Karma's remote provides a video tutorial that simulates the conditions of flying the drone. (Liu Zheng/chinadaily.com.cn)
GoPro, which makes wearable sports cameras and accessories, recently unveiled its long-awaited consumer drone, aiming to ignite consumers' enthusiasm for distinctive video-making experience.
Dubbed Karma, the device is priced at $799.99 and will be available for shipment in China on October 23.
It features a compact, fits-in-a-small-backpack design and includes an image-stabilization grip that can be handheld or mounted on vehicles, gear and more.
Nick Woodman, founder and CEO, said in an interview that the drone, unveiled together with the company's latest action cameras Hero 5 and Hero 5 Session, is not just a piece of hardware but an end-to-end solution that provides content building and sharing under its own ecosystem.
"The more people, whether they own a GoPro or a smartphone, become visual storytellers, the larger our market share will grow," said Woodman.
After years of investment boom in the drone sector in China, analysts say newcomers have to create new application scenarios to stimulate people's interest.
Jean Xiao, a research manager who tracks drones and virtual reality at IDC China, said the sales of the GoPro drone will be increase thanks to the number of GoPro's existing user base and the rise in fans of the brand in the country.
"Compared with other quadcopters, the foldable drone has a higher price tag but is easier to handle," said Xiao. "Meanwhile, due to the limitations of the existing technologies in the consumer drone industry, policy regulations, such as flight duration and altitude, will not pose a big challenge to the device."
Given the superior price and limited differentiation of the product, Xiao predicts that Karma will face a fierce competition with domestic brands in the country's market.
"As the performances of the drones' CPUs gets improved by chipmakers, such as Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia, and also the technology integration with VR and artificial intelligence gets better, the next generation drone will become 'smarter'," she said.
