Black Sky’s for GoPro Karma

While the world was focused on the US Presidential election GoPro had to recall all 2,500 Karma drones that they had sold.
There were a number of incidents of the GoPro Karma just falling out of the sky.  The recall is less than two months after the extravagant launch and now they are offering refunds to all purchasers.
Social media, YouTube and blogs are full of videos and criticism for the GoPro Karma and it is fast becoming a disaster for the company.
Here are some of blog and media comments:
GoPro’s Drone Initiative Crashes With Karma Recall … 3DR. “If you’re not DJI or 3DR, it’s awfully hard to compete in the market,” Solis said. “If they had a product at $400 to $600, they could compete better in the market and sell a lot more cameras,” he maintained.
Several sources familiar with the design process for the Karma point to the placement of the camera and gimbal as one possible source of the issues. Most drones have the camera slung underneath to establish a solid center of gravity. By putting its camera way out front, GoPro’s Karma drone was faced with a far more difficult balancing act. Sources say early testing showed the front-heavy design led to greater vibration, and those forces can sometimes shake loose a detachable battery, leading to the kind of sudden power failure seen in Karma crash videos.
GoPro announced a total recall of its new Karma drone yesterday, saying that the drone may lose power mid-flight and fall out of the sky. That’s exactly what owner Nicholas Kulick captured a few days ago in the 1-minute video above: his drone lost power and nearly fell on someone’s head.

In our two previous articles about the GoPro Karma we questioned the strategy of GoPro.
Will GoPro Follow 3D Robotics Into Drone Death Valley
Will Karma Lift GoPro
But we were a little out on our timing, it seems the problems with this new UAV equipment have come a lot earlier than we predicted.
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