I’ve owned a <i>lot</i> of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get.<p>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.<p>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.<p>These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico.<p>Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too.<p>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.<p>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).<p>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.)<p>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.
If your country’s industrial and defense policy relies on individual consumers making choices that are worse for them on almost all metrics, it’s time to think about on worse payroll your politicians are.
Absolutely true. But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people, just in a different way. Domestic consumption in China is famously low, work culture is famously bad (996,etc). And this is because of what their government, not the people of China, have chosen to do.
Not for nothing, but what do you think is happening in the United States?<p>American workers have lost income on inflation adjusted terms from 2000-2025. The top 5 companies have a market cap that exceeds the top 30 in 2000, and the concentration of those companies is a single industry vs a diverse collection.<p>Consolidation of power and capital is reality everywhere. China is not a boogeyman. Go there.
><i>But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people</i><p>Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?<p>><i>Domestic consumption in China is famously low</i><p>Compared to what, the US? Compared to China is at a historical high, isn't it? And they're doing quite well even compared to like 70% of the world and rising.
Not as much as their East Asian neighbors, who had increasing democracy and fewer deaths to starvation…
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?<p>Yes, but China-bad ideology demands that we ask <i>”at what cost?”</i>
I wonder if similar costs were paid when the West was industrializing?<p>Spoiler: Yes.
There was a real human cost to how China industrialized that isn’t “muh freedoms”.<p>China overproduced STEM grads so that their industries could hire them for pennies on the dollar. They had to withstand insane competition starting in elementary school, only to end up unemployed or doordashing.<p>This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
> having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies<p>I don't know why people keep bringing this up as though it is surprising.<p>In almost any field other than AI PhDs are underpaid <i>on average</i>.<p>There are many, many bio PhDs working as lab technicians.
> This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).<p>Engineers from Taiwan go to mainland China these days to earn more money. Taiwan was pretty brutal with personal sacrifice in its development as much or if more than the mainland. We could say similar about Korea, Japan, and Singapore as well. This is why Asia seems to be taking over the world now, but the people are about as happy as you’d expect.
In general, I do think the East Asian nations have over-prioritized work for export and industrial policy at the expense of the well-being of their citizens.
China isn't bad, the CCP is.
Yes, their system has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be in order to support domestic industry. It seem’s to be for geo-strategic reasons rather than in the interests of the Chinese people, it’s also probably unsustainable.
WOW the classic yes...but..., where's these statement coming from? I'm Chinese and I don't get the point here at all, you guys seem living in vacuum with biased news, and know much much better than we people living here, that's really confusing everytime I see/read comments lie this.<p>China now is open freely for almost everyone, come and see by yourslef, if you not living poverty.<p>The world itslef does not work the propaganda way whether you dislike or hate the gov for whatever reason.
And yes you can criticize the gov as you like with the news you read otr the party you pro with, but never assume how the people feel and belives if you are not the people, and if you do then that's the same mindset as Trump or any other war-bringing president the US had, and you know what they did and still doing.
For bringing people out of poverty, they had laminated placards attached to the doors of people who were poor, and the name of the government official who was responsible for lifting that family out of poverty, and if that government official failed at it, they wouldn't advance in their career.
>Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?<p>So did the western world.<p>Ask Poland, the Baltics and East Germany if they want communism back. I'll wait. :)<p>I am so tired of the praise of China online while condemning the west. Worst part is you probably live in the west.<p>*Nono, dont reply, just downvote instead :)
China is not Iron Curtain countries dominated by the USSR. to compare China to Poland has no merit.<p>China has built high speed rail, a quality universal health care system, and huge tech and mfg sectors. It most certainly is orders of magnitude above East Germany, and not even the same type of socialism.<p>There are good things about the West and good things about China, it’s not as simple as “our side good”.
China is still a dictatorship who massacred its own people despite building high speed rail...<p>They only got it good when the USA opened relations in the 80s something they never did with Soviet.<p>China does not have universal health care.<p>China helps Russia invade Ukraine. That is simple. Unless you like that too?<p>Also, where do people want to live? North EU. Yet when we keep our lands people call us racist.
Did that comment indicate any condemnation of the west?<p>What I'm tired of is zero-sum jingoistic nationalism of any kind. Can we just be happy for all of the world to prosper?<p>edit: I didn't downvote you but it's probably the uncalled-for cynicism.
><i>Ask Poland, the Baltics and East Germany if they want communism back. I'll wait. :)</i><p>We could, but don't expect the results to be as clear cut as you think :)<p><a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-...</a><p><a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/10/12/many-eastern-europeans-feel-nostalgia-for-the-communist-era" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/10/12/many-eastern-eur...</a><p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2009/11/02/end-of-communism-cheered-but-now-with-more-reservations/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2009/11/02/end-of-communi...</a><p><a href="https://brnodaily.com/2023/11/20/news/poll-17-of-czechs-say-life-was-better-under-communism/" rel="nofollow">https://brnodaily.com/2023/11/20/news/poll-17-of-czechs-say-...</a><p><a href="https://english.radio.cz/poll-less-25-feel-better-now-under-communism-8357922" rel="nofollow">https://english.radio.cz/poll-less-25-feel-better-now-under-...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_nostalgia" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_nostalgia</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie</a><p>And of course 2026 China is the very opposite of some failing economy, like Eastern Bloc countries have been in 1989.
Work Culture is famously bad? Look I get 996. The Youth seem like they are either next level burned out or on a treadmill that never ends(due to the 25% youth unemployment, the deflation happening and the extreme overabundance of educated professionals). Both are not good. But the original comment listed stellar companies and products that wipe the floor with American made junk. You don't get that without some extensive hard work. Stealing only takes to so far, you gotta do a lot more on top of that.
Consumption is not just low, it’s intentionally suppressed.
It's easy to get all high and mighty but there really doesn't have to be complex subterfuge behind "replacing the majority of our technical infrastructure with devices solely created within the borders of our primary military, industrial, and economic rival is not a good idea for security and sovereignty."<p>We cast aside local manufacturing for cheaper prices in another country and are going to pay the price one way or another.
So Trump was right to call for tariffs?
> who’s payroll your politicians are on<p>It doesn’t even have to be foreign - it can just be corrupt self interest.<p>What other explanation is there for attacking Venezuela and Iran?
I don't even think it's corrupt self-interest. Just idiotic bravado and wanting to settle long held grudges.
Distraction from the Epstein files
You’re getting downvoted for this which is crazy.
Its more like lack of policy. To be clear, we are talking about China winning IoT hardware industry in this case. That’s not a policy.<p>You could ban Chinese IoT devices. Or spur local industry. But we aren’t talking about the military relying on Chinese hardware or something.
This is the idea behind a tariff
GoPro has been “in trouble” for years and years. All of that may be true but they just haven’t justified their survival. They may well be better off selling to Garmin or another domestic air defense vendor and be done in the consumer market.<p>FWIW current administration wants to play this same game, but they def won’t do it as well.
Reads to me like it's free market doing its job, if you think of countries as companies. US just needs to step up its game.
Perhaps a huge tell about national strategy is the fact that the owner has $10s of millions to loan to the company? US economic structure in post WWII era has increasingly focused on return on capital (and value extraction). How can that compete in long term with an economy which prioritizes reinvestment *in industry*?
One would presume that the founder is investing their money into something, probably equities, that is an investment in industry. They could be either selling those equities for a loan here or taking a loan against those equities to loan to GoPro (if the cost of capital is lower for them than GoPro, which seems plausible.)<p>I generally agree with your point about value extraction vs. re-investment.
People know it’s happening. What do you expect an average consumer to do about it? Pay more out of pocket due to the potential national security risks?
You can't pay more to get a better drone than DJI's. You can pay more (although it's difficult) to get a worse drone. Much worse.
Right, because in an actual free market where DHI was not heavily subsidized, DJI drones would cost MUCH more, and the other drones would be competitive.<p>Same for BYD vs Tesla and every other car. It is easy to win in the "free market" when you give away your product.<p>Same for Uber and Lyft for many years — subsidized by VCs until they gained massive scale, effectively killed all the other competition, and now the prices have gone up when they have a lock on the market, a large moat, and the VCs want a return. In my area, what was a $30 ride to the airport a few years ago, far cheaper than any airport service, is now $89.<p>The entire concept of a "free market" is idealized to the point of fiction.
Next year you'll have a fair old choice of drones from Ukrainian manufacturers though, when they're no longer needed to defeat Putin.
I like that thought
And remember dear readers, China and Iran openly helps Russia in their invasion of Ukraine. It is like the cold war never ended.<p>China's covert military training of Russian forces last year was personally approved by President Vladimir Putin's defence minister and directly involved at least four Russian and Chinese generals, according to two European officials and documents seen by Reuters.<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-approved-secret-china-military-training-top-level-sources-say-2026-07-01/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-ap...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_for_Russia_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_for_Russia_in_the_Russ...</a><p>One of EUs biggest trading partners wants Ukraine to lose to Russia...<p><a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/china-tells-eu-it-cannot-afford-russian-loss-ukraine-war-sources-say" rel="nofollow">https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3316875/ch...</a><p>Iran helps with Shaeed Drones as known<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136#Geran-2" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136#Geran-2</a><p>With Chinese parts btw.<p>North Korea is in too with 10k troops at least and massive ammo. Traded for food and wheat from Ukraine.
In today's environment people can't even make the choice to pay more. The productn are just priced out of reach!
I would pay more to have a product the US doesn’t have its hands in.
> GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.<p>What would the attack vector be? I’m not saying there isn’t any, I don’t know much about aerospace and this sounds interesting.
> What would the attack vector be?<p>The cameras. But quite how, I don’t know.
Cameras need to connect somewhere, somehow to offload their videos/photos. Whether that's network, USB, SD card, those are all attack vectors. Hell, even the files themselves can act as payloads.
Simon Wardley has been shouting this from the rooftops, including detailed per industry timelines when China will take over, in 2015.
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He’s good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory<p>Rather than actually getting real on China and their abuse of the postal system, it’s all about tarrifs on penguins.<p>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.
Also on Avinox motors on e-mtn bikes. Originally made by DJI, then spun off into their own company, and they are starting to eat the competition on all e-mtn bikes at this point. Bosch, TQ, Shimano, et al just can't compete, especially because Avinox is iterating at startup pace and all the rest are iterating at bike pace (slowly).
<p><pre><code> > GoPros are used all over in aerospace
</code></pre>
What percent of GoPro sales are used by aerospace? My guess: It is tiny. Not enough to keep GoPro alive.
> the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa<p>They hardly have time to compete, busy as they are with foot-shooting practice.
Not sure what you mean. Had a mk 4 or what the last one was - excellent. Now on core one (or what the name is for the enclosed one), also great.
Dunno, Prusa seems to have mostly forgotten about consumers as their industrial business is booming.<p>Stuff like this: <a href="https://sensofusion.com/dronefactory/" rel="nofollow">https://sensofusion.com/dronefactory/</a>
I'm not sure what stops some of these industries from essentially being more nationalist like China, but more centrist as a company like Palantir. If these risks are as big as you claim, a centralized authority should reverse engineer the things that work done in China or where-ever and use open source/build a better software stack that supplants what's out on the market currently.
100%. It would strongly behoove the US to encourage domestic 3d printer manufacture (or friendly countries like Japan), to the point of bannning Bambu and Chinese companies. Obviously we are doing fine for industrial 3d printers, but the small scale consumer stuff is very important too.<p>If and when AI commiditizes professional services, it would be good to have modern industry to fall back on. With 3d printing the gap isnt insurmountable yet.<p>However, our country is run by lawyers, not engineers, so I dont have too much hope. At least a lot of our billionaires started out as engineers...
Sounds like a problem for America. And totally irrelevant to the state of GoPro the company. It sounds like you're advocating for corporate welfare on the basis that a failing company is "based in" USA, even though their most impactful operations are overseas.
For us living in "the rest of the world", we only have a choice of being spied on by chinese or american companies, and american ones can do a lot more damage to us than chinese.<p>So if we're getting spied on anyway, why not buy a better product?
The western countries deindustrialized themselves though. That's just capitalism chasing ever increasing profits and moving production to where it's cheaper, i.e.from west to China. In fact this was cherished because it increased share holder profits.
If you’ve spent a life and the market being supreme then it’s a shock. China’s economic system is wiping the floor with the west.<p>The U.K. has just nationalised a steel plant which had been bought by China to stop it from being destroyed, and of course the economic right wing hate this as steel is far cheaper to import.
As someone with both an Insta360 camera and a Bambu printer, I feel it, would love to buy GoPro and Prusa, but the value just isn't there.<p>For one, I had a GoPro whose sensor broke after about 20 minutes of recorded. I ended up getting 3 different replacements, all of which also broke. In the end I just forgot about it when my home burnt down in a wildfire. I got an Insta360 with better picture quality that's also been more reliable for a similar cost.<p>And I would have loved to buy a Prusa printer but I got a Bambu P1S combo for $600, an equivalent Prusa plus the $300 shipping to Canada would have been ~$2500 CAD. For making trinkets for my 3 year old son plus the few random other things I'd make it's not worth it to pay 4x the money.<p>Maybe it'll forever be this way due to the differences in cost of living but I do feel as though there's a million barriers to entry to building a business in North America, at least a business that's not fully online.
Unless Canadian prices are much much higher than US, the only Prusa that costs that much is a Core One L or a Prusa XL.<p>Neither one of those are equivalent to a P1S. They’re 2 tiers above it. Equivalent Bambu printers sell for about the same price.<p>I have printers from both companies. There are tradeoffs for each, but Prusa isn’t 4x more for an equivalent printer.
Core One+ is $1899 CAD, the MMU3 for the Core One+ is $579 CAD and shipping was quoted over $300 since they ship from Europe and not the US to Canada. Just put these into their shopping cart on their site, right now quoting $2887 (including shipping and duties).<p>I did get a particularly good deal on the P1S combo apparently, the price on their website already higher than what I paid and it's significantly less in Canada than the US with exchange rate. Are they exactly equivalent, dunno, but both are the cheapest Core XY models with enclosure + colour changer that either sell.<p>Prusa is also cheaper in the US and EU than Canada.
If GoPro is manufactured in China then it’s no more secure than Insta360.
Lol your country and your capitalism helped build China.<p>Wasn't that the thing like ~30 years ago? All the western companies pushing manufacturing into China for increased profit?<p>Capitalism and the west gave all that power away :), you deindustrialised yourselves.
> China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons,<p>No. Not even close<p>China wants its place at the table.<p>With Erope and USA<p>People seem to think a developed China is a threat. But they are not staying in rural poverty for ever for our sake. That is not a threat.<p>They are not trying to "deindustrialise" anybody, just finding a place amongst equals
boo hoo china bad, buy my more expensive and shitty american product
The biggest attack vector against the world is is Israel and Zionism, not China.
Stop bashing China. Its getting silly and infantile.
China does not want to deindustrialize any country. Why do you think of everything in terms of war and domination ? China has built a industry capable of taking any product and make it better and cheaper. There is no psycho strategy behind it. They will do it till every chinese will live a comfortable life equal to an american. At that point america will be able to compete again.
The CCP has publicly explained that their strategy is indeed to dominate key sectors via gov subsidies, de-industrialize other nations and gain strategic leverage in the process.
government first intervened in British Steel last year to prevent its then-owner, the Chinese company Jingye Group, from shutting it down <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/business/britain-nationalizes-steel-mill.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/business/britain-national...</a>
><i>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.</i><p>In what way exactly? The camera will magically communicate to the mothership?
<i>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.</i><p>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.<p>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.<p>[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.
Really considering Coros since Garmin introduced a subscription. It doesn't currently prevent me from using anything I want to use, it's just moving in the wrong direction, but I was annoyed by Garmin for a long time, and this is the last drop.<p>However, my understanding is that Coros just doesn't have an SDK. At all. So it's not really "lagging on features", it's a totally closed platform, that doesn't any have 3rd party apps at all, and will not have them, because it's impossible to write them. I don't know if it's enough of a reason to completely write them off as a competitor, but that does give me a pause. I mean, if I don't have a feature on Garmin, I can theoretically implement it myself, or even hope that somebody else did. If I don't have it on Coros, I will just have to make do.
> 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<p>I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.<p>You're right that it's slow due to a wimpy processor. But the processor isn't because they're too lazy to innovate, but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so that I can get a battery life of several weeks.
<i>I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.</i><p>As a sibling commenter said, the Instinct 3 Solar only does breadcrumb navigation, it doesn't do topographic maps on the watch (there are some Connect IQ apps that can add mapping, but you don't get good integration with workouts).<p>I use them all the time when cycling. I often plan a route, but when some different direction looks more interesting, I can spot check whether it leads to bike paths that will eventually merge back into my grand plan, erm, route. Or sometimes even for following the route, you want to look ahead by quickly zooming out or get a lot of detail at some complex intersection, where having a full map gives you much better orientation.<p>Well, except on a Garmin, my Fenix 8 is often so slow that I had to pause cycling to zoom in/out (even more complicated by not being able to do gradual zooming because it does not have a crown).<p>Yes, I know I can also use a bike GPS or a more generic GPSr with a large screen. I have used their gpsmap line since 2010 or so and even have the gpsmap H1. But having to always carry it around when you have a break somewhere is a drag and I always have a watch on me anyway. So I primarily use the gpsmap for geocaching and switched to using a watch for other activities.<p><i>but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so that I can get a battery life of several weeks</i><p>Coros watches have several weeks of battery life and fast maps. It is laziness (or margin maximization), because they could reach the same power budget by moving to a processor that is on a smaller node.
> I know I can also use a bike GPS or a more generic GPSr with a large screen.<p>Their bike computers have a long lasting battery and are helpful for data. But wow are they frustrating. Software update regularly loses the config, the interface is just so painful (laggy touch screen or confusing buttons).
The mapping is hard to follow.<p>Not that Strava mapping on a phone is any better. Why can’t Strava put arrows on the direction of travel?
Sounds like the perfect use-case for big-small processors. A power-sipper for routine 99.99% of operations and a more powerful beast for the CPU intensive ops.
It's mostly because Garmin wants to maximize profits by sticking to old CPUs. The Coros watches (from what I've heard, the same applies to Suunto and Polar) are fast.<p>This has been an issue across the whole Garmin product line. E.g. the Garmin eTrex 32x from 2019 still used the same CPU as the eTrex 30 from 2011. 8 years without a CPU update. And the eTrex was already had miserably slow map rendering in 2011 with maps from that year.
Although Coros watches are fast, the Coros DURA bike computer is pretty slow when re-rendering maps. Naturally, companies can still choose between how fast the CPU is versus how long the battery life is (100+ hours on the Coros DURA I believe).
> It's mostly because Garmin wants to maximize profits<p>I see people riding bikes worth tens of thousands regularly. They should try a top tier models and see what happens.
Yes, this ships in basically every smartwatch since the Snapdragon Wear 3100 launched in 2018.
I think they meant watches that can show actual maps, not just a line or arrow with your route. That feature has always been reserved for the more expensive watches.
A modern powerful MCU should be able to do both due to advanced power saving modes. Or youcan even have a power MCU and very low power standby MCU.
How do you like the Instinct 3 Solar? I'm considering one for the exceptional battery life.
It’s interesting that you mention Garmin - they’re a good example of pivoting from your original market (standalone gps units for cars) once you see a nimble competitor eating away at it (gps-enabled smartphones). Garmin would be dead if they had held fast on the standalone GPS market.
I'm not sure you are fully aware of the markets that Garmin is in. When it comes to marine, aviation and offroad, you simply cannot run a gps app on a phone. E.g.<p><a href="https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/aviation/general/" rel="nofollow">https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/aviation/general/</a>
"offroad, you simply cannot run a gps app on a phone"<p>I almost exclusively use GaiaGPS as my offroad GPS navigation app on my phone. It works perfectly fine and it has for a long time, roughly speaking 1/7th of my life.
Yep, also, they had gpsr units way before their gpsunits for cars became popular. They started making GPS receivers in (I think) 1993:<p><a href="https://static.garmin.com/pumac/GPS95AVD_PilotsGuide.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://static.garmin.com/pumac/GPS95AVD_PilotsGuide.pdf</a>
Thanks! I’m clearly not aware.
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I have a love/hate relationship with Garmin.<p>As a motorcyclist and sailor, their hardware is second to none in terms of build quality and robustness. The ability to look down at my Zumo GPS on my motorcycle in a rain storm on a dirt road and have it respond to my wet dirty glove is a close to magic as you will get.<p>Then there's the watches, the Instinct range is ok but I have a button that doesn't pop back out, my wife's vivoactive suffered the well known touch failure.<p>However, as a UXer I will say that across all products the software interaction model sucks balls. "China" can and will produce hardware to meet a price point, its not that they can't build good products.<p>As soon as "China" figures out how to do good UX, the last moat western companies have will fall.
I think the only sports watch company that has an app that is worse than Garmin's is Polar. I have used Garmin devices since 2010, but their UX is (as you say) pretty quirky. They changed the UI/UX of the gpsmap H1 to look more like a smartphone, but it is still weird. Another issue is that their software has been very buggy the last few years, with software only stabilizing 1-2 years after the release. One the largest external source for Garmin information (gpsrchive) has actively recommended against purchasing the H1 because it has been so buggy. Similarly, earlier firmware releases of the Fenix 8 had a lot of issues. Also a lot of functionality of older units hasn't been implemented yet. These are often not small bugs, but of the type, "oopsie, your device froze or rebooted while you were navigating". They basically released an alpha version as a final product.<p>I don't know about UX, but I've had my Coros watch for a few weeks now and I didn't find it hard to understand. I think it's much easier than when I first learned to use a Fenix watch. It misses some Garmin features though that I'd really like to see like off-course rerouting. But like I said above, they have been adding features at a good pace and a drastically undercutting Garmin on price (most watches less than half the price of the closest Garmin watch).
'China' can do UX just fine, when the incentive is there. Part of the reason UX seems rough, outside of low quality products where it's a tertiary consideration, is cultural differences. User interfaces are part of culture, like everything humans touch. Those preferences shape the resulting tech. Sometimes those choices are less optimal for western users with their own preferences.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/WSMFnJnY7EA?si=NMz0wd94gM5abxyj" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/WSMFnJnY7EA?si=NMz0wd94gM5abxyj</a>
About 10 years ago I was looking for a rugged small camera. Found some by Garmin that were on a closeout sale. Excellent quality, never owned a GoPro so can't compare but I used them in similar applications and they never had an issue.
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.<p>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.<p>I could also see Samsung getting in.<p>Regardless, expect to see more integration, AI features, etc, after acquisition.
One cool feature I've read about is that (at least some) GoPro cameras can save high-resolution IMU measurements to the recorded video files, timestamped and interleaved with video frames. This can be useful for mapping applications, e.g. <a href="https://joshi-bharat.github.io/projects/gopro/" rel="nofollow">https://joshi-bharat.github.io/projects/gopro/</a><p>Are there any competitors on the market that also have this feature? I've looked around a few times in the past and haven't found any. Many cameras say that they have an IMU, presumably for image stabilization, but they don't seem to record or expose that data.
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.<p>I had a GoPro many years ago. Eventually sold it because I needed the money for other things.<p>Been thinking about buying a new action camera eventually.<p>Got any recommendations?<p>The one that interests me the most of the ones I’ve seen is the Insta360 X4 Air plus an underwater case for it.<p>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.
As someone who watches a reasonable amount of PoV outdoor activity footage shot on helmet cams and the like (base jumping, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, etc)… I don’t love watching 360 videos uploaded in the raw because of the perspective distortion.<p>I’m assuming it must be possible, if the resolution is good enough, to post process a portion of each overall frame into an undistorted 1080p (or better) view of the key view of the action, but a lot of people don’t do this (perhaps it’s much more difficult or time-consuming that I’m imagining, or perhaps many viewers enjoy the distorted 360 view more than I do).<p>Just my two cents, YMMV, etc.
part of this is by design, which unfortunately also makes very steep terrain not look as terrifying, but gives you huge FOV. I find in all but the latest Instas its the worse low-light quality that is most notable. More annoying is that everyone is trying to compete on weird angles and perspectives, andY YT shills push attachments and niche features vs. photographic quality
Yes it's possible, and yes it's time-consuming.
If you're willing to put a little time into video editing, a 360 cam is great. The insta360 tools can make that a little easier if you want something simple.<p>If you just want to store a snapshot of the moment as it was captured, a regular camera that you pointed in the right direction is better.
The downside is the 360 editing tools are kind of sluggish and not great to work with, and even at 8k res in-camera, the export for a 'normal' looking FoV is pretty low quality compared to a normal action cam recording in 4k.<p>I have an insta360 X5, it's neat and there's a lot of flexibility, but it does have downsides.<p>The app is also a pile of crap, it's crammed full of ads, social media junk I don't want, it's slow as molasses, and the size of the app is massive.
I'd love to film in 3d. But being dependent on a single app of a single company (that is not even a good app right now) is literally the worst feature for a hardware I could imagine.
>other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper<p>Would you mind providing a recommendation you have first hand experience with?
It's mostly FUD and/or paid reviewers. Both DJI and Insta have good products, but also very good at sponsoring in a way where things get reviewed very in their favor, making people have an impression that doesn't quite match reality. So the meme one constantly read online about how gopros are so much worse is false. They have their issues, but mostly trade offs.
I bought one back in 2018, curious what brand would you recommend today? I wouldnt mind upgrading to something more modern but I dont care about GoPro for brands sake. Would love something I could take in the water like the GoPro.
A gopro isn't worse than the competition, nor at a premium.<p>What makes gopro the standard in proper productions (and science etc) is that they're so hackable with the gopro labs software. With that, all the other cameras are toys in comparison for professional usage.
It also doesn’t help that you could probably get by with a hero 4 black even today lol<p>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 <i>literally falling out of the sky</i>. Feel like they never recovered
Eh, I have a Hero 4 black. And if you as the other commenter only think about resolution it can look like that, but the difference is enormous.<p>4k on a gopro 13 is far far far clearer. And the stabilization is night and day. Half my hero4 videos are mostly blurry shakes and quite jarring to watch, with a bad fov. The stabilization on modern gopros is magical. The bitrate and quality is orders of magnitude better. You can now pull good quality stills from the video if you want. Hero4 can't handle anything but perfect blue sky in the middle of the day. Etc etc
> Then they started literally falling out of the sky.<p>Yep, something must have gone horribly wrong with QA.
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)<p>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?<p>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.<p>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.
Transparency on AI use is a sin now, I guess.
The greatest advantage of greater resolution is that you can cut for a better framing. But who has time to go through good of video for editing?
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.<p>Such as?
DJI Osmo cameras are good, I still have my original Osmo action and while the quality is a bit behind now, the battery life and general stability and menus are better than GoPro IMO.<p>I've found DJI cameras also don't discharge their batteries when sitting, my gopro 11 black is somehow always dead when I grab it even after a few weeks, but my osmo action is still at ~70% after a year.<p>Insta360 also has some neat offerings, but their software/app is absolutely abysmal, it's crammed full of ads and takes up several GB of space. It also requires an account login.
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.<p>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.<p>Woved to never buy anything from them again.
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.
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.
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.<p>I’ve had a few GoPros and a few GoPro 360s. I also had Roombas so you can blame me as the brand killer.
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.
Is GoPro not manufactured in China?
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 - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/@NorCalCycling</a> - are an excellent demonstration of this at work.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Sounds like you want <a href="https://goprotelemetryextractor.com/telemetry-overlay-gps-video-sensors" rel="nofollow">https://goprotelemetryextractor.com/telemetry-overlay-gps-vi...</a> — feed it your GoPro footage, your Garmin FIT file, set up your gauges as you so desire and you’re off to the races (or the rendering at least). I suspect a lot of cycling Vloggers use it.
That’s really impressive - to anyone passing through, the video is with a watch.
Thank you! This looks like it might be the ticket.
Dunno if useful, but in RC hobby area we have had OSD (on-screen displays) for decades. Both in analog and digital video, with recording (analog OSD there's just a small chip). Although analog is probably not relevant for you -- quality is crap and you don't care about milliseconds latency as we do, so go with digital (and not HDZero, they are technically digital, but heavily invested in low-latency, for pro racers).<p>Just don't buy DJI -- they absolutely want lock you in to their tools, parts are often not compatible even within DJI, require to create an online account, require an app (from a custom .apk on android) and in general have questionable privacy.<p>Of the open-source systems there's a new OpenIPC system with a most popular implementation of RunCam WifiLink 2 that supports onboard SD card recording [1] [2].<p>More proprietary (but still cross-compatible with others) is Walksnail Avatar V2 [3] with 32GB of internal storage.<p>For your case, you don't need a VRX (receiver), although you can totally give it your your buddies to see your race (with OSD) in real time. VRX can be built-in to goggles (if the same company), or as a separate module that connects to your preferred goggles over mini-HDMI, also with recording. [4] [5]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP7Ns7H9wvI&t=49s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP7Ns7H9wvI&t=49s</a><p>[2] <a href="https://shop.runcam.com/action-camera-categorie/" rel="nofollow">https://shop.runcam.com/action-camera-categorie/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.caddxfpv.com/products/walksnail-avatar-hd-kit-v2" rel="nofollow">https://www.caddxfpv.com/products/walksnail-avatar-hd-kit-v2</a><p>[4] <a href="https://shop.runcam.com/runcam-wifilink-rx/" rel="nofollow">https://shop.runcam.com/runcam-wifilink-rx/</a><p>[5] <a href="https://www.caddxfpv.com/products/walksnail-avatar-fpv-vrx-only" rel="nofollow">https://www.caddxfpv.com/products/walksnail-avatar-fpv-vrx-o...</a>
Insta360 does this out of the box.
Does it?
I guess I should say it has some capabilities in this area.<p>Been a while since I used it, but it will generate the overlays and you can sync it with your ride data (eg Strava or Apple Health in my case, but iirc it also supports Garmin Connect).<p>There are some capability differences between the mobile app and the Insta360 studio desktop app.<p>I'm pretty sure it handled multiple files, but in my case they were the chunks that the camera splits its recording into, which is a bit different than than having multiple clips as you described.
No, it doesn't. Gopro actually hss gps and sensors built in, most dji cameras don't (does any?). You need extra hardware, or provide the data yourself. While in gopro you just enable it on the clip.<p>Of courses, for more advanced stuff you might want to provide the telemetry yourself (like the gopro doesn't know your wattage). But it does have much more than dji out of the box.
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
You would think it would be that straightforward. However, accurate synchronisation on GPS or temporal attributes would be required.<p>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.<p>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.
it's not as hard as you're making it seem, you just allow for a positive or negative time offset and rely on the devices counting seconds similarly, which is mostly a given now.<p>I did this with raw footage and a VESC speed controller dump to overlay a bunch of motor stats on a prior project, this was pre-AI and it was still only an afternoon project.<p>ffmpeg/image-magick do all the real heavy lifting out of the box.
This sounds like something Claude Code could do very easily. If you need to actually look at the videos that's harder but still possible, but if it's just aligning GPS times and timestamps with reasonably accurate clocks, Claude Could probably do the ffmpeg commands unsupervised. I wouldn't be surprised if Haiku (the cheapest model) could do it, or an open-source agent harness with another small 30B model.<p>Just prompting claude (probably I would start with Opus) "I would like a HUD display of the following metrics from my Fit file overlayed on these GoPro videos, and I'd like the videos stitched together (there are some gaps, I want seamless playback) it would probably do it in 30 minutes or less, and the majority of the time would probably be ffmpeg.
Yeah I had a little script to do something similar (no video, but merging data) just for Strava recording a while back. Had forgotten all about it until this description & 'FIT files'.<p>Video's a bit more complex no doubt, but like you say all the pieces are there, SMoP.
I truly hate to suggest this, but the meta vanguard nails this to a tee.<p><a href="https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/10/oakley-meta-vanguard-review-finally-arrived.html#garmin-integration" rel="nofollow">https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/10/oakley-meta-vanguard-rev...</a>
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.<p>Apple somehow reigns supreme still. Anyone else?
A whole bunch of American and Western multinational companies design hardware in Western countries and manufacture them in China.<p>The manufacturing isn’t usually the most valuable part of the value chain. E.g., Apple makes the most money when you sell you an iPhone, not their Chinese and Indian factory suppliers and assemblers.<p>GoPro isn’t failing because they’re an American brand. They’re failing because they’re mismanaged and they made a bunch of product mistakes.<p>If you want more examples I can give them to you: Google hardware/phones, HP, Dell, Sonos, Bose, Ubiquiti, Cisco, Nvidia, Qualcomm.<p>Most Japanese corporations still do a lot of their design work in Japan. Sony even does manufacturing of Raspberry Pi devices in Wales.<p>And of course, speaking of Sony, the money maker for that console is in software, and most of Sony’s studios are in Western countries like the US and Japan. The manufacture of the console is the lowest value part of the business.<p>Companies that have significant manufacturing and fabrication outside of China/Taiwan: Intel, IBM, GlobalFoundries, ON Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Whisker (Litter Robot), and a very large percentage of the automotive industry.<p>Large appliances brands have a heavy presence in the US, Canada, and Mexico, including LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, GE appliances, Speed Queen, SubZero/Wolf/Cove, BSH Home Appliances (Bosch/Thermador), Electrolux.<p>KitchenAid mixers, Vitamix, Viking Range, BlueStar.<p>Igloo coolers, All-Clad, Lodge, Post-It notes, Darn Tough Socks…
That’s a great list of targets to kill. Things like Vitamix should get undercut by 300 % with same or better quality.
Most of those appliance brands have become expensive enshittified garbage, or are legendary brands that have been bought up (e.g. KitchenAid used to be a Hobart brand, it's now owned by Whirlpool. Their stand mixers used to last generations; the new ones have a lot of plastic parts inside them). I have one of the original Cuisinart food processors that my mom bought in the 1970s. The base/motor unit is <i>heavy</i> and it still works today. The brand today is now just a label on Conair kitchen gadgets.<p>Some have held out. Speed Queen are still made in Wisconsin. I will be looking at them when I need to replace my laundry machines, which I expect in the next couple of years.
A lot of what you’re saying is essentially not relevant, because even the enshittified brands are still designing and manufacturing/performing final assembly in Western countries.<p>Not their entire product lineups, but still a good chunk of them, especially for heavier and physically larger appliances. Your future speed queen might be just as American as if you had bought a cheap GE.<p>I don’t know where it’s made (probably not the US) but Cuisinart still makes the classic heavy AF food processor, if you’re interested in that.<p>As a side note, I don’t find that heavy weight or an older design/more metal parts has that much to do with quality or longevity. A lot of old stuff was heavy because material science had fewer options to work with. A motor assembly being made of cast iron doesn’t make it magically last longer. For example, my KitchenAid stand mixer is definitely the newer kind that has plastic parts inside, but it has never needed service and has been getting regular use for a decade with no degradation. Believe it or not I even have a notoriously unreliable Samsung washer and dryer from 2012 that are still going with zero maintenance. It even has a stupid touch screen and, yep, that works flawlessly.<p>Maybe the bar is low to consider that impressive but I think the point is that a lot of things getting cost cut has been somewhat logical. I see new buy it for life toasters on the market like the Lotus brand selling for $350. I just replaced a $40 Cuisinart garbage toaster that lasted 3 years and died. Chinese off brands built to similar quality by the same factories without the western brand name cost about $20.<p>So, do the math on that. The Lotus toaster has to last somewhere between 25 and 50 years to reach cost break-even compared to a cheap toaster.<p>The same math maths for speed queen washers and dryers. They are a great kit but they cost 4x more than a normal washer and dryer. If you conservatively estimate that a cheap washer/dryer lasts 6 years, you’re at 24 years before that speed queen breaks even.<p>If we are going to combat the economic reality of numbers like these then we need to start taxing disposal.
This puts no value on the costs that unreliable and poorly built appliances add to your life.<p>A dead toaster is a minor inconvenience. You can go without toast for quite a while. and a toaster can be replaced at any department store. You can carry it home and plug it in. Or order one online and have it at your door the next day. They are cheap enough and unimportant enough that there's no real downside to making price the dominant consideration.<p>A dead washing machine is a bigger deal, especially if your household has a few kids. You can't go without doing the laundry for very long. Replacing a large appliance involves scheduling a delivery and possibly installation, and maybe the schedule is already full until next week and you'll have to take a day off work to be home for that. I'll pay quite a bit extra to avoid that any more often than necessary. And that doesn't consider the value of the daily satisfaction of using well made appliances. They feel solid, they work without glitches, they are quiet, they are consistent, you don't worry about them.<p>Even with a toaster some of that applies. I've had toasters that were a daily annoyance to use. They burnt the toast, or toasted unevenly, sometimes randomly, or if you were making a lot of toast the subsequent batches would come out differently from the first. It's worth something to have a toaster that just reliably makes toast, the same way, every day.
I will pick an odd example. I was shocked to learn that SpaceX manufactures its ground satellite dishes (that customers need to buy) in Texas. They make more than <i>five million</i> units per year, and are looking to double that number. I am surprised that they did not outsource it to China. Maybe they are concerned about intellectual property theft. Still, that must be a hefty "tax" to pay to manuf in US instead of China.
A common theme between Tesla and SpaceX is obsessive vertical integration. SpaceX is building liquid oxygen (not sure about methane) production facilities at Boca Chica. That way they can make their own and not have to pay for the margin. As for Starlink, they must have found a way to do it better or cheaper or both. On a tangent, the manufacturing expertise in both companies is as impressive as their end products.
Apple is China.. hence "Designed by Apple in California"
Apple isn't exactly competing with China.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China</a>
At the manufacturing level it largely isn't, no, though as others have pointed out Apple at least still has the ability to explore options outside China. But Apple represents a lack of vertical integration for its big Chinese suppliers like Foxconn, an American middleman taking a big slice of the revenues and profits which come from the customer. One thing to note is that Android isn't all that different, as phone makers still have to tithe to Google.<p>One factor (mentioned at <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/rajakorman.bsky.social/post/3mqubnhohnk2f" rel="nofollow">https://bsky.app/profile/rajakorman.bsky.social/post/3mqubnh...</a> for instance) is Western distrust of the Chinese government and the regulatory barriers erected from both sides. TikTok's probably a good case study. There was a conspicuous lack of Chinese software companies having success in the Western consumer market before TikTok. Building TikTok involved creating a new product aimed at RoW which was separate from its original Chinese model, Douyin. And then after TikTok Western success was <i>still</i> elusive, to some extent, as the US government snatched away Bytedance's toy.<p>Though even beyond tech and other politically sensitive areas China's generally been pretty slow at generating RoW-consumer-facing products and brands. There's also the slightly remarkable fact that historically (and even to some extent still today) GUIs have been extremely, mysteriously hard for large companies worldwide to do well. The main exception have tended to either be called "Apple" or have dedicated themselves to copying Apple's homework:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22288221">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22288221</a> .<p>(I am not an expert on anyhthing.)
Apple manufacturing is entirely Indian and Chinese.<p>While GoPro is made in Thailand.<p>America is just where their marketing teams hang out...
I'm looking at GoPro packaging here that says "Made in Thailand".
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.<p>Apple reigns supreme because of China - and the two are inextricably linked. China would not have its high-tech manufacturing prowess if it were not for Apple. The book Apple In China [1] highlights how millions of cheap laborers and the country's engineers took the lessons of working with Apple to solidify its edge in this space in a way nobody can catch up to today.<p>China took the long-term greedy approach to invest in the relationship. We see the US today taking equity stakes in Intel and trying to play catchup by using elements of the same playbook. The US's advantage remains in the more "intangible" side of the process: creativity, design, new tech. In a global economy with free trade, this is all fine. But China never "westernized" itself as was expected from the increase in global trade. Now the US is back pedaling, trying to jump start its manufacturing. It will take a long time...<p>The book is a good page-turning read. I recommend it.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668053373" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668053373</a>
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.<p>That's because America ban anything that starts to compete, like Huawei or Chinese car companies
Consumer electronics, yes. For defense, though, American companies very much still make electronics.
Apple reigns because you can't buy Chinese brands in the US
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.<p>Largely because they've been producing in China for quite awhile. Now India too.
Apple still stand because of Software which China sucks at. Good thing the US is not about to destroy its software industry by investing all of its money on AI.
Apple has an excellent mobile OS, which is enough of a loyal userbase that they can make a hardware mistake once in a while and still retain customers. They're less hardware-dependent than most device manufacturers. This also enables them to lag behind the state of the art if it means more reliable/consistent performance. Which is why you don't see a folding Apple phone yet, and why Samsung was able to score points against Apple by having longer battery life and a better camera. This also allows them to demand high quality from their factories.
Is apple making electronics? I thought they are made in India and China.
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.
Mac Mini will be made in
Houston (they already make their own servers there) <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-manufacturing-with-mac-mini-production/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...</a>
Apple is one of the few brands I completely expect to be able to genuinely pull this off.<p>Their volumes are high enough that they will <i>literally</i> 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.<p>Having a domestic factory won't <i>hurt</i> Apple, and with an erratic President who'll flip on tariffs twice a week it's a sensible hedge against his inevitable next meltdown.
When I was looking to buy an action camera last year, I was deciding between Insta360 and DJI, with many YouTubers suggesting outright <i>against</i> GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality.<p>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.<p>Anyway, I bought the Insta360 Go Ultra I had my mind on from the start, which I'm still reasonably happy with.
So you don’t realize most you tube influencers using dji or insta360 are being paid to use them? That’s the main reason I’ve seen YouTubers switch. The Chinese brands absolutely flood content creators with free gear and support.
Having owned a number of GoPros, I made the same switch last year.<p>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.
I don't really use the software, not even for updates.<p>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.<p>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.)
> many YouTubers suggesting outright against GoPro since they haven't kept up with image quality.<p>Fyi: This is a lie, the youtubers are paid to tell you this.
Yeah, but I also looked at many different videos to evaluate quality myself, and GoPro wasn't great.
Your statement is so broad that it cannot be true.
It's factually incorrect that gopro hasn't kept up with image quality. One independent comparison I saw for instance put the gp13 in front of the others in most situations except low light. So if anything it's contested who's better/worse, far far from the statement in those videos.<p>It's factually correct and widely known that lots of tech "reviewers" get paid by the competition to shill products, was a whole scandal even with how Insta360 was caught telling reviewers not to mention their sponsorship. The contracts also often forbid them do do direct comparisons. Also funny how there will be a hundred identical reviews, as they all got the same script.<p>So, my statement is true. If you've watched a couple of videoes telling you to buy dji/insta360, it's very very likely you've been lied to.<p>So, ball is in your court.
I bought my first GoPro for a scuba diving trip in Mexico once. Was super excited, it was my first scuba diving experience too.<p>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.<p>Hated them ever since.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>I believe things eventually got sorted out for water use, but I was no longer a customer.
Hahahah. Do you seriously just take random objects deep underwater and expect them to be designed to withstand that sort of an environment?<p>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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
> and hackable with official firmware from the company.<p>GoPro Labs works really well, <a href="https://gopro.com/en/us/info/gopro-labs" rel="nofollow">https://gopro.com/en/us/info/gopro-labs</a><p>But it's a bit sad how long their expirements lives there before making it into the default firmware.
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.<p>Turns out it overheated 15 minutes into the drive, and corrupted all the footage from my whole ski trip.<p>I'm also still salty that they cancelled my favorite fast video editing software (can't remember the name).<p>This was 8 years 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
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.
I loved the product early on, but they became the Adobe Creative Cloud of cameras. Play dumb subscription games win dumb prizes.
These days you can buy mini cameras for a few bucks on AliExpress, so no wonder.
any recommendation?
Are you looking for Good or Great?<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
> there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps<p>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.<p>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.<p>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
I'll have to try and dig out a couple of the ones I bought and re-verify this. Really though the 60fps doesn't matter for the majority of users. Even the 4K aspect is overkill for most common things.<p>ISTR GoPro moved away from Ambarella SoCs several years ago and rolled their own, but most of the other cameras are using Amba, Novatek, etc., and certainly offer great performance for a fraction of the cost of GoPro.
It’s less that 4k 60fps doesn’t matter, but that most mobile cheap cameras are so poor quality that you don’t see much of a difference. The sensors are so small that switching to 60fps leaves less time for the shutter speed so you end up with a noisy image.<p>On a good camera the difference is stark.
I saw a review on YouTube of a lot of these alternatives, along with the established brands, and in bright sunlight and little movement some were ok but quality was all over.<p>However once it got a bit darker, or heavy movement, the big brands left the rest in the dust pretty much.<p>So yeah, do a bit of research and figure out your use-case.
For professional action shots people want 180 degree immersive VR video nowadays.
> Are you looking for Good or Great?<p>What about equal-or-better-than-the-same-or-similar-GoPro?
Gopro has been garbage for years now.<p>Heck in youtube videos you'll occasionally hear "for some reason my gopro is really hot and smells like burning plastic".<p>Happens to every big brand, really.
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.<p>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.<p>Now I have the insta360 go ultra and... I think go pro is going to die. It's just so good.
You... invested in the crappy company being crappy that did the crappiest thing all the crappy companies do aka start a subscription...<p>and... -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- got burned by it?<p>???
If you thought they were going to finally improve with SaaS why did you buy put options?
didn't they moved actual hardware production elsewhere outside of US?<p>typical story. first move out production, loose core competency, let competitors copy it with own brands in own jurisdictions, and shut down business.
American manufacturing is a rounding error, especially when it comes to consumer electronics.<p>Western manufacturing can't compete with a Shenzhen. Our supply lines <i>suck</i>, 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.<p>No need to steal when our own companies willingly export core competency for a few cents of shareholder value!
This sounds like a choose your path story…<p>You are a country. You have to decide on your country’s economic model before starting the game. Choose:<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>Choose carefully. Once your have made your decision the costs to change it are extremely high and will result in societal and economic collapse.
There’s a really good video out there about how GoPro fumbled their position:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/frrhSJF__Mc" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/frrhSJF__Mc</a><p>Insta360 is the company that has essentially taken over this space.
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.
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.
> 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.
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 <i>shocked</i> by how overhyped these devices seemed to be.<p>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.<p>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.
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.
The GoPro has always been explicitly marketed as an <i>action</i> 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.<p>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.<p>GoPro isn't failing because the concept is wrong - the market is <i>massive</i>. 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 <i>expect</i> their product will need to be replaced when it inevitably can't handle the abuse anymore.
it’s very much like iRobot vacuums - more expensive and less performant than the chinese competitors that have totally overtaken the market. iRobot sad story, but so behind. i have a chinese robot from 3i that fills its mop water tank <i>from humidity in the air</i>. and my action camera is an Insta360 that does great 360 video underwater without a case.
No, that's precisely my point. It's <i>only</i> an action camera, and you assert that the market is massive, but I don't see it. Just how many millions of units can you sell to YouTuber spelunkers, YouTuber mountain bikers, YouTuber paragliders, YouTuber divers, and so on?<p>The reality is that even in "action" situations - the situations where normal people want to capture memories of hiking, biking, boating, etc - normal cameras, including cell phones, are usually more than enough and GoPro somehow managers to be <i>worse</i>.
> Just how many millions of units can you sell<p>Just how many millions of people do those outdoors activities?<p>You can't survive selling solely to YouTubers, that's definitely true, but you don't <i>need</i> to. Just like tennis companies don't need to survive solely on selling to Grand Slam competitors. Plenty of people are willing to spend a few hundred bucks on their hobbies if it gives them nice pictures and videos for InstaSnapBookTok and to show off at parties.<p>And no, normal cameras and smartphones are <i>not</i> enough. They'll do for a casual hike, but they will <i>not</i> survive being attached to a mountain bike going downhill and being shaken to bits. I found out the hard way, it is how I killed <i>my</i> first smartphone. If you disagree: why not try it out yourself with a $1500 flagship phone and report back how it went?
> Just how many millions of people do those outdoors activities?<p>Many, but that's irrelevant. There are hundreds of thousand of bicycles in my city, and very, very of them have cameras. That's kinda the point: what you're selling is the dream of being a YouTube influencer, pretty much. Otherwise, there's little value to having a big library of videos from every ride you've taken, especially since let's face it, most people ride the same routes / trails most of the time.<p>Now, the dream of being an influencer may be a strong selling point, but you can only do it once. People are not gonna keep upgrading.
plenty of companies seem to live just fine off selling scuba gear to divers
I use it as a dashcam.
> 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?<p>I don't think people are cross-shopping action cameras and mirrorless cameras. Either you want a wearable light-weight shockproof, waterproof camera or not.<p>Worth pointing out that your experience is with a model from a decade ago. The current Hero model is the 13.
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.
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."
Red Bull doesn’t just market, they bankroll and support.<p>Most companies just sponsor a team
or something, but Red Bull has paid for the baseline infrastructure of many sports.
There is an old saying that Red Bull is a marketing company that happens to sell energy drinks
Well that is pretty much true. It's founder was a marketing director for a consumer goods brand.
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
They really have tried.<p>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.<p>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].<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter" rel="nofollow">https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-best-line-contest.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-b...</a>
[3] <a href="https://mountaingames.com/" rel="nofollow">https://mountaingames.com/</a>
It’s not just the cash flow, it’s the margins.<p>Redbulls gross margins are probably 90%. It’s basically just water, sugar, and caffeine sold for $3.<p>You can do a lot of great promotions if the cost of your product is a rounding error.
So how many minutes of that playbook do you suppose the annual budget of Gopro would be able to pay for?
I had no ifea they were struggling. Tldr; their competitor Insta360 is battling them, and they have YoY revenue drop.<p>Gopro has this cool reliable aura around them. How could they he struggling? So bizarre
They rode the novelty train so hard they missed that everyone is doing it better than them now.
Their hardware is unimpressive and expensive, and their software is horrible.
> and their software is horrible<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
>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.<p>This was my main gripe, but also:<p>* Image stabilization (Hypersmooth Pro/ReelSteady) as a subscription feature.<p>* 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)<p>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.
> 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.<p>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.
Agree. Gopro recently released a DaVinci plugin for 360 videoes, which is great. But I often would like something in between the advanced DaVinci and the simple mobile editing. After the release of Max2, the Quik app got a big overhaul and is quite capable now. But it's still mobile, and Gopro Player (for desktop) is then now even further behind on capabilities. Same issue with Insta360 (both mobile and desktop, never tried Dji's apps)
Another area where an American technology brand is losing to the Chinese alternative. Alongside EVs, drones, robot vacuums, solar panels.
Not surprising, it's a commoditized sector.<p>On top of that, when GoPro first launched mobile phones generally did not have cameras capable of producing production-quality images, and especially video. 20 years later, the game is much different.<p>Remember the Flip video camera that was all the rage for like 2 years and then just disappeared when cellphones could shoot video? GoPro is like a rugged Flip, so it took a little longer for the world to catch up to them, but now there are lots of options, and a "cheap" sports camera that is 1/4 the price of a GoPro is good enough, even if it only lasts 1/2 as long.
It's honestly embarrassing that our leaders <i>still</i> haven't realized why this is happening, and <i>still</i> aren't taking any actions to prevent it from getting worse.<p>Giving billions of free money to shareholders of Intel & friends is going to do absolutely nothing to change the tide. Want domestic manufacturing? Invest in building a JLCPCB alternative: automated to the fullest extent possible in order to save fractions of a cent on ops, then operated on a razor-thin margin but making up for it in volume.<p>Chinese people aren't the lazy dumb manual workers we have long pretended they are. After we have freely given them all of our engineering knowledge with outsourcing, they are now <i>beating us</i> on the free market. If we don't internalize this, stop with the silly competition-destroying tariffs, and try to compete again, we are doomed to slide into irrelevancy - and we've got only ourselves to blame.
Beaten on quality and price by competitors.<p>The same thing is happening to BMW, Toyota,Mercedes...
> How could they he struggling?<p>They are just not as good. I bought GoPro10 ~5 years ago and it constantly overheats. Very unreliable. It was the first and last time I bought GoPro.
My only gripe with GoPros is lack of external mic like dji ecosystem.
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.<p>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.
no one is mentioning DJI? they are also crushing go pro with DJI Osmo lineup, action or nano.
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.
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.<p>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.
the end of GoPro happened with the first DJI Action
Yes.
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.
They already have Open GoPro: <a href="https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro" rel="nofollow">https://gopro.com/en/us/info/open-gopro</a><p>Idk if the firmware is open source, but there's a whole SDK you can use to implement stuff like that
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)?
This has been on the cards for about a decade. I guess Insta360's YouTube advertising barrage worked.
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.<p>Very good marketing I would say.<p>Attached Example (you will find many such videos on Social Media)<p><a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/2KNOx5oMXWk?feature=shared" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/shorts/2KNOx5oMXWk?feature=shared</a>
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.<p>GoPro will be fine. They just won't be the go-to for every YouTuber any longer.
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.
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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.
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?
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.<p>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.
Who is mounting a DSLR on bike, helmet, chest? Taking it in the ocean, etc.