14 DAY TRIAL // Drones are a hot topic nowadays and we’re hearing more and more about commercially-friendly quadcopters destined for the regular folk.
For starters, drones have been getting increasingly affordable, so it’s no wonder that they are getting augmented attention from virtually everyone curious enough to try out novel technology.
GoPro drones? Sure, no problem!
So far GoPro has been focusing on producing its popular range of action cameras, but given the surge in popularity of drones, the next piece of news shouldn’t be much of a shock to you.
According to the Wall Street Journal, GoPro is apparently gearing up to enter the drone industry by launching a series of quadcopters with built-in cameras capable of recording HD videos. We should expect these flying GoPro gizmos to make a debut on the market in 2015.
If you look at today’s drone market, you will find quadcopters compatible with GoPro cameras (like the Hexo+ drone we covered a while back), but it appears the action-cam maker is no longer looking to share and wants to carve a place for itself on the market.
If you follow the news regarding the field, you are probably familiar with quadcopters coming from companies like DJI Innovations and Parrot, and GoPro is looking to infiltrate this territory with an offering(s) of its own.
For the time being, we’re not given a lot of information about the specifications of the new GoPro drones, but given the fact that the report uses a plural, we can expect to see the company roll out multiple variations.
GoPro drones with built-in cameras will arrive in 2015
All we know for now is that the drones will have an incorporated HD video recording camera, so we’re probably looking at a lower-end model that can shoot aerial video at 720p footage, accompanied by a higher-end model that can shoot in 1080p.
GoPro usually offers its products at affordable price rates, so we should expect to see its first pair of drones go to sale for relatively decent price tags ranging between $500 / €400 to $1000 / €808.
But there’s a little puzzling caveat here. If GoPro launches these drones into the wild, it will end up competing with itself. That’s because customers usually purchase drones to go with their Hero cameras, but if the new drones come with a built-in camera, the interest for Heros might go downwards.
GoPro hasn’t completely denied the rumors relating the drones, but keep in mind this is just speculation at this point so you should be taking things with a grain of salt, until more info about the topic is disclosed.
