Karma Failure-End of an Era or the Slow Ongoing Suicide of a Camera Giant.

[We Talk UAV]

Pretty bold move of Go Pro to put out the Karma. At times, it felt like a hail mary, the final hurrah of a camera giant that at one time created a niche for itself by incorporating extreme sports and action shots. There were many attempts to put a Go Pro camera onto a UAV. In fact, DJI had a set up in which the Phantom 2 was incorporated with Go Pro's Hero series camera. Other UAV makers soon followed trying to incorporate Go Pro cameras with their drones. However, none of those set ups and Go Pro soon had the wisdom to try this on their own. Hence, Karma was born. So where did it all go wrong?

 

[Pepe Goodman]

Man I am a huge gopro fan and have taken some incredible footage with my hero 4 silver. It pains me to see the company struggling so much. Even when they announced the karma, the mavic was announced right after it and essentially stole their thunder. Then the **** karmas started falling out of the sky and here we are.

To me, any company that is the leader of a pack or has a specific following, and then fails boils down to a lack of innovation, complacency from the higher ups, and the inability to respond to customer demands.

Look at Apple, one of if not the most successful company in the world. Apple has never been the company to lead the way with technology. Sure they started the touchscreen phone fad, but with everything else they copied someone else, put their spin on it and improved what was offered to customers. The big difference is, they had that cult following and knew how to capitalize on it. Gopro clearly lacked that ability.

 

[QuadcopterCrazy]

Never owned a Gopro but I still see a market with them. As long as they continue to innovate and build on their camera's they should be ok. Maybe partner up with DJI for example and make a smaller version of their camera's to fit on the DJI gimble.

 

[Pepe Goodman]

Never owned a Gopro but I still see a market with them. As long as they continue to innovate and build on their camera's they should be ok. Maybe partner up with DJI for example and make a smaller version of their camera's to fit on the DJI gimble.

I haven't analyzed any of their books but I recall reading a bunch of things about how their stock has taken a 25% dump due to missing multiple earnings projections.

Their cameras are still very good but if you aren't profitable, you aren't going to last long, unfortunately.

 

[HueJorgan]

The phantom pilots karma forum is dead as a dodo

Funny thing happened while typing auto correct changed Pilots to piglets lol

Pigs might fly if we ever see the karma as it was ever again

It's gotta be dead

 

[4lex]

GoPro is cutting 15 percent of its workforce in restructuring

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[alokbhargava]

GoPro still has a chance to come back but one more failure and they are doomed.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[eatpasta]

I dont why they are doing so badly before the whole Karma debacle - seems like everyone I know has a GoPro and they aren't exactly cheap....

Not sure why they didnt just partner with DJI or something to make a GoPro version of an already tested/trued/reliable quad with lots of cool photography features.

Seems to me that would have been a lot easier as well as a safer bet.

 

[Mako79]

I dont why they are doing so badly before the whole Karma debacle - seems like everyone I know has a GoPro and they aren't exactly cheap....

Not sure why they didnt just partner with DJI or something to make a GoPro version of an already tested/trued/reliable quad with lots of cool photography features.

Seems to me that would have been a lot easier as well as a safer bet.

Ummm.. they tried during the P1/P2 phase. GoPro wanted 2/3rds of the share if they partnered up. GoPro said they made drones popular and Frank Wang thought it was vice versa. DJI continued support for Gopro with their zenmuse H33D 1.0, H33D 1.1 and H43D lines, where as GoPro did the opposite and disabled the heroports on the Hero4's and made it hard for everyone to access the GoPro functions (Hero 4's were impossible to use as a remote camera on PC's). Dank move by GoPro, or Karma as you would say it..

GoPro, like apple, have not innovated fast enough. You can get china-action cameras at a third the cost that yields equivalent or better results. I was hoping by now that the GoPros would have OIS (optical image stabilisation, like the sony action cam) or introduced a 1 inch sensor with a global shutter to minimise warping from the rolling shutter.

GoPro should go back to their roots and look at grounded cameras and maybe build some robust stabilizers or incorporate OIS so a gimbal or stabilisation is no longer required. Win the war on the ground and not in the sky.

 

[eatpasta]

Ummm.. they tried during the P1/P2 phase. GoPro wanted 2/3rds of the share if they partnered up. GoPro said they made drones popular and Frank Wang thought it was vice versa. DJI continued support for Gopro with their zenmuse H33D 1.0, H33D 1.1 and H43D lines, where as GoPro did the opposite and disabled the heroports on the Hero4's and made it hard for everyone to access the GoPro functions (Hero 4's were impossible to use as a remote camera on PC's). Dank move by GoPro, or Karma as you would say it..

GoPro, like apple, have not innovated fast enough. You can get china-action cameras at a third the cost that yields equivalent or better results. I was hoping by now that the GoPros would have OIS (optical image stabilisation, like the sony action cam) or introduced a 1 inch sensor with a global shutter to minimise warping from the rolling shutter.

GoPro should go back to their roots and look at grounded cameras and maybe build some robust stabilizers or incorporate OIS so a gimbal or stabilisation is no longer required. Win the war on the ground and not in the sky.

Sounds like GoPro was suffering from 'too big for their britches' syndrome and are taking a nice big fat bite of humble pie.

Man there are sure a lot of videos of Karma's inverting and accelerating into the ground.....irony can be ironic.