Comment by sen
13 hours ago
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.
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.
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.
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.
Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too.
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.
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).
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.)
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.
21 replies →
> who’s payroll your politicians are on
It doesn’t even have to be foreign - it can just be corrupt self interest.
What other explanation is there for attacking Venezuela and Iran?
1 reply →
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.
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
5 replies →
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.
It's not really a free market when one country is heavily subsidizing it's industries
46 replies →
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.)
I generally agree with your point about value extraction vs. re-investment.
2 replies →
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.
4 replies →
I would pay more to have a product the US doesn’t have its hands in.
In today's environment people can't even make the choice to pay more. The productn are just priced out of reach!
> GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place.
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?
The cameras. But quite how, I don’t know.
1 reply →
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.
1 reply →
What percent of GoPro sales are used by aerospace? My guess: It is tiny. Not enough to keep GoPro alive.
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).
This is the key though: it’s not just supposed subsidies, because the Chinese companies are fundamentally just faster and more efficient
1 reply →
Simon Wardley has been shouting this from the rooftops, including detailed per industry timelines when China will take over, in 2015.
[flagged]
3 replies →
> the only good non-Chinese printer that doesn’t cost 10-100x as much is Prusa
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.
Stuff like this: https://sensofusion.com/dronefactory/
5 replies →
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.
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.
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...
The cost of your proposed policies to consumers, to the Americans who can create because of cheap great Chinese printers and wouldn't be able to create under your policy... is much greater than the abstract industrial policy benefit.
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.
I think the engineering is actually pretty irrelevant in terms of the competitiveness
> China wants to deindustrialize non-Chinese industries for strategic and/or natsec reasons,
No. Not even close
China wants its place at the table.
With Erope and USA
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.
They are not trying to "deindustrialise" anybody, just finding a place amongst equals
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.
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.
Britain is on a hell of a trajectory. First Brexit then the rise of Reform.
If that scam of a man wins the next election, it’ll be quite the show.
4 replies →
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.
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.
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.
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.
Neither one of those are equivalent to a P1S. They’re 2 tiers above it. Equivalent Bambu printers sell for about the same price.
I have printers from both companies. There are tradeoffs for each, but Prusa isn’t 4x more for an equivalent printer.
3 replies →
Lol your country and your capitalism helped build China.
Wasn't that the thing like ~30 years ago? All the western companies pushing manufacturing into China for increased profit?
Capitalism and the west gave all that power away :), you deindustrialised yourselves.
If GoPro is manufactured in China then it’s no more secure than Insta360.
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.
5 replies →
government first intervened in British Steel last year to prevent its then-owner, the Chinese company Jingye Group, from shutting it down https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/business/britain-national...
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.
>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.
In what way exactly? The camera will magically communicate to the mothership?
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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
I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.
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 just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US.
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).
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.
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).
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.
but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so that I can get a battery life of several weeks
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.
1 reply →
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.
6 replies →
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.
3 replies →
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.
1 reply →
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.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/aviation/general/
3 replies →
I have a love/hate relationship with Garmin.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://youtu.be/WSMFnJnY7EA?si=NMz0wd94gM5abxyj
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.
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.
I could also see Samsung getting in.
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. https://joshi-bharat.github.io/projects/gopro/
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.
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.
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
I had a GoPro many years ago. Eventually sold it because I needed the money for other things.
Been thinking about buying a new action camera eventually.
Got any recommendations?
The one that interests me the most of the ones I’ve seen is the Insta360 X4 Air plus an underwater case for it.
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.
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).
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.
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.
I have an insta360 X5, it's neat and there's a lot of flexibility, but it does have downsides.
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.
1 reply →
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.
2 replies →
>other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper
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.
A gopro isn't worse than the competition, nor at a premium.
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.
The bulk of the market is toys for aspiring content creators. Professional usage is pocket change subsidised by tiktokers.
It also doesn’t help that you could probably get by with a hero 4 black even today lol
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 literally falling out of the sky. 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.
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.
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)
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?
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.
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.
1 reply →
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?
1 reply →
> These days other brands give better quality video in better quality hardware and more functionality, for cheaper.
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.
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.
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.