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GoPro has discontinued its developer program

developer.gopro.com

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Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#71

Post by buserror »

chrsstrm wrote: post #29
stryk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I can heartily recommend SJCAM -- their build quality is great for a Chinese knock-off and the resulting image/video quality is really really good for the price of the hardware. However, be careful when on eBay/aliExpress I've actually seen other vendors knocking off the knock-offs.

I think I was looking at SJCAM and also Wimius, which Amazon has a full camera, case, batteries, and accessory kit for $70 right now. I mean at that price point your biggest investment is going to be in class U3 micro SD cards.

I use a Wimius -- I have to say it's pretty excellent, and the price is hard to beat. Sure my need is not to to make 'production grade footage' but I'm still very picky on quality...

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#72

Post by gambiting »

ravenstine wrote: post #9
ClassyJacket wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, a hundred Chinese companies can pump out cameras like theirs. What they had going for them was their genericized trademark of a name - people calling all action cameras GoPros - which eventually would have or did come back and bite them. Their stock price is less than a tenth what it once was.

People are buying Chinese action cameras in such droves? Everyone I know with an action camera owns a GoPro. Something seems amiss to me, though perhaps things are different in California. But then why just these cameras? There are plenty of types of devices that have viable Chinese knockoffs for cheap, yet the non-Chinese brands thrive or at least sustain.

You live in a rich environment where people can afford gopros - where I'm from(Poland) for a lot of people even the cheapest Session camera is 1/2 of your monthly salary. I've got some friends who work as C++ programmers, and for them the Black 6 is 2/5 of their salary. It's just completely unaffordable for vast majority of people, but there's plenty of Chinese knock-offs around, re-branded by local companies(Manta for example), and those sell a lot. If you go to an electronics store looking for an action cam, 95% of their stock is gopro knock offs, if you want a GoPro it's not that easy to find.

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#73

Post by usrusr »

rgbrenner wrote: post #10
danso wrote: post #8

GoPro's IPO and initial success was inspiring because it didn't seem any kind of specialized camera/video hardware company could exist outside of the smartphone umbrella -- especially after Flip [0] got bought up not long after the first iPhone. But it seems like there was always going to be a hard ceiling for GoPro. Not just because of the continued improvement of smartphone portability and camera features, but beca…

I agree, but disagree there was a hard ceiling for GoPro. Companies may have an initial success.. but the rest of the world never stands still while they rake in money. Especially not in tech, which gets cheaper every year and can be manufactured fairly easy by competitors. GoPro had an initial success with their camera.. and it was their duty to expand beyond that into other lines of business and diversify their rev…

> I don't think there's a reason the name GoPro couldn't be put on a variety of high end outdoor gear--surfboards, snowboards, etc.

GoPro is kept alive by the huge margins they can ask for on the basis of being the recognized inventor of the action cam market. The company knows absolutely nothing about operating on tighter margins.

The markets for "surfboards, snowboards etc" are even more brand aware, but that cuts both ways: GoPro would be seen as the outside giant trying to buy their way in.

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#74

Post by detaro »

sdoering wrote: post #63
eropple wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hue lights do not require a cloud service. It is an optional way to control your lights from outside your local network (only the base station talks to the internet).

> only the base station talks to the internet Exactly any part talking to the internet is a deal breaker. Why would I need my home to have that amount of attack vectors open?

Again, it's optional. It does not have to talk to the internet, but the option is there for people that want features requiring it.

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#75

Post by [deleted] »

eropple wrote: post #61
nerflad wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I've been passively interested in getting a GoPro camera for a long time, but knowing their remote control requires a cloud service (I thought it was local wifi) is a total dealbreaker. Same with Hue lights. It is absolutely ridiculous for the customer to be locked out of their own hardware.

Hue lights do not require a cloud service. It is an optional way to control your lights from outside your local network (only the base station talks to the internet).

[deleted]

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#76

Post by nasduia »

sdoering wrote: post #63
eropple wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hue lights do not require a cloud service. It is an optional way to control your lights from outside your local network (only the base station talks to the internet).

> only the base station talks to the internet Exactly any part talking to the internet is a deal breaker. Why would I need my home to have that amount of attack vectors open?

To be fair to hue, the REST JSON API to the local hub is well documented by Philips and you can disable it contacting its cloud infrastructure via this API (and many apps) if you wish - all without hacks.

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#77

Post by wepple »

mistersquid wrote: post #27
dessant wrote: post #12

Off topic, but if anyone from their marketing team reads this, one of the activities[1] on the HERO6 Black sales page[2] is a surefire way to crack your skull open. [1] https://i.imgur.com/ZuOmIrV.jpg [2] https://shop.gopro.com/EMEA/cameras/hero6-black/CHDHX-601-ma...

That promotional video is fantastic. Beautiful scenery, photogenic people, shots of pristine nature, even the family visiting a theme park inspires a primal kind of longing and deep pride in how awesome it is to be an incarnated human. The score--Odesza's "A Moment Apart" from the album of the same name--contributes to the emotion in no small way. Given the discontinuation of the developer program is in line with the…

I actually think gopros gorgeous videos may have contributed to its downfall.

They’re all shot on GoPro, and they make a big deal about this. So everyone who buys one assumes they may be able to make videos that are also awesome.

Then reality comes crashing down, and you realize theirs was shot on 5 continents with tens of thousands of dollars worth of extra gear, and days of work on high-end editing rigs, and yours looks like you should’ve just shot it on iphone.

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#78

Post by ghaff »

rgbrenner wrote: post #10
danso wrote: post #8

GoPro's IPO and initial success was inspiring because it didn't seem any kind of specialized camera/video hardware company could exist outside of the smartphone umbrella -- especially after Flip [0] got bought up not long after the first iPhone. But it seems like there was always going to be a hard ceiling for GoPro. Not just because of the continued improvement of smartphone portability and camera features, but beca…

I agree, but disagree there was a hard ceiling for GoPro. Companies may have an initial success.. but the rest of the world never stands still while they rake in money. Especially not in tech, which gets cheaper every year and can be manufactured fairly easy by competitors. GoPro had an initial success with their camera.. and it was their duty to expand beyond that into other lines of business and diversify their rev…

There was a hard ceiling for action cameras. People still buy them but, to some degree, they were a fad item. A lot of people realize that they don't actually base jump and after the fifth movie you've shot of an intermediate ski run it gets kind of boring. They could have designed better interfaces and the like but I'd argue there's still an upper limit.

They did have a great brand though and could probably have expanded that beyond cameras to other outdoor-oriented electronics. Of course, there's a lot of competition but there is everywhere.

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#79

Post by ghaff »

wepple wrote: post #77
mistersquid wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That promotional video is fantastic. Beautiful scenery, photogenic people, shots of pristine nature, even the family visiting a theme park inspires a primal kind of longing and deep pride in how awesome it is to be an incarnated human. The score--Odesza's "A Moment Apart" from the album of the same name--contributes to the emotion in no small way. Given the discontinuation of the developer program is in line with the…

I actually think gopros gorgeous videos may have contributed to its downfall. They’re all shot on GoPro, and they make a big deal about this. So everyone who buys one assumes they may be able to make videos that are also awesome. Then reality comes crashing down, and you realize theirs was shot on 5 continents with tens of thousands of dollars worth of extra gear, and days of work on high-end editing rigs, and yours…

I don't know about contributing to their downfall. But GoPro with all their videos and so forth definitely create this aspirational branding that a lot of people like to see themselves being associated with.

Then they shoot a few videos skiing down an intermediate ski slope and realize this is all pretty boring and they don't kayak off waterfalls or jump off cliffs themselves.

Personally, I feel the same way about drones. Every time I think about getting a good one I realize I'd shoot some videos around my house and then... I dunno. Maybe I'd take it out somewhere but really they're sort obnoxious so probably it would sit on the shelf.

Re: GoPro has discontinued its developer program

#80

Post by noarchy »

atomical wrote: post #38
abritinthebay wrote: post #34

People in here are talking like GoPro’s issues are market related. That’s not true at all. If you know anyone who is or has worked there you know it’s because they are incredibly poorly run. They routinely waste development time on nothing projects, failing to ship code - even bug fixes - for literal years . Their problems come from one of the most disfunctional managing cultures I’ve heard of in the Bay Area - and t…

Garmin beat them to the 360. My biggest complaint is that GoPro mounts are cheap and there isn't a high quality gimbal for the GoPro.

>My biggest complaint is that GoPro mounts are cheap and there isn't a high quality gimbal for the GoPro.

I went through two of GoPro's awful, plastic mounts before buying a metal, third-party mount, and never looked back. The two mounts that broke sent my GoPro careening down asphalt in each case, and I was lucky to both not lose it and to not have it be destroyed. So while the mounts are junk, the unit itself has proved to be very durable.

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