GoPro Launches Karma Foldable Drone

karma3-796x796GoPro has unveiled the long-awaited and much-anticipated Karma multirotor drone.

GoPro’s founder and CEO, Nicholas Woodman, introduced the Karma drone, along with a new line of HERO5 cameras and cloud-based software, to international press at the base of Squaw Valley, CA, near Lake Tahoe.

“With these new products, we’re delivering on our promise to make it easy to capture and share engaging stories,” said Woodman. “We’re stoked to launch Karma and show how much more it is than a drone. Karma packs Hollywood-caliber aerial, handheld and gear-mounted image stabilization into a backpack for $799. It’s so easy to use, a beginner can have fun straight away.”

gopro-karma-caseKarma features a compact design that allows it to fit in a small backback, and includes an image-stabilization grip that can be handheld or mounted to vehicles, gear and more. Karma has been designed to make it easy for anyone to capture smooth, stabilized video during almost any activity.

Karma features:

  • Compact and foldable: the entire system fits into the included backpack
  • A game-style controller features an integrated touch display, making it fun, fast and easy to fly without the need for a separate phone or tablet
  • The 3-axis camera stabilizer can be removed from the drone and attached to the included Karma Grip for capturing ultra-smooth handheld and gear-mounted footage.

 

“GoPro’s Karma is a great offering for consumers, but I don’t expect it to be used in commercial applications as some of DJI’s consumer drones,” said DroneDeploy CEO Mike Winn. “The use of a wide angle camera on the Karma will limit its commercial mapping applicability, and potentially even distort consumers’ pictures and videos.”

Additionally, “Karma requires purchase of a separate camera,” Winn said, while recently leaked images of DJI’s Mavic show that DJI will continue to have an integrated camera with what appears to be a redesigned gimbal design. However, he says, “The concept of smaller foldable drones, like GoPro’s Karma, have applications within the commercial drone market. Many of our customers would welcome similar drones, particularly if they are sufficiently lightweight that they would be exempted from the existing flying beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) regulations.”

Sources: Unmanned Systems Technology, DroneDeploy

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