GoPro wants to expand its camera line to more than just its current Hero and Max cameras. According to CEO Nick Woodman, the company will add two more models in the next year.
New Cameras for Specialized Uses
In a company earning’s call, Woodman says that GoPro wants to offer more specialized cameras that are still based on the core technologies found in its current devices, The Verge reports. More cameras isn’t a new strategy for GoPro — it at one point had several options in its flagship GoPro line as well as the GoPro Session — but Woodman said the problem then was that the multiple cameras all tended to appeal to the same type of user.
This time, he wants the company’s expanded offerings to be more specialized and appeal to “entirely different groups of users” than the current Hero and Max cameras.
As part of this, Woodman says that he wants to make his cameras appeal to a more professional user, and rather than make a camera that is just okay and a “Swiss Army knife” kind of solution, he would like to see GoPro make a camera for “premium” use cases.
Relying on the Same Technology
Woodman’s note about making sure to use the same technology in these cameras even if they are designed for a more niche audience is a smart strategy for the company, given its history. When it hasn’t stuck closely to its core tech, things haven’t always gone well, as with its disastrous foray into drones.
The GoPro Karma used a hand-held stabilization gimbal and GoPro camera that combined with a drone body to create a flying camera. While the camera worked great, as did the gimbal, the drone unit that pushed well beyond what GoPro had done before did not. Karma drones struggled to stay airborne, were plagued by software issues, and the company was forced to ignominiously exit the drone business.
Pros Already Use GoPro
A pro-level GoPro would find considerable appeal since the current model Hero camera is already quite popular. In fact, GoPro earned its second Emmy — a 2021 Technology and Engineering Emmy — this past week in recognition of its in-camera sensor and software stabilization technology.
The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards are given to a living individual, a company, or a scientific or technical organization for developments and/or standardization involved in engineering technologies that either represent so extensive an improvement on existing methods or are so innovative in nature that they materially have affected television.
GoPro is clearly already popular among high-end users, and leaning further into that market — smartly — will likely end in success.
Image credits: Header photo by Ryan Mense for PetaPixel.
Author: Jaron Schneider
Source: Petapixel
