It’s official – GoPro is making the move into both virtual reality and drones in an effort to expand beyond its action camera roots.
The company’s CEO Nick Woodman made the announcement at the Code Conference yesterday, revealing new products in the development pipeline.
For a start, there’s the Six-Camera Spherical Array, which is a fancy way of describing a 360-degree camera rig.
This rig allows footage to be captured simultaneously across all six cameras, which is then stitched together to create completely spherical video.
Unfortunately, while the rig isn’t likely to be hugely expensive, filling it with six GoPro cameras might be.
The GoPro Hero4 Black Edition, for instance, currently retails on Amazon for £334. Multiply that by six, and you’re looking at just north of £2,000.
GoPro says the rig will be available to buy in the second half of the year, although no exact release date, pricing, or availability details have been given.
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The company also confirmed it was working on a drone – specifically, a quadcopter – which is expected to land in the first half of next year.
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We don’t know pricing for the drone just yet, but Woodman was keen to point out that GoPro is a ‘consumer focused company’. This suggests the quadcopter will match rival consumer offerings on mark-up.
Many quadcopters are already designed to work with GoPro cameras, so a first-party offering in the sector makes plenty of sense for the company.
Do you think GoPro has made a sensible choice branching out from its core action camera business? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.