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Comment by msandford | Hacker News Reader

Finally someone else is stepping into the GoPro market. Good to see competition here. I know the feature sets aren't identical but sometimes worse is better.

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I think the fact that it's tiny, cute, and inexpensive will help them carve a niche out from under GoPro. I can imagine something like this being used in places where you wouldn't really want a "hard core" action cam.

agree with that. this just seems more user friendly to get started with. much more of a fun impulse buy than a GoPro IMO.

I thought the video quality was extremely high, compared with a lot of the other stuff I see on YouTube.

also worth noting that there are a ton of retail outlets in the USA which is an added benefit to their distribution strategy.

"I thought the video quality was extremely high"

Actually the video quality looks terrible. Compare the bits actually shot with the Cube (most of the promo video isn't... you can clearly see when they switch to the shots the Cube itself took at ~0:22-0:26 and ~0:42-0:44, notice how they switch away from the Cube video pretty damn quickly, probably because it is so terrible... doesn't even look actually 1080p as a source, looks like they are interpolating it up from something lower, frame rate looks bad, massive chromatic aberration).

Compare Cube (switch YouTube player to 1080p if it doesn't auto select that, note that most of the promo video is not Cube footage, pay specific attention to ~0:22-0:26 and ~0:42-0:44):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePO6OKYyOec

To, say, the Mobius (switch YouTube player to 1080p if it doesn't auto select that):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlSvoKlIaPk

Mobius costs less than the Cube ($80 vs $99), video quality is miles better even when capturing a much faster-moving scene.

I can see reasons why people might buy the Cube... it is cute, the monkey stand is pretty cool; but in terms of price vs image quality it is a clear loser, IMO.

This is identical to the sentiment against iPod when it first came out. If the design is good, user friendly, and people still like the product, it won't matter if it's got worse specs since they can always improve them in later releases.

If I remember correctly the iPod lacked some features that could have been expected from the product when the first version came out (the famous "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." quoted else where in this thread. Also, firewire). But the features that were in the iPod worked fine. In this case however I agree with the parent who says the video, the only thing this cube is supposed to do well, is pretty terrible looking by 2014 standards.

Here's a still of the video for reference: https://i.imgur.com/wIF1SFt.jpg

There's so much wrong in this picture I'm not sure where to start. And that's a promotional video!

And yet, this is more than enough quality for most people.

The UX for these cameras is basically "hit record button, see red light go on"; I don't think there is room for any player to win on iPod-style usability.

They either need to sell on lifestyle branding (where GoPro is already owning the market) or quality, IMO.

What about the complicated menu structure of a GoPro Hero3+? Surely there's massive scope for improvement there?

Would a non-technical person understand pro's and con's of the trade-off between 1080p24 and 720p120? I doubt it.

A lot of opinion, but as a normal consumer, I think this looks fine, or at least "good enough".

I agree, the Mobius video does look better. But, I think that most of the decision doesn't come down to video quality for a normal person. Its like graphics on video games. There's a very vocal crowd that espouses 1080p / 60 Hz refresh rates, but most normal people are as likely to play Candy Crush as a cinematic Final Fantasy or God of War. Its just not that much of a discriminator for the non-hardcore.

Anecdotally, I bought a Go Pro a while back. What really mattered was: "Can I easily use this for the activity I'm planning (I wanted to be able to set a camera on my shoulder)?", "Can I easily work with / upload the video after I'm done?", and "Is this a product that people online say works?"

Hey - you're absolutely right about the video quality. Thanks for pointing it out.

The cube looks like a great product, but I was wondering if it will be pro quality. Your post helps.

GoPro actually does produce usable pro-quality HD video. Amazing for such a compact and simple device. Great colour balance, great lens, very little CA, etc., etc.

Cube is clearly not competing with that. It looks like a great fun product, and I reckon I'll buy one... but I won't be able to justify that purchase professionally!

Agreed, sub-$40 Chinese Go-Pro knock-offs offer superior performance on top of their silly cheap price tags.

Can you recommend one?

It might be sub-par to some people right now, but they are establishing a beachhead in the market. They can certainly improve feature/performance/product line and expand out from there.

Where is the price listed? I don't see it anywhere.

$99

Ahh...ok.

Thanks!

P.S. Have a link to that somewhere?

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/06/polaroid-c3-tiny-action-c...

While it's in the same consumer market as GoPro, remember that GoPro is more than a camera company in the same way that Red Bull is more than just an energy drink.

GoPro is headed in the direction of lifestyle branding. Original content, sponsored professional sports, brand collaboration, etc.

So while Polaroid and Sony are welcoming competition in the space, GoPro's market IMO seems more focused elsewhere.

>GoPro is headed in the direction of lifestyle branding. Original content, sponsored professional sports, brand collaboration, etc.

That's still just a camera company. All those are marketing/promotionals moves, no money makers or markets.

Same for Red Bull I'd say. How much Red Bull makes for selling the drink vs any other endeavour (if it not actually loses money on them).

they make a nice sum on their formula one team, that alone is a difficult feat so i reckon they are pretty business savvy.

Red Bull F1 may be "profitable" but only if you separate it from the 100's of millions invested by the Red Bull parent company. It is simply a marketing venture whose real profit is measured in brand awareness and sales of little cans of caffeinated soda.

I do a fir bit of "extreme sports". Mountain Biking and Kayaking mainly. Ironically no one I know (who participates in these sports) drinks Red Bull on a regular basis.

The irony goes so much deeper.

While "extreme sports" types may not themselves drink Red Bull, the "non-extreme" people who do drink Red Bull are very sensitive to the notion that Red Bull is authentically associated with such sports/attitudes.

That is, they demand their products properly represent feelings, experiences and capabilities that they themselves do not pursue. And you see this in all sorts of markets.

People who will never serious hike demand "authentic" (or authentic-appearing) hiking boots. People who will never push their computers' limits demand high-end parts. People who will only listen to over-compressed audio will demand high-quality stereo components. Etc.

"All the gear, no idea" as we used to say.

I used to work as a rafting guide, got paid next to nothing, but got to kayak whenever I wanted. My gear was shit, but I was way better than most people who could afford the nice kit.

I also notice this a lot with vehicles, especially in the Bay Area (I blame the abundance of disposable income).

Just because you bought a $12k carbon fiber Colnago with deep section carbon aero wheels (which are heavier and meant for time trials, not commuting) doesn't mean you'll be Lance Armstrong, nor does it mean you'll beat the guy riding a steel fixie who regularly goes on group rides.

Owning an AMG Mercedes doesn't mean you can keep it in a lane in turns (I usually fined quite the opposite) or keep up with a Miata on mountain roads.

The newest Ducati >liter bike won't make you faster through twisties than the guy on the gsxr 750 who goes to track days and can drag a knee.

In the end though, people are free to spend their money however they want, even if that means looking ridiculous to people who are more passionate about their thing than they are. In middle school, we'd call these people "posers", but now we just call them "rich".

My home town is home of the urban 4x4, where the most challenging terrain they will encounter are the speed bumps in the supermarket car park.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1955397-formula-1-prize-m... is worth reading.

Of course, it clearly costs tens of millions to run a team - but those figures won't include sponsorship/advertising deals either. If you're not in that top ten though...

Some f1 teams are profitable?

More are very unprofitable than not. http://www.forbes.com/sites/csylt/2014/05/25/formula-one-tea...

Are you joking?

It was not a joke, lots of teams have come and gone. I had to assume it was not profitable to run a team, much like any other form of auto racing.

Most teams that have endured are backed by large companies that can absorb losses, but I have never seen any books from any teams.

Sincerely curious, what kinds of profits do F1 teams make?

So a large team like Ferrari or McLaren will spend about $400 million on running the whole team for the year - that includes all salaries, R&D, simulation, transport, part costs, marketing etc.

They'll get about $80 million back on that from prize money (it's more like $100 million if you win).

Then there's the sponsorship - for a large team about $300 million a year is reasonable.

The rest can often be found from elsewhere. McLaren had large funding from Daimler until recently (when they received a $40 million fine Daimler paid) - Ferrari have a lot of their own money. F1 drives car sales, and the technology from F1 can be pulled back into the road cars - just look at McLaren's new models..

It's also worth pointing out that Red Bull is a privately held company... Essentially they can do whatever they want in a way that public companies can not, should they choose to.

They are moving in that direction because they are going to be swamped by cheaper Chinese clones. Some will inevitably have competitive or better image quality, features, battery life, etc. and GoPro must pivot to leverage of their first mover advantage in action cams.

I don't see this being the same market at all. Gopro is marketed at adventure and sports. Polaroid is pushing this toward the average Joe. With a $99 price point it's well positioned to displace gopro.

Sony has been competing with their Actioncams. It's a superior product in terms of image quality (according to reviews), and that wrist screen they offer with it is very cool.

There are several solid action cams out there now. A quick search of YouTube shows countless reviews and comparisons. In my hobby of RC aircraft, the ~$80 Mobius cam is a very popular alternative to the GoPro. Most reviewers compare its video quality to that of the previous generation GoPro Hero 2, but it's smaller and much cheaper. Its firmware also supports it being used as a dashcam.

http://buymobius.com/collections/mobius-cameras/products/108...

http://www.amazon.com/Mobius-Action-Camera-1080P-Sports/dp/B...

Panasonic is currently marketing their 4k wearable cam in Japan [1]. Pretty impressive for that size I'd say.

[1] http://cdn.camyx.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/panasonic-hx...

Their waterproof case is junk and the colors are skewed heavy on the blue side.

Still, they're great cameras and I think they look beautiful, but you can see lots of shots of skies and pools that are very unnaturally blue on the Sony models.

If you need something submersible, it's not a good option though.

The first-gen action camera waterproof case was rated for greater depth. I used it in water a couple of times and didn't have any issues. It does feel like you might need to replace it every year if you use it in water a lot (and you have to use a sheet of desiccant to deal with fogging) but it works.

Garmin has been competing with GoPro with the Virb action camera for a while, which in my experience has been really fun to use and produced really nice quality videos.

(I work for Garmin, but not on anything related to this.)

GoPro is a distant second, feature-wise, to Drift Ghost as a helmet cam, IMO. There is already competition.

I wouldn't get this new cube device because it lacks a rotatable camera body (essential for flexibility in helmet mounting) and the battery lifetime is too short.

Some of you seems to know the market quite well - here is my question: I would like to have a GoPro alike Cam for mostly indoor usage (low light) with exchangeable lenses (for interviews). I have used a GoPro3+B in the past and like its size and app based control. But for low light indoor settings it delivers sub par quality. What would be a better camera for such a setting?

That doesn't sound like the GoPro's domain to me. I see them as rough-and-tumble sports or action cameras.

But low light performance and interchangeable lenses are almost diametrically opposed to what what they're doing. You need a large sensor and lens to get good low light performance (which makes it bigger) and so would the mechanism on an interchangeable lens. Further the interchangeable lenses are just additional parts to fail when you're bouncing around on your kayak trip.

If you just want portability, you probably want something more like a micro 4/3s camera. I assume they can capture video but would almost certainly be more fit for the job.

I saw GoPro offering a "music" edition of their cameras making me assume they would deliver some decent quality in low light, indoor, close-up situations. The concept is absolutely genius but it seems the market is all going for the same action/sports segment.

This isn't the right application for an action based camera. Opt for a consumer level SLR with HD video or really any handheld camcorder from the last 5 yrs to get the feature set you need.

You're seriously wearing a head-mounted camera during interviews? That would creep me out. I'd probably cut the interview short.

Not sure if he meant "job interviews" -- that would be awesomely weird.

But if it's just documentary-style interviews, seems like a cheap approximation of this, the gold standard: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663105/errol-morriss-secret-wea...

You want something that isn't like a GoPro at all. A NEX-3 or whatever the cheapest non-crap micro 4/3rds camera is would be the least expensive interchangeable lens camera that does what you are describing. Sometimes you can buy outdated models at blowout prices.

Doing interviews on a Go Pro is not the intended use case.

>Finally

Contour was the original competitor to GoPro. In a lot of ways it was a superior product. The company went defunct for a while but recently has been brought back.

I have a Contour; I bought it mainly because specs-wise it was much cheaper than gopro equivalents. There was also some driver issues with the latest gopro model at the time. In hindsight though I think I should have got a gopro. There are certain features that the Contour doesn't have that I would imagine should be easy to implement: mainly the ability to take a mixture of video and still images on the fly. I also think that the video quality is now lagging behind gopro's for equivalent models. Having said all that, I do think they are still a good, cheap, alternative.

Yeah, I had a Contour Roam 2 which I absolutely loved; the rotatable lens with laser alignment, super easy flick-start recording, slimline helmet mount were all awesome features. The Roam featured inset grooves on either side through which the mount could be attached, and combined with the rotatable lens attaching it on the side of the helmet was quite a workable solution.

Unfortunately I lost it on the trails as I was too lazy to set up the tether strap and I used a fork mount and must have hit some particularly hard bumps. I now have a Virb, which has arguably superior quality video, and also features a flick switch. However due to the way the Gopro style mount insists on popping it out and away from the helmet, I've moved it to the handlebars as it just got too much for everyday wearing.

I personally find that for helmet mounting the Gopro as well sticks out like an eyesore, and am looking forward to hopefully seeing a Roam 3 from the resurrected company.

FWIW, I'm using the Australian Fly6 on the back of my bike and am loving that there.

GoPro's biggest missing feature is not having gps and momentum logging.

uh? gopro really only has the brand nowadays.

When gopro started it was jus the cheapest digital camera that nobody would cry if it was smashed by the skateboard... it wasn't really ground breaking in any other aspect. yeah it had interchangeable lens. but everyone i know that used them had one camera for each lens (since they cost ~1 to 2x the price of a good lens anyway)

nowadays there are tons of cheap digital cameras that fit the bill. most in a more convenient cylindrical body. and sometimes 1/5 the price of a gopro! win-win right? except everyone still goes for the gopro because of brand.

so no, this is not "finally stepping into gopro market". the market already have plenty of alternative and they are mostly doing fine. specially in the dashboard cam niche that gopro doesn't market so heavily.

this is just a product some, what... 20yrs later or something. sd card up to 32gb! wth... what is this? 2010? now they are going to say this is not readily available nationwide and that when it is, there will be a wait list?

I love how "only has the brand" is used negatively here. Having the "brand" is having everything. You can have a worse or more expensive product with "the brand". People will love/obsess over you from "the brand". It's hands down the most important thing to a business at GoPros size and way harder to develop on a global level than just manufacturing a small camera. But you have to understand consumers (people) to get that.

Additionally, I'd say that Polaroid as a brand is far more known by the general population than GoPro. To someone not in the know, "GoPro" sounds intimidating whereas Polaroid is famous for being fun, easy and instant!

In all fairness, the GoPro is optimized around being rugged and waterproof and it can probably get along in some environments its cheaper competitors can't. That said, the GoPro interface is awful and I have no doubt that a lot of people for whom the GoPro is overkill spend the money anyway because of the brand.

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