On Tuesday evening, of its new Karma drone. Out of the approximately 2,500 drones聽sold since October 23, 鈥渁 very small number”聽of聽them have reportedly lost聽power during operation, GoPro said in a statement.
The recall is聽a major speed bump for GoPro, which spent several years developing the much-anticipated Karma, its first drone. The result was nice, but far from revolutionary. Its key accomplishment was packaging existing drone and stabilizing technologies聽into one relatively small package. In September,聽I wrote about the device's聽biggest strength鈥攖he detachable, handheld stabilizer,聽called the聽Grip, which comes聽with the Karma but can also be bought separately. GoPro is asking those who bought the Karma to return the entire package. 聽聽聽
The action-cam manufacturer has been beset by bad news lately. The Karma, announced September 19, was already at least a year late, with the launch reportedly waylaid by聽development issues. And a few days after the October launch of the Karma, DJI announced its , a smaller rival with a聽longer battery life聽and聽a bigger operating range, which sent GoPro鈥檚 stock tumbling.
Last week, GoPro revealed another quarterly loss and is expected to .聽The Karma was touted to investors as a product that would聽counteract slipping profits, especially with the approaching holidays. The recall will likely聽dampen聽those projections.聽
If you own one of the drones, .