alt Hacker NewsI’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.
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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.
Sounds very similar to another US company - Garmin. They are still popular, but have been raising prices a lot every generation, because for a long time there was no real competition [1]. At this point, Garmin watches that have mapping support have an introduction price of >600 Euro. Even at that price point, zooming or panning maps is excruciatingly slow (sometimes taking up to 10 seconds to re-render) because they have used the same CPU/MCU for multiple generations while increasing screen resolution. They also haven't really innovated a lot as of recently and are moving some new functionality behind a subscription.
This has opened a large gap for Chinese competition. Now you can get a Coros Nomad that goes head-to-head with models like the Garmin Enduro for 350 Euro. They don't have full feature parity yet, but they are so rapidly adding features that they will at some point. Also, in contrast to Garmin, they seem to be using modern microcontrollers, so panning or zooming a map is insanely fast in comparison, while still having ~20 days of battery for daily use.
[1] Of the traditional competitors, Apple Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch Ultra have gotten closer, but are nowhere near the battery life, robustness, mapping support, mapping + workout support, etc.
According to a quick search, GoPro has an Enterprise Valuation of $160M. That would be chump change for a large tech company. The brand has name recognition value in excess of that figure. I suspect some big company will happily buy it but not sure who. It has to be a company that wants to get into the camera market. I don't think the brand name is as valuable to an existing camera company-though I could be wrong.
Apple, Google, and Amazon could all make sense. Google would see the business as an opportunity to strengthen its existing IoT portfolio. Apple an opportunity to add to its integrated consumer electronics offering. Amazon would be more a play to improve GoPro's margins. They could easily push it with prime deals, etc.
I could also see Samsung getting in.
Regardless, expect to see more integration, AI features, etc, after acquisition.
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
I had a GoPro many years ago. Eventually sold it because I needed the money for other things.
Been thinking about buying a new action camera eventually.
Got any recommendations?
The one that interests me the most of the ones I’ve seen is the Insta360 X4 Air plus an underwater case for it.
I want to be able to bring my camera swimming, bicycling, hiking, etc. And I think 360 degree cameras are pretty cool. Hopefully it’s not just a gimmick that loses its appeal after a few hours.
>other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper
Would you mind providing a recommendation you have first hand experience with?
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
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
Such as?
GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico.
Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too.
People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese drone brands. And with BambuLabs (founded by ex-DJI) with 3D printers (the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa, and they’re facing extremely strong headwinds).
Legitimately better Chinese products (incredible engineering) that have massive industrial policy support, probably industrial espionage support (as in the case of DJI for certain), massive influencer marketing campaigns, and near zero cost of capital. When China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons, they are incredibly good at it. (And note it’s not US-only, China targets basically ANY brand that isn’t Chinese. China absolutely does this to Europe as well… and you can see them doing it in real-time with automotive.)
The only surprising thing to me is how people just act like it’s not happening. I guess for people who don’t have any experience working on federal government adjacent aerospace stuff, the idea of natsec considerations for IT hardware seems entirely abstract, but it’s incredibly real if you do.