I have been watching them for a while and it has gotten really ugly. Their venture into drones was ill fated. Both Apple and Snap have been mentioned as potential purchasers. I would like to see an auto company incorporate their technology so you could film your car ride. This would be a good tool for capturing auto accidents, road rage, catching drunks, watching where your kids go etc.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Add to that companies doing 360 degree filming for augmented reality and virtual reality. Although that market is very immature.

Right. It will be interesting to see how this (and SNAP) shake out.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

A bunch of friends bought GoPro's a few years ago and tried to convince me to get one. Beyond the novelty of it, I never understood why I would ever need one. I told them in a year or two none of them would use the camera because the novelty would wear off for them too. I was right.

The tech is cool and it certainly has long term applicability for certain people doing certain things. Your average schmo is not that person, despite many of them buying GoPros several years back and fueling the growth.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

the appetite that people have for narrating their own vanity is apparently large, but not infinite. it'll be something else, soon enough. . .

-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

We got a cheap one 2 years ago and actually use it quite a bit. I usually wear it following my son skiing or mountain biking and my wife creates videos, primarily for grand parents. That said, ours is an older cheaper ~$200 and I couldn't see the need for anything superior.

I agree... my mom is no longer able to ski with her grandkids so she bought me a Hero 2 when they came out a few years back. Initially I used it to fit the kids skiing, but it's gotten to the point where it's just easier to hold the phone for a run or two as the video quality is better and I don't have to bother with uploading it to a computer first. On the bright side, I have a buddy in CA who is helping me with my swimming and I now have a camera to get some underwater footage!

We won a pair of them on consecutive days a couple of years ago.

Once you get past the novelty of holding it and jumping into a lake, they're pretty pointless IMO.

I use my GoPro for similar activities with the kids. We used it snowboarding a couple of weeks ago, and it worked great. It is definitely the tool to use to capture more active activities. We can bring it to the beach and not worry about sand/salt, or I can attach it to my seat post and get great stuff of my sons riding trails.

Basically you have to do cool stuff for it to be useful.

This. Why they didn't go the 360 route instead of the drone route baffles me.

I use them in my business - heading out now to a shoot, where a Hero 3+ Black will be used (not shooting 4k). Just like any of my camera equipment, GoPro's are a tool utilized for a specific need (usually as a 3rd or 4th camera).

I don't know enough about gopro's tech. Is it truly differentiated and cant be replicated where someone would need to buy them, or is it something that competitors can come along and essentially commoditize it? I mean can't apple or snap or whomever just create a slick camera device if they want? I think of fitbit in the same way.

Not surprised, this is it what competition does (I wish more people would grasp this concept). You can find Gopro type cameras that are pretty decent for a quarter of the price.

There's quite a few car cameras already on the market. I agree that I think car companies should start to be building these in as standard, but all they really need is a camera and a hard drive, I can't see any reason they wouldn't just develop their own instead of going to somebody like GoPro. I can see a time when these become mandatory either by regulator or by insurers. Which from a cyclist perspective (I know, I know, take it to the other forum...) would be great.

I used to do the same but then my son started skiing blacks and it became much harder to hold the phone.

Don't know how much unique tech they have but what they have is a strong brand name. Beats had zero tech and apple bought them for 3 billion.

I don't find their tech to be very advanced. The super wide angle is good for some things but not the bulk of what I would want to film. I'm not aware of it having any kind of image stabilization, which would help make the recordings a lot more watchable...comparing GoPro footage to my Olympus camera with 5 axis image stabilization and it is a huge difference. Their editing software is not very good, so it's a pain to edit raw footage into something consumable and sharable. On the positive, there are a ton of different mounting options, which is really the only reason to have one.

Other than first person porn I'm not sure what I would use it for.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.