GoPro to launch foldable Karma quadcopter for $799 on October 23, new Hero5 action cameras and GoPro Plus $5/month sharing service on October 2
a drone and new cameras Eric Frederiksen / The Tech Report : GoPro's foldable Karma Drone is ready for take off Shawn Knight / TechSpot : GoPro unveils Karma drone and Hero5 family of action cameras Edgar Alvarez / Engadget : This is GoPro's $799, foldable Karma drone Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo : The GoPro Hero5 Is Finally Waterproof and Listens to Your Voice Commands Jacob Kleinman / TechnoBuffalo : GoPro Hero 5 Black, Hero 5 Session debut with 4K, voice controls Jeff Dunn / Business Insider : Here's why GoPro's new drone is so important to the company Geoff Weiss / Tubefilter : GoPro's First Drone, ‘Karma’, Is Priced At $800 And Can Fold Inside A Backpack Sean O'Kane / The Verge : GoPro's Karma drone folds up and fits in a backpack Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily : GoPro's ‘Karma’ ‘Compelling’, Says Baird; 'Hero5′ a ‘Meaningful Update’ GoPro / PR Newswire : GoPro, Now an End-to-End Storytelling Solution with Cloud-Connected HERO5 Cameras; GoPro Plus … Brent Rose / Wired : GoPro's Karma Drone and New Cameras Look Mighty Hot Brian Heater / TechCrunch : GoPro finally debuts its portable Karma drone, priced at $799 CNET : GoPro debuts Hero 5 Black, Session action cams and Karma foldable drone Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat : GoPro unveils foldable Karma drone and Hero5 action camera Matt Swider / TechRadar.com : This is the GoPro Hero5 and Karma drone and their price Adam Clark Estes / Gizmodo : The New GoPro Karma Looks Like the Most Versatile Drone Yet Bryan Clark / The Next Web : GoPro unveils its foldable drone ‘Karma’ and a new Hero5 action camera Chris Mills / BGR : GoPro's drone is finally here, and it only costs $800 Cam Bunton / Pocket-lint : GoPro's Karma drone is official, takes flight soon Edgar Alvarez / Engadget : A first look at GoPro's foldable Karma drone TrustedReviews : GoPro Karma drone revealed - what you need to know Georgia Wells / Wall Street Journal : GoPro Offers New Cameras and a Drone Lisa Eadicicco / TIME : Meet GoPro's First Drone, the Karma Raymond Wong / Mashable : GoPro's new Hero 5 action cameras make it easier to create epic videos Cam Bunton / Pocket-lint : GoPro Hero 5 Black and Session cameras announced, 4K video with GPS and waterproofing Ina Fried / Recode : This is Karma, GoPro's first drone CNET : GoPro Karma drone coming in October Les Shu / Digital Trends : GoPro takes off with a new foldable Karma drone, Hero5 cam, and more Jacob Kleinman / TechnoBuffalo : GoPro Karma drone folds to fit in backpack, costs $799 Jeff Parsons / mirror : GoPro launches new Hero5 action cameras with waterproofing and voice control Michal Lev-Ram / Fortune : GoPro Has Sky-High Hopes for Its New Selfie Drone ‘Karma’ Antonio Villas-Boas / Business Insider : GoPro just unveiled 3 new action cameras and a drone Matt Burns / TechCrunch : Cloud video editing could be GoPro's real hero Bloomberg : GoPro Unveils Camera Drone in Effort to Boost Sales, Stock
Context & Ripple Effects
This is GoPro's move beyond the action camera: a single announcement bundles its first drone, the foldable $799 Karma launching October 23, with the Hero5 camera family and a $5/month GoPro Plus cloud-sharing service both starting October 2. The detachable camera mount means Karma is designed to sell Hero5s as much as fly itself.
The follow-on coverage frames how the bet landed: reviewers praised the Hero5's overdue upgrades like waterproofing and voice controls (Hero5 review) but flagged weak battery life, while the Karma review found an easy-to-fly machine missing the autonomous features — collision avoidance — rivals treated as table stakes. Months later the drone was recalled over a power-loss flaw before returning to sale.
First-order effects
- Buyers get a $799 foldable drone whose value depends on owning a GoPro camera, plus two new Hero5 models and a subscription that turns footage storage into recurring revenue from October 2.
- GoPro's revenue mix immediately diversifies: hardware across three product lines plus the first GoPro Plus subscription fees.
Second-order effects
- Consumer drone competitors now face a camera-maker entering at $799 with foldability, forcing them to compete on autonomy features the Karma lacks rather than price alone.
- If Karma drives camera attach sales, GoPro's pricing power shifts toward bundles — drone-plus-camera packages — and toward GoPro Plus as the retention layer between hardware cycles.
Third-order effects
- The recall-and-relaunch cycle shows the structural risk of a camera company becoming a flight-hardware company: reliability engineering, not imaging, becomes the constraint on the product line.
- If the subscription model holds, GoPro drifts from one-time camera sales toward a hardware-plus-cloud business where each device ships with an attached service — a structure the later Hero8 generation built on.
The trend: Action-camera makers are extending their franchises into adjacent hardware and subscription services, with product reliability and feature gaps against dedicated drone makers setting the ceiling on how far that extension goes.