rather than a need.
- kawsper 3mo ago
  > and hackable with official firmware from the company. GoPro Labs works really well, https://gopro.com/en/us/info/gopro-labs https://gopro.com/en/us/info/gopro-labs But it's a bit sad how long their expirements lives there before making it into the default firmware.
- Lammy 3mo ago
  >I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware I have the same model and hate it. Damn thing overheats constantly. It has never been able to do 4K60 for more than ~twenty minutes even with a full-blast AC vent pointed directly at it. It still overheats periodically when doing 1080P60 too, but a lot less often and usually only in situations where I am also uncomfortbly warm. More than zero overheating is unacceptable though considering I have to notice it happened, turn it back on, dismiss the warning, and restart recording. Pic from literally just today, July 18th: https://ibb.co/chPq0N8g https://ibb.co/chPq0N8g
ltbarcly3 3mo ago
It's a testament to how broken modern business practices are that GoPro can sell 1.2 Million cameras per year and still go out of business. It's possible they are just poorly run, and they spend more in R&D than they recoup in revenue, but I strongly suspect they were set up to only be profitable if they sold millions of cameras per year as an attempt to maximize profits at that volume, without consideration of other scenarios.
aeonik 3mo ago
I stopped buying go pros when I drove from the top of Mt Blue Sky to the base. Had the camera mounted on my dashboard, planned to make a cool time lapse down the mountain road. Turns out it overheated 15 minutes into the drive, and corrupted all the footage from my whole ski trip. I'm also still salty that they cancelled my favorite fast video editing software (can't remember the name). This was 8 years ago.
skippyfish 3mo ago
I slept on GoPro for a long time because, but then wanted to document some outdoor activities. I went with two Hero 5 units and as a photographer, I was shocked by how overhyped these devices seemed to be. The first surprise was just shoddy electrical engineering: unlike any camera from a big-name manufacturer, they drain the batteries in storage, to the point where they're dead after 2-3 weeks. But that aside, image quality is just poor for the price. It's oversharpened and oversaturated to cover up deficiencies, and that may work for some YouTube videos, but it's a $400 device that's miles behind any $500 mirrorless. So I get it that if really want to go snorkeling or mountain biking with a camera, this might be a good choice, but that's a tiny market, and for everything else, why would you buy it? If you want cell phone quality video, you can use your cell phone. If you want professional quality, you can spend the same amount of money on a mirrorless from Canon, Panasonic, Sony, or whatever.
- jitl 3mo ago
  the action part of “action camera” is the reason why you buy an action camera. if a normal camera is fine then yeah, you don’t need it.
- vorpalhex 3mo ago
  My strong photographer opinion is that you should buy the oldest action camera that meets any resolution/framerate needs and treat it almost like a disposable. Buy on sales or used units. Use them on shots you genuinely are unwilling to use a mirrorless for - strapped to the front of a bike, magnetically attached to the side of a car, strapped to someone jumping in a lake.
  - crote 3mo ago
    > treat it almost like a disposable And that's why GoPro is dying: they are selling a premium product in a market of disposables.
- crote 3mo ago
  The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an action camera - to the point that people for a long time called any action camera "a GoPro". Comparing them to smartphones or mirrorless cameras is completely missing their point: nobody would buy them for regular point-and-shoot activity. You buy a GoPro to mount onto a dirt bike, or on your helmet during caving, or on a chest harness during a skydive, or on the front of your surfboard: all activities where a smartphone or a mirrorless would die on their first use. GoPro isn't failing because the concept is wrong - the market is massive. GoPro is failing because its competitors started releasing clones which are both better and cheaper. They are the expensive premium brand in a market where buyers expect their product will need to be replaced when it inevitably can't handle the abuse anymore.
radicality 3mo ago
Ah damn I just bought their new Mission One a few weeks ago (upgrading from a Hero 10). Already quite angry though since it seems the batteries are basically the same shape for both, except the connector is in a different location, so the 3 existing batteries I have for the Hero 10 are not compatible, which is a shitty move from GoPro. Well I guess either way I won’t be buying gopros anymore in the future.
abalashov 3mo ago
As a cyclist (and former racer), I still want to know how to capture videos with telemetry overlays (speed, power, HR, etc) from my head unit in a straightforward way. NorCal Cycling's videos - https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling - are an excellent demonstration of this at work. Yes, I've done the Garmin VIRB Edit thing, which is the very approach recommended by Jeff (NorCalCycling) in his tutorial videos on the subject. It feels like something out of 2005. It is incredibly labour-intensive and imprecise unless you're fortunate enough to be in relatively short criteriums where you've got the battery runtime to just record the whole race. Most real-world events and rides require one to turn the camera on and off at certain moments, which then requires _hours_ of stitching together clips and correlating them to GPS fixes from the head unit (in the FIT file), and quite imprecisely at that. There has to be a more 2026 solution to this. All you need to do is correlate the footage to the FIT data points by timestamp, in the temporal domain. If Garmin came out with one, it would absolutely annihilate this space. To the best of my knowledge, there is no competition that offers anything turn-key, though perhaps the best of my knowledge has not aged well and by now there is something. It's maddening.
- shepherdjerred 3mo ago
  Am I wrong in thinking you could do this with ffmpeg, your video files, and your data from Strava/Garmin/whatever? This feels like a program an LLM (or human!) could write pretty easily
  - abalashov 3mo ago
    You would think it would be that straightforward. However, accurate synchronisation on GPS or temporal attributes would be required. Judging by the paucity of software to do this, historically, it is not a straightforward problem, or all the devices involved don't generate all the data points required. The real mess is when you have 26 clips from a long event to string together. It can easily take a day and a half to make a 3 minute montage out of that.
    - lukeschlather 3mo ago
hatsunearu 3mo ago
IMO the image quality on GoPro is still the best. I don't understand why people say it's horrible. For flat video it outperforms Insta360 and definitely DJI.
topspin 3mo ago
Betteridge enters the chat. GoPro's market is changing: strong competitors now make solid, low cost alternatives. GoPro is moving deep into professional markets where margins are high, and leveraging their position as a US company whose products can be utilized by sensitive customers. GoPro will be fine. They just won't be the go-to for every YouTuber any longer.
hdjdjdjdjdjdjd 3mo ago
[flagged]
- hdgvhicv 3mo ago
  He’s good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory Rather than actually getting real on China and their abuse of the postal system, it’s all about tarrifs on penguins. Biden did far more with the chips act, but rather than building on that trunk failed to enact any meaningful change. And of course make billions in the side from bribery.
  - lokar 3mo ago
    Imagine if he had effectively coordinated with Mexico, Canada and the EU to curb Chinese trade practices.
hmokiguess 3mo ago
I bought my first GoPro for a scuba diving trip in Mexico once. Was super excited, it was my first scuba diving experience too. As soon as we hit deeper waters the capture button pressed itself down due the pressure and it wouldn’t come back up. That, unfortunately happened in a way that I couldn’t start a capture. Lost the entire thing, despite the camera being perfectly fine after we came back to surface. Hated them ever since.
- belorn 3mo ago
  For scuba diving you will want to have a house for the camera regardless of brand. It not only lower the risk of damages, but it is also more explicitly designed for depth without needing to compromising for non-divers. That said, GoPro is not the best for low light environments, and the battery is a bit temperature sensitive, both which can be an issue when diving.
- Mawr 3mo ago
  Hahahah. Do you seriously just take random objects deep underwater and expect them to be designed to withstand that sort of an environment? Was the GoPro you bought rated up to that depth or something? After a cursory look online, they're only rated down to 10m, which is about what I'd expect.
  - hmokiguess 3mo ago
    It was rated 30m, I went down less than that, and I used their enclosing thingy. Yes, I did expect it to work as their marketing team managed to convince me of such. It wasn't a random object, it was a camera marketed for such environment.
- werdnapk 3mo ago
  GoPros (at least the early generations) required a special housing for use in water. My first GoPro was a 2 I believe and I bought it for scuba and it was terrible. Then the newer models came out promising better performance for diving, so I upgraded... and it was terrible as well. Gave up on GoPros after being sucked in twice and not getting the results I was hoping for. It was ok for other things, but anything involving water was not great. I believe things eventually got sorted out for water use, but I was no longer a customer.
baby 3mo ago
I've owned a bunch of gopros and I feel like they've always had the same kind of bugs. Random crashes, things not working anymore. It's really bad, so bad that I had plenty of videos that were missing sound, or just corruption in general. Then they started this subscription thing and I was like, finally, they're going the SaaS way, they will make so much money, and they will be able to improve that camera that basically never seems to improve much version after version. I bought a bunch of put options, and I lost all my money, every time I put back some in the put options. Now I have the insta360 go ultra and... I think go pro is going to die. It's just so good.
- windowshopping 3mo ago
  If you thought they were going to finally improve with SaaS why did you buy put options?
  - zerocrates 3mo ago
    "Ah so that's why I kept losing money!" But seriously, safe to assume they meant to say calls and just accidentally wrote the wrong one.
- lardosaurusrex 3mo ago
  You... invested in the crappy company being crappy that did the crappiest thing all the crappy companies do aka start a subscription... and... -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- got burned by it? ???
recursivecaveat 3mo ago
Extremely similar to iRobot (Roomba). They both practically genericized themselves by inventing and dominating the product category, then just couldn't keep up with the competition. GoPro does feel more self inflicted though. Their drone was a failure, and they burnt a lot of money trying to do some kind of pivot to being a media company.
- nikodunk 3mo ago
  Was just about to say Roomba too! Next up IMO is Philips Hue, which don't support Matter and cost $25, vs. Matter-enabled Amazon brands that cost $7.
  - tomaskafka 3mo ago
    Hue also peaks at 20 W sources which leave even small room in the dark (for comparison, I have 70 W of LED lighting in the kitchen central light).
    - Gigachad 3mo ago
      Ideally for good lighting you do want multiple lower power lights than a single mini sun
      - tomaskafka 3mo ago
        Half of the sun shines upwards, to brighten up the ceiling and corners, but yes, I agree.
  - kowbell 3mo ago
    Got any you'd recommend? I've been paying the Hue tax because they're the only bulbs I've had with zero connectivity issues ever across several years, whereas every other brand I've tried has been very unreliable.
    - mholm 3mo ago
tomaskafka 3mo ago
My guess is that action cameras are 20 % need (professionals, documentary crews etc) and 80 % fashion (people buying them and them using them for a few shots twice a year on the holiday), and the fashion component peak is over.
junaru 3mo ago
What does one buy if they want a 1080p60 action cam with stabilisation that doesn't overheat, has good battery life and acceptable low light performance (think rainy day in the woods)?
arjie 3mo ago
It’s the classic situation. China can outcompete all this stuff. It doesn’t really matter. Roomba, GoPro, they’re all going to be crushed by Chinese manufacturers. You just can’t get the margins to work anywhere else and if you do the R&D you’re a sucker. I’ve had a few GoPros and a few GoPro 360s. I also had Roombas so you can blame me as the brand killer.
- TheJoeMan 3mo ago
  If you look at these US high-tech consumer products, many companies started out much “simpler”. GoPro was a disposable film camera and a wrist-strap, and iteratively got to where it is today. The iPod came out much before the iPhone. As you say, the R&D is a hard sell when you have to go from 0 product to a fully featured state-of-the-art. Somehow, these Chinese companies can spend years copying and then once locked in go on a new-features blitz.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 3mo ago
    So why doesn't the US do it in reverse? Surely there's some R&D going on in China that US can reverse engineer.
    - oneshtein 3mo ago
      They need to learn Chinese first, then to watch Chinese forums.
- stevage 3mo ago
  Is GoPro not manufactured in China?
  - thephyber 3mo ago
    Some in China, but also Thailand and Mexico. They seem to be playing whack-a-mole with manufacturing contractors and changes to tariff policy.
- PunchyHamster 3mo ago
dabinat 3mo ago
I remember using these on movie sets as crash cams - a cheap camera that could be mounted on something fast-moving so you could get cool action shots without risking the $100k primary camera. But the main selling point for this use-case is that they were cheap, and that’s a fight the Chinese companies will always win.
dd_xplore 3mo ago
My only gripe with GoPros is lack of external mic like dji ecosystem.
ge96 3mo ago
Only reason I'd choose them over Insta360 for example is that weird manual phone app permissions to activate the camera Insta does. I don't know if go pro doesn't do that, haven't bought a modern go pro in a bit. I will say the Insta 360 Go 3S is an amazing camera physically it's so small and convenient. They could improve the algo when you pan over a pavement that conglomerate pattern looks sickening when you pan.
tclarke142 3mo ago
I had a GoPro Hero 7 and 8. In the -10c snow they battery wouldn't even last for 5 minutes. It's a bad product and just like with cars and solar the Chinese are ruthlessly out-engineering the west.
- mft_ 3mo ago
  I had the same problem with (I think) a Hero 3 over a decade ago; given snow sports is a key use case, this is poor.
- TheJoeMan 3mo ago
  I never understood if I was supposed to turn it completely off on the ski lifts or leave it in “sleep” for best battery life, and like you say the battery in the cold was just disappointing. Some irony though with another HN commenter having an overheating issue.
- linsomniac 3mo ago
  TheOutdoorBoys youtube channel mentioned something about special batteries for cold temps. -10c for many of his hiking and camping trips isn't unusual, and (as I understand it) he did weekly videos with Go Pros for a decade. He probably knows a thing or two.
  - jodiug 3mo ago
    This is true. They sell special "winter batteries" now. What a poor decision...
lencastre 3mo ago
the end of GoPro happened with the first DJI Action
t0mpr1c3 3mo ago
Yes.
jongjong 3mo ago
Not to mention that they're now competing with fake AI slop videos. People don't have so much interest to record their sporting achievements anymore since the video no longer serves as social proof.
alfg 3mo ago
I've only owned 2 GoPros, the latest one I purchased back in 2020. I use it mostly for motorsports related content and it did it's job well, but never had a need to replace or upgrade to the latest. Now there's so many options.
asadm 3mo ago
GoPro should pivot to making robotics and ai cameras and watch the stocks fly.
misiek08 3mo ago
As a scammed customer - this was inevitable. They promised great improvements model over model and didn't deliver. I bought model 9 and since beginning it overheats, randomly stops recording or just shuts down. There were promises to fix this with firmware updates - didn't happen.
redwood 3mo ago
I'm surprised Meta hasn't already acquired them

234 points by aanet 3mo ago

aanet 3mo ago

> While GoPro action cameras are built to withstand shock, the brand itself is looking distinctly shaky right now. Latest reports[1] are that founder Nicholas Woodman is propping the company up by extending it a loan of his own money to the tune of $20 million, at an annual interest rate of 6.5%, while a buyer is desperately sought. It’s believed GoPro may not survive the year without a new owner or fresh injection of cash, with Woodman’s intervention acting as a stopgap rather than bail-out per se.

uxhacker 3mo ago
Is this because of the cost of memory or because the product is no longer competitive?
- wyclif 3mo ago
  This article is not very satisfying to read, because it doesn't explore the reasons why GoPro is on the ropes.
- whycome 3mo ago
  Adventure cams lose a market when people can’t afford to go on adventures?
- antasvara 3mo ago
  From the financials, it's a little of both? Memory is the acute issue causing their struggles; their most recent quarter saw a gross margin of 4.5% (that's revenue minus the direct cost of producing the cameras, divided by the revenue). That's a hefty fall from their previous margin of ~31%. This contributed to their operating loss of $57M in the last 3 months. Thag being said, they haven't had a positive quarterly operating income since the last quarter of 2022, even when the margin was higher than 4.5%. So it's not like they were succeeding before the memory crunch, just losing money slower.
brookst 3mo ago
$20m is really not much money to operate a company for 6 months. They must be close to break-even at least?
blitzar 3mo ago
Tale as old as time ... Make a bunch of money from your company, run it into the ground, be the hero that gets paid to keep it afloat. The harder path is not being a shit CEO.

donkeyboy 3mo ago

I had no ifea they were struggling. Tldr; their competitor Insta360 is battling them, and they have YoY revenue drop. Gopro has this cool reliable aura around them. How could they he struggling? So bizarre

i_am_jl 3mo ago
Their hardware is unimpressive and expensive, and their software is horrible.
- wolrah 3mo ago
  > and their software is horrible As a long-time GoPro owner who recently added an Insta360 X5 to his collection, I can't really see any meaningful difference in software horribleness. They are both really really bad, with ads everywhere constantly pushing subscriptions to their cloud services. At least with the normal cameras the software can be entirely ignored, I can take video from my Hero5 straight in to any ordinary NLE and go from there, but the 360 camera requires their software to convert from the native format to anything usable, even if I'm keeping it as 360 footage. The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
  - doix 3mo ago
    > The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone. This is my biggest issue as well. It's actually the one "real" thing I use the iPad for. It still gets the mobile app interface whilst being on a bigger screen and being almost usable.
  - i_am_jl 3mo ago
    >The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone. This was my main gripe, but also: * Image stabilization (Hypersmooth Pro/ReelSteady) as a subscription feature. * Auto-rotate and orientation lock don't work in streaming mode. (I reported this as a bug on the Hero7, was told it was being looked at, still a problem on the Hero10 when I stopped paying attention) For what it's worth, DJI does offer desktop software for their Osmo action cams. They also have a direct NAS/cloud storage upload option from the camera, as well as allowing normal transfer over USB or by pulling the SD card.

amelius 3mo ago

These days you can buy mini cameras for a few bucks on AliExpress, so no wonder.

mamonoleechi 3mo ago
any recommendation?
- brk 3mo ago
  Are you looking for Good or Great? If you just need Good, there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps with output that is more than sufficient for any non-professional use. I don't have a brand recommendation off hand, because the ones I've bought have been random names, but they've all been more than enough. As a reference, I've used them for capturing footage for training machine vision systems, and some general purpose marketing videos. I'm not a "creator", so I paid no attention to editing features, clip hosting, or any of those things. Amazon sometimes gets some hate here, but I usually just buy there because the returns process is so simple. In the random case I get a product that turned out to be deceptive advertising, I drop it at Whole Foods and have a credit before I leave the parking lot. And I have the product in hand in 48 hours at most.
  - embedding-shape 3mo ago
    > Are you looking for Good or Great? What about equal-or-better-than-the-same-or-similar-GoPro?
  - yathern 3mo ago
    > there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps I have to very strongly disagree with this sentiment. I have personally tested quite a few no-name "4K 60fps" cameras from Amazon and AliExpress. Many of them upscale from 1080 - which is fine I guess - but then in 60fps will use a crop sensor and upscale from like ~640. Even with the more recognizable SJCam and Akaso brands, unless you're paying ~$200 - you're going to get upscaling, bad color science, bad image distortion. When comparing against a GoPro 5 (first 4k 60 entry) or 8 (first with USB C) the difference is astounding. Though perhaps this is the difference between good and great that you refer to - but for me, it's certainly worth getting a used GoPro vs any of these modern cheap alternatives. Unfortunately current new GoPros don't improve on their existing line enough to justify paying current prices. I wish I could get a new 2018 quality GoPro knockoff for <$200

ValentineC 3mo ago

When I was looking to buy an action camera last year, I was deciding between Insta360 and DJI, with many YouTubers suggesting outright against GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality. Action cameras sound like a tough business, since most of them are built to last ages, and they need to keep the vast majority of content creators happy trying to increase image quality in a small form factor. Anyway, I bought the Insta360 Go Ultra I had my mind on from the start, which I'm still reasonably happy with.

atourgates 3mo ago
Having owned a number of GoPros, I made the same switch last year. The Insta360 has super annoying/intrusive software that always feels like it's trying to sell me something, but it's pretty excellent in terms of actual video quality.
- ValentineC 3mo ago
  I don't really use the software, not even for updates. I copy out the footage directly using a USB-C cable (wish it had USB 3.0), and do firmware updates by just dropping the update file into the microSD card. It's friggin' fabulous that everything is doable without having to use an app. (Also the app takes up somewhere between 1-2GB of storage on my phone, and I don't have that kind of space.)
  - kristofferR 3mo ago
    That's fine for flat videos, but 360 videos usually need processing before they're usable. I'm unsure if there are other software options that handle Insta360 360 videos well.
    - dylan604 3mo ago
      When 360 videos first started to become viable, all we had were looking at the flattened image. It took a bit to get used to. Eventually, the filters caught up so you could slide the rotation around to keep action centered which made things simple in comparison.

IshKebab 3mo ago

This has been on the cards for about a decade. I guess Insta360's YouTube advertising barrage worked.

i67vw3 3mo ago
Saw some sponsored videos on YouTube where they out GoPro compeititor (Insta360 with it's logo) on a Korean/Chinese baby, and the baby enjoying his day. Very good marketing I would say. Attached Example (you will find many such videos on Social Media) https://youtube.com/shorts/2KNOx5oMXWk?feature=shared https://youtube.com/shorts/2KNOx5oMXWk?feature=shared

sen 3mo ago

I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. You can be more expensive if you’re better, or you can be worse if you’re cheaper, but they’re both the downsides while living purely off brand recognition. They also blew up in a time where there wasn’t any real competition. Sony had action cameras but they were bulkier and expensive, and didn’t have the features of GoPro. These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.

Forgeties79 3mo ago
It also doesn’t help that you could probably get by with a hero 4 black even today lol Man I still can’t believe how bad the rollout of the karma was. I remember at the time everyone in my professional circles was buzzing about it. Then they started literally falling out of the sky. Feel like they never recovered
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- antisthenes 3mo ago
  Apparently (checked with AI), Hero 4 Black was the first camera with 30 fps 4k video and was released 12 years ago already (how time flies) Frankly, after 4k/30 and 1080p/60, there are strong diminishing returns, because most people these days watch videos on their phones in suboptimal conditions (or older desktops that may still be on 1080p), so what are they going to do with your 5k/6k video? Sure, you can keep doing minor improvements to sensors and optics, but for a consumer it will not justify getting a new model for $500. Also, competing with smartphone cameras which have gotten better over the years. I bet 99% of people would not be able to tell a gopro video from a phone video.
  - kylecazar 3mo ago
    Transparency on AI use is a sin now, I guess.

rr808 3mo ago

I'm just surprised that an American brand making electronics lasted this long. Even Japanese companies are giving up. No one can compete with China. Apple somehow reigns supreme still. Anyone else?

romanovcode 3mo ago
Is apple making electronics? I thought they are made in India and China.
- crazylogger 3mo ago
  Manufacturing is primarily in China - that's true for Go Pro & everyone else and almost needless to say. The point is China usually eats the design layer too, making Apple a little unique in that they survived Chinese competition completely unscathed.
- haunter 3mo ago
  Mac Mini will be made in Houston (they already make their own servers there) https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-manufacturing-with-mac-mini-production/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...
  - crote 3mo ago
    Apple is one of the few brands I completely expect to be able to genuinely pull this off. Their volumes are high enough that they will literally build an entire factory from scratch to produce a single product line, they are far enough up the luxury ladder that a few extra dollar in labour won't hurt them too badly, and the contracts with their suppliers are significant enough that they don't need the short supply lines of a Shenzhen and can just demand their suppliers Get It Done. Having a domestic factory won't hurt Apple, and with an erratic President who'll flip on tariffs twice a week it's a sensible hedge against his inevitable next meltdown.
steelframe 3mo ago
Apple isn't exactly competing with China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China

keiferski 3mo ago

Red Bull really ran the marketing playbook that GoPro should have done: become known for athletes doing extreme things. Instead they stayed too technical and product-based and didn't build a brand beyond "we make action cameras."

r3trohack3r 3mo ago
There is an old saying that Red Bull is a marketing company that happens to sell energy drinks
- keiferski 3mo ago
  yep, and there's no reason why a company with that brand couldn't be selling action cameras, or shoes (Nike), or anything adjacent to extreme sports
  - shmeeed 3mo ago
    GoPro would fit right in there with the Red Bull brand, as a matter of fact.
- fy20 3mo ago
  Well that is pretty much true. It's founder was a marketing director for a consumer goods brand.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
harrall 3mo ago
Red Bull doesn’t just market, they bankroll and support. Most companies just sponsor a team or something, but Red Bull has paid for the baseline infrastructure of many sports.
atourgates 3mo ago
They really have tried. They don't have the type of insane cashflow that RedBull does to sponsor tons of athletes and weird events, but their video contests are kind of a big deal in the action sports community. AKA, their Line of the Winter[1] competition for skiing, or their Best Line conest for MTB[2] that they used to run. And they're the title sponsor for the GoPro Mountain Games[3]. They're still THE action sports cameara carried in a lot of outdoor equipment stores, but the Insta360 has really dominated social media recently, and their products are currently a better value for cost/performance. [1] https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter [2] https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-best-line-contest.html https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-b... [3] https://mountaingames.com/ https://mountaingames.com/

james_hsiao 3mo ago

[flagged]

5701652400 3mo ago

didn't they moved actual hardware production elsewhere outside of US? typical story. first move out production, loose core competency, let competitors copy it with own brands in own jurisdictions, and shut down business.

crote 3mo ago
American manufacturing is a rounding error, especially when it comes to consumer electronics. Western manufacturing can't compete with a Shenzhen. Our supply lines suck, our labour is too expensive for any kind of manual work, and we didn't bother to invest in automation as decades of outsourcing made our manufacturers focus on low-volume high-margin products. No need to steal when our own companies willingly export core competency for a few cents of shareholder value!
- junto 3mo ago
  This sounds like a choose your path story… You are a country. You have to decide on your country’s economic model before starting the game. Choose: - a free market economy. Companies are unhindered by the state to make their own decisions to maximize shareholder value. Decisions therefore lean towards short term profit margins rather than long term success. Influence of the state via elected politicians on a short term is expensive but effective to ensure you are unhindered by regulation. Success here is not aligned with the long term success of the state. - a quasi free market where there is partial state ownership and control, but also supports free market principles to encourage private investment. The state will heavily subsidize your economy and decisions can be made to prioritize long term global success rather than short term shareholder value. - a state controlled and state owned economy. All decisions are made by committee. There are no shareholders apart from the state. Success benefits all within the state. Failure also tied directly to the state. Long term goals are preference over short term goals. Choose carefully. Once your have made your decision the costs to change it are extremely high and will result in societal and economic collapse.
  - monocularvision 3mo ago

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

lardosaurusrex 3mo ago

Gopro has been garbage for years now. Heck in youtube videos you'll occasionally hear "for some reason my gopro is really hot and smells like burning plastic". Happens to every big brand, really.

transitorykris 3mo ago

I loved the product early on, but they became the Adobe Creative Cloud of cameras. Play dumb subscription games win dumb prizes.

doctorpangloss 3mo ago

They could spur a lot of innovation by open sourcing their firmware or introducing plugins. They don't really have a channel to take asks like "ring buffer style recording" but I would do it myself.

bogwog 3mo ago
They already have Open GoPro: https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro Idk if the firmware is open source, but there's a whole SDK you can use to implement stuff like that
- doctorpangloss 3mo ago
  I would want to put stuff on the camera, which this SDK doesn't do. But it's good it is part of their DNA.

SignalM 3mo ago

They missed the chance to make PC camera just before Covid or during it or now as another revenue stream. They have a hacky way to get it to work but they should have made one specifically for the PC and meeting settings.. Cisco and others make a killing in that space

kawsper 3mo ago
All GoPros since HERO 8 (released 2019) works as a webcam without any hacks, just plug it in.
- randoments 3mo ago
  not on the macos. Hero9 (or 10 i dont remember) owner here.

intellix 3mo ago

we barely ever use our GoPro 8 BLACK. I decided to take it with me skiing and turned it on for a crazy ride down. When I got back I wanted to show my GF the footage and it just had frozen video, only playing sound. I thought they were meant to be really robust and hardy but it decided not to work when I needed it and now I don't really trust them tbh. It's sort of opposite of what the brand was leading me to believe.

Grombobulous 3mo ago

There’s a really good video out there about how GoPro fumbled their position: https://youtu.be/frrhSJF__Mc https://youtu.be/frrhSJF__Mc Insta360 is the company that has essentially taken over this space.

knes 3mo ago

no one is mentioning DJI? they are also crushing go pro with DJI Osmo lineup, action or nano.

varispeed 3mo ago

I don't see a use case for these cameras. Phone takes amazing pictures and videos and is always on hand and if I need something more polished, I just get DSLR. Sure DSLR is more expensive, but if I want to do something well, I'd rather go all in.

seabrookmx 3mo ago
The use case is niche but there. I ride mountain bikes and off-road motorcycles and have a GoPro on my helmet. A phone is the wrong form factor and a DSLR is too heavy. Same with surfers, or people who race cars etc. Having a physically small camera, with robust mounting and stabilization is not something a phone in a gimbal or a "real camera" can provide.
rjrjrjrj 3mo ago
Who is mounting a DSLR on bike, helmet, chest? Taking it in the ocean, etc.
maratc 3mo ago
When you want to film your kid jumping into a pool (from inside the pool), do you do it with your phone or with your DSLR?
- varispeed 3mo ago
  Phone
  - maratc 3mo ago
    It doesn't work, as one can't control a wet screen with wet fingers.
    - varispeed 3mo ago
      Never had an issue. Filmed during holidays plenty of times, even under water.

Gravityloss 3mo ago

Many years ago had my first Gopro camera that seriously overheated, sent it for repairs, they said there was nothing wrong with it. It literally turned too hot to handle after taking a few clips and wouldn't work. I think there was some serious hardware issue that caused it to then drain the whole battery. Gave the brand a second chance some years ago. Couldn't export my videos from the app, it always hanged. So I couldn't share footage. Apparently a common long standing problem on forums. Woved to never buy anything from them again.

phyzome 3mo ago
Yeah, I've had multiple GoPros die in multiple ways, and way too quickly. They're just really poor quality and aren't suited for vibration, heat, cold, etc. -- exactly the things an "action camera" should be able to tolerate.
jodiug 3mo ago
I missed a lot of footage last year too, after buying a newer model GoPro. Turns out, they now ship a battery that cannot handle even mildly freezing temperatures. Impossible to film while skiing. Of course, you have to buy a special winter battery, and none of their product marketing mentions this.
thephyber 3mo ago
It's still an issue with the newest generation cameras. If you record at the highest resolution and FPS, the camera can't shed the heat fast enough.

andmarios 3mo ago

Contrary to the popular opinion in the rest of the comments, I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware, a lot of thought into usability for professionals, many accessories, and hackable with official firmware from the company. The "problem" is that I don't use it that often. Most people do not need action footage regularly. It was more like a impulse/hobby buy rather than a need.

kawsper 3mo ago
> and hackable with official firmware from the company. GoPro Labs works really well, https://gopro.com/en/us/info/gopro-labs https://gopro.com/en/us/info/gopro-labs But it's a bit sad how long their expirements lives there before making it into the default firmware.
Lammy 3mo ago
>I do like my GoPro (Hero 11). Good and robust hardware I have the same model and hate it. Damn thing overheats constantly. It has never been able to do 4K60 for more than ~twenty minutes even with a full-blast AC vent pointed directly at it. It still overheats periodically when doing 1080P60 too, but a lot less often and usually only in situations where I am also uncomfortbly warm. More than zero overheating is unacceptable though considering I have to notice it happened, turn it back on, dismiss the warning, and restart recording. Pic from literally just today, July 18th: https://ibb.co/chPq0N8g https://ibb.co/chPq0N8g

ltbarcly3 3mo ago

It's a testament to how broken modern business practices are that GoPro can sell 1.2 Million cameras per year and still go out of business. It's possible they are just poorly run, and they spend more in R&D than they recoup in revenue, but I strongly suspect they were set up to only be profitable if they sold millions of cameras per year as an attempt to maximize profits at that volume, without consideration of other scenarios.

aeonik 3mo ago

I stopped buying go pros when I drove from the top of Mt Blue Sky to the base. Had the camera mounted on my dashboard, planned to make a cool time lapse down the mountain road. Turns out it overheated 15 minutes into the drive, and corrupted all the footage from my whole ski trip. I'm also still salty that they cancelled my favorite fast video editing software (can't remember the name). This was 8 years ago.

skippyfish 3mo ago

I slept on GoPro for a long time because, but then wanted to document some outdoor activities. I went with two Hero 5 units and as a photographer, I was shocked by how overhyped these devices seemed to be. The first surprise was just shoddy electrical engineering: unlike any camera from a big-name manufacturer, they drain the batteries in storage, to the point where they're dead after 2-3 weeks. But that aside, image quality is just poor for the price. It's oversharpened and oversaturated to cover up deficiencies, and that may work for some YouTube videos, but it's a $400 device that's miles behind any $500 mirrorless. So I get it that if really want to go snorkeling or mountain biking with a camera, this might be a good choice, but that's a tiny market, and for everything else, why would you buy it? If you want cell phone quality video, you can use your cell phone. If you want professional quality, you can spend the same amount of money on a mirrorless from Canon, Panasonic, Sony, or whatever.

jitl 3mo ago
the action part of “action camera” is the reason why you buy an action camera. if a normal camera is fine then yeah, you don’t need it.
vorpalhex 3mo ago
My strong photographer opinion is that you should buy the oldest action camera that meets any resolution/framerate needs and treat it almost like a disposable. Buy on sales or used units. Use them on shots you genuinely are unwilling to use a mirrorless for - strapped to the front of a bike, magnetically attached to the side of a car, strapped to someone jumping in a lake.
- crote 3mo ago
  > treat it almost like a disposable And that's why GoPro is dying: they are selling a premium product in a market of disposables.
crote 3mo ago
The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an action camera - to the point that people for a long time called any action camera "a GoPro". Comparing them to smartphones or mirrorless cameras is completely missing their point: nobody would buy them for regular point-and-shoot activity. You buy a GoPro to mount onto a dirt bike, or on your helmet during caving, or on a chest harness during a skydive, or on the front of your surfboard: all activities where a smartphone or a mirrorless would die on their first use. GoPro isn't failing because the concept is wrong - the market is massive. GoPro is failing because its competitors started releasing clones which are both better and cheaper. They are the expensive premium brand in a market where buyers expect their product will need to be replaced when it inevitably can't handle the abuse anymore.

radicality 3mo ago

Ah damn I just bought their new Mission One a few weeks ago (upgrading from a Hero 10). Already quite angry though since it seems the batteries are basically the same shape for both, except the connector is in a different location, so the 3 existing batteries I have for the Hero 10 are not compatible, which is a shitty move from GoPro. Well I guess either way I won’t be buying gopros anymore in the future.

abalashov 3mo ago

As a cyclist (and former racer), I still want to know how to capture videos with telemetry overlays (speed, power, HR, etc) from my head unit in a straightforward way. NorCal Cycling's videos - https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling - are an excellent demonstration of this at work. Yes, I've done the Garmin VIRB Edit thing, which is the very approach recommended by Jeff (NorCalCycling) in his tutorial videos on the subject. It feels like something out of 2005. It is incredibly labour-intensive and imprecise unless you're fortunate enough to be in relatively short criteriums where you've got the battery runtime to just record the whole race. Most real-world events and rides require one to turn the camera on and off at certain moments, which then requires _hours_ of stitching together clips and correlating them to GPS fixes from the head unit (in the FIT file), and quite imprecisely at that. There has to be a more 2026 solution to this. All you need to do is correlate the footage to the FIT data points by timestamp, in the temporal domain. If Garmin came out with one, it would absolutely annihilate this space. To the best of my knowledge, there is no competition that offers anything turn-key, though perhaps the best of my knowledge has not aged well and by now there is something. It's maddening.

shepherdjerred 3mo ago
Am I wrong in thinking you could do this with ffmpeg, your video files, and your data from Strava/Garmin/whatever? This feels like a program an LLM (or human!) could write pretty easily
- abalashov 3mo ago
  You would think it would be that straightforward. However, accurate synchronisation on GPS or temporal attributes would be required. Judging by the paucity of software to do this, historically, it is not a straightforward problem, or all the devices involved don't generate all the data points required. The real mess is when you have 26 clips from a long event to string together. It can easily take a day and a half to make a 3 minute montage out of that.
  - lukeschlather 3mo ago

hatsunearu 3mo ago

IMO the image quality on GoPro is still the best. I don't understand why people say it's horrible. For flat video it outperforms Insta360 and definitely DJI.

topspin 3mo ago

Betteridge enters the chat. GoPro's market is changing: strong competitors now make solid, low cost alternatives. GoPro is moving deep into professional markets where margins are high, and leveraging their position as a US company whose products can be utilized by sensitive customers. GoPro will be fine. They just won't be the go-to for every YouTuber any longer.

hdjdjdjdjdjdjd 3mo ago

[flagged]

hdgvhicv 3mo ago
He’s good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory Rather than actually getting real on China and their abuse of the postal system, it’s all about tarrifs on penguins. Biden did far more with the chips act, but rather than building on that trunk failed to enact any meaningful change. And of course make billions in the side from bribery.
- lokar 3mo ago
  Imagine if he had effectively coordinated with Mexico, Canada and the EU to curb Chinese trade practices.

hmokiguess 3mo ago

I bought my first GoPro for a scuba diving trip in Mexico once. Was super excited, it was my first scuba diving experience too. As soon as we hit deeper waters the capture button pressed itself down due the pressure and it wouldn’t come back up. That, unfortunately happened in a way that I couldn’t start a capture. Lost the entire thing, despite the camera being perfectly fine after we came back to surface. Hated them ever since.

belorn 3mo ago
For scuba diving you will want to have a house for the camera regardless of brand. It not only lower the risk of damages, but it is also more explicitly designed for depth without needing to compromising for non-divers. That said, GoPro is not the best for low light environments, and the battery is a bit temperature sensitive, both which can be an issue when diving.
Mawr 3mo ago
Hahahah. Do you seriously just take random objects deep underwater and expect them to be designed to withstand that sort of an environment? Was the GoPro you bought rated up to that depth or something? After a cursory look online, they're only rated down to 10m, which is about what I'd expect.
- hmokiguess 3mo ago
  It was rated 30m, I went down less than that, and I used their enclosing thingy. Yes, I did expect it to work as their marketing team managed to convince me of such. It wasn't a random object, it was a camera marketed for such environment.
werdnapk 3mo ago
GoPros (at least the early generations) required a special housing for use in water. My first GoPro was a 2 I believe and I bought it for scuba and it was terrible. Then the newer models came out promising better performance for diving, so I upgraded... and it was terrible as well. Gave up on GoPros after being sucked in twice and not getting the results I was hoping for. It was ok for other things, but anything involving water was not great. I believe things eventually got sorted out for water use, but I was no longer a customer.

baby 3mo ago

I've owned a bunch of gopros and I feel like they've always had the same kind of bugs. Random crashes, things not working anymore. It's really bad, so bad that I had plenty of videos that were missing sound, or just corruption in general. Then they started this subscription thing and I was like, finally, they're going the SaaS way, they will make so much money, and they will be able to improve that camera that basically never seems to improve much version after version. I bought a bunch of put options, and I lost all my money, every time I put back some in the put options. Now I have the insta360 go ultra and... I think go pro is going to die. It's just so good.

windowshopping 3mo ago
If you thought they were going to finally improve with SaaS why did you buy put options?
- zerocrates 3mo ago
  "Ah so that's why I kept losing money!" But seriously, safe to assume they meant to say calls and just accidentally wrote the wrong one.
lardosaurusrex 3mo ago
You... invested in the crappy company being crappy that did the crappiest thing all the crappy companies do aka start a subscription... and... -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- got burned by it? ???

recursivecaveat 3mo ago

Extremely similar to iRobot (Roomba). They both practically genericized themselves by inventing and dominating the product category, then just couldn't keep up with the competition. GoPro does feel more self inflicted though. Their drone was a failure, and they burnt a lot of money trying to do some kind of pivot to being a media company.

nikodunk 3mo ago
Was just about to say Roomba too! Next up IMO is Philips Hue, which don't support Matter and cost $25, vs. Matter-enabled Amazon brands that cost $7.
- tomaskafka 3mo ago
  Hue also peaks at 20 W sources which leave even small room in the dark (for comparison, I have 70 W of LED lighting in the kitchen central light).
  - Gigachad 3mo ago
    Ideally for good lighting you do want multiple lower power lights than a single mini sun
    - tomaskafka 3mo ago
      Half of the sun shines upwards, to brighten up the ceiling and corners, but yes, I agree.
- kowbell 3mo ago
  Got any you'd recommend? I've been paying the Hue tax because they're the only bulbs I've had with zero connectivity issues ever across several years, whereas every other brand I've tried has been very unreliable.
  - mholm 3mo ago

tomaskafka 3mo ago

My guess is that action cameras are 20 % need (professionals, documentary crews etc) and 80 % fashion (people buying them and them using them for a few shots twice a year on the holiday), and the fashion component peak is over.

junaru 3mo ago

What does one buy if they want a 1080p60 action cam with stabilisation that doesn't overheat, has good battery life and acceptable low light performance (think rainy day in the woods)?

arjie 3mo ago

It’s the classic situation. China can outcompete all this stuff. It doesn’t really matter. Roomba, GoPro, they’re all going to be crushed by Chinese manufacturers. You just can’t get the margins to work anywhere else and if you do the R&D you’re a sucker. I’ve had a few GoPros and a few GoPro 360s. I also had Roombas so you can blame me as the brand killer.

TheJoeMan 3mo ago
If you look at these US high-tech consumer products, many companies started out much “simpler”. GoPro was a disposable film camera and a wrist-strap, and iteratively got to where it is today. The iPod came out much before the iPhone. As you say, the R&D is a hard sell when you have to go from 0 product to a fully featured state-of-the-art. Somehow, these Chinese companies can spend years copying and then once locked in go on a new-features blitz.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 3mo ago
  So why doesn't the US do it in reverse? Surely there's some R&D going on in China that US can reverse engineer.
  - oneshtein 3mo ago
    They need to learn Chinese first, then to watch Chinese forums.
stevage 3mo ago
Is GoPro not manufactured in China?
- thephyber 3mo ago
  Some in China, but also Thailand and Mexico. They seem to be playing whack-a-mole with manufacturing contractors and changes to tariff policy.
PunchyHamster 3mo ago

dabinat 3mo ago

I remember using these on movie sets as crash cams - a cheap camera that could be mounted on something fast-moving so you could get cool action shots without risking the $100k primary camera. But the main selling point for this use-case is that they were cheap, and that’s a fight the Chinese companies will always win.

dd_xplore 3mo ago

My only gripe with GoPros is lack of external mic like dji ecosystem.

ge96 3mo ago

Only reason I'd choose them over Insta360 for example is that weird manual phone app permissions to activate the camera Insta does. I don't know if go pro doesn't do that, haven't bought a modern go pro in a bit. I will say the Insta 360 Go 3S is an amazing camera physically it's so small and convenient. They could improve the algo when you pan over a pavement that conglomerate pattern looks sickening when you pan.

tclarke142 3mo ago

I had a GoPro Hero 7 and 8. In the -10c snow they battery wouldn't even last for 5 minutes. It's a bad product and just like with cars and solar the Chinese are ruthlessly out-engineering the west.

mft_ 3mo ago
I had the same problem with (I think) a Hero 3 over a decade ago; given snow sports is a key use case, this is poor.
TheJoeMan 3mo ago
I never understood if I was supposed to turn it completely off on the ski lifts or leave it in “sleep” for best battery life, and like you say the battery in the cold was just disappointing. Some irony though with another HN commenter having an overheating issue.
linsomniac 3mo ago
TheOutdoorBoys youtube channel mentioned something about special batteries for cold temps. -10c for many of his hiking and camping trips isn't unusual, and (as I understand it) he did weekly videos with Go Pros for a decade. He probably knows a thing or two.
- jodiug 3mo ago
  This is true. They sell special "winter batteries" now. What a poor decision...

lencastre 3mo ago

the end of GoPro happened with the first DJI Action

t0mpr1c3 3mo ago

Yes.

jongjong 3mo ago

Not to mention that they're now competing with fake AI slop videos. People don't have so much interest to record their sporting achievements anymore since the video no longer serves as social proof.

alfg 3mo ago

I've only owned 2 GoPros, the latest one I purchased back in 2020. I use it mostly for motorsports related content and it did it's job well, but never had a need to replace or upgrade to the latest. Now there's so many options.

asadm 3mo ago

GoPro should pivot to making robotics and ai cameras and watch the stocks fly.

misiek08 3mo ago

As a scammed customer - this was inevitable. They promised great improvements model over model and didn't deliver. I bought model 9 and since beginning it overheats, randomly stops recording or just shuts down. There were promises to fix this with firmware updates - didn't happen.

redwood 3mo ago

I'm surprised Meta hasn't already acquired them