Just sixteen days, that is all it took to undo Nick Woodman’s grand claims. It’s more than a drone, no its not!

We learnt quite a bit about the launch, only 2500 units shipped. That’s not many at all in the run up to Christmas.

It’s this sort of incident that prompted the recall. Interesting that it appears to power down then power back up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4nRalvmBhA

The web is rife with suggestions that it is the flight battery. I think it might be the removable gimbal. It is either not seating correctly or disconnects momentarily. This should not be an issue but I have been told Karma refuses to fly if a GoPro 4 or 5 is not in place. If the camera powers down or disconnects would the machine switch off? It uses the immature PX4 flight stack and a look at the motherboard revealed in a great tear

down last week shows that there are no headers populated for expansion. Bad news for different sensors, the GPS is also placed right in the middle of lots of RF. Are those speed controllers getting enough cooling?? Having to put your camera into the quad just to learn how to fly is crazy. Why risk an expensive bit of hardware when training. Personally I don’t add any sensors to a platform I have built until I have at least 5 hours flying time with it under my belt. I can’t afford to crash cameras! I have to say I have never been a fan of GoPro’s offering they should not have been greedy and worked with DJI. We actually spoke about Best Buy stopping to show Karma an hour before the recall in our weekly chat. It looks like GoPro’s venture into the drone space is over. I thought on the launch day that it all seemed like an episode of Silicon Valley. What GoPro has done is made it possible for DJI to hold off on any big discounts over the Black Friday and Christmas Holiday season. GoPro didn’t let anybody with real experience preview the Karma for any length of time and sent handlers out to ensure stories were on message. I wonder if those preview units had the same issues. Thanks Nick, I was hoping to pick up a cheap P3P this Christmas. “Safety is our top priority,” said GoPro Founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman. “A very small number of Karma owners have reported incidents of power failure during operation. We have moved quickly to recall all units of Karma and provide a full refund while we investigate the issue. We are working in close coordination with both the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Federal Aviation Administration. We are very sorry to have inconvenienced our customers and we are taking every step to make the return and refund process as easy as possible.” GoPro is committed to providing our customers with great product experiences. To honor this commitment, we have recalled Karma until we resolve a performance issue related to a loss of power during operation. We plan to resume shipment of Karma once the issue is addressed.

Return Instructions If you already own Karma, follow these instructions to return your product for a full refund. If you purchased from Best Buy or bestbuy.com: Please contact Best Buy recall hotline at 1-800-566-7498 or visit online support here. If you purchased from gopro.com:

Please contact customer support at 1-866-886-3001 or visit online support here.