GoPro today unveiled its first consumer-level virtual photographic camera, the all-new Fusion. The action-camera visitor also announced the Hero6 Blackness, the latest in its flagship line, too as new auto-shooting features for its drone.

It'southward not articulate if whatever of the new devices or features will assist the visitor recapture its fiscal mojo. Simply its cadre user base, as well as people eager for a new camera to use while skiing, biking, surfing, or doing other activeness sports will no doubt appreciate getting their easily on the new devices.

At an event in San Francisco today, GoPro showed off the Fusion, a photographic camera meant to shoot stabilized immersive 5.2K spherical video that can be viewed as either 360-degree VR content, or as traditional fixed-perspective video.

Previously, GoPro has produced two high-end VR camera rigs: the Odyssey, for Google's Jump VR camera platform, and the Omni packet. Simply both of those are geared toward professionals and come with hefty price tags. By comparison, the Fusion is aimed at consumers who want to shoot 360-degree imagery but who don't require the highest quality.

Like other cameras in its class–such as Ricoh's $429 Theta and Samsung'due south $167 Gear 360–the Fusion features lenses on both sides of its body. Information technology can shoot both 5.2K30 and 3K60 spherical video, and produces 18 megapixel spherical images that tin can be played dorsum as either VR content or fixed-perspective video, known as Overcapture, that tin can be selected later from the 360 video through GoPro'south main mobile app.

The Fusion also captures 360-degree audio and works with most GoPro-compatible camera mounts.

The camera costs $699, with preorders beingness taken now. It will ship in November. The Overcapture characteristic will be available as an update to the GoPro app in early 2018.

Hero6

GoPro has traditionally upgraded its flagship Hero photographic camera line each September, and the company continues that pattern with the release of the Hero half-dozen, which comes a yr subsequently the concluding major update, the Hero5.

The new Hero6 Black, which features the visitor'due south proprietary GP1 processor, shoots both 4K60 and 1080p240 video. Information technology is being marketed as offering the best epitome stabilization and quality of any camera in GoPro's history, as well as a new level of simplicity that allows users to shoot high-quality photos or videos with a minimum of settings.

Thanks to the GP1 fleck, the Hero6 Black shoots twice the video frame rates of the previous generation Hero5 line, every bit well equally better dynamic range, low-light performance, and video stabilization.

The camera also features higher estimator vision and machine learning functionality, making it easier than before to generate automatic films based on footage from the Hero6. Known as Quickstories, the GoPro app-based tool is meant to automatically and quickly compose the films and transfer them from the photographic camera to the smartphone-based app.

Interestingly, while GoPro did upgrade its flagship Hero line, it didn't announce a new version of its smaller, less expensive Session camera. It's not clear if the company plans on doing so in the hereafter.

The Hero6 is available at present and costs $499.

New Drone Features

Although in that location's footling evidence that GoPro's drone, the Karma, has made a significant touch on on the market–it, like many others, has likely suffered at the hands of the consumer drone industry dominance of China'south DJI–the company is standing to add new features.

The Karma, which was unveiled along with the Hero5 Blackness a year ago, got off to a rocky kickoff, having to be recalled shortly after its launch due to ability-loss bug. But it has been trouble-free since being relaunched final February. Now, the drone will have ii new features–ane in which it automatically follows and keeps in-frame the person belongings its controller, fifty-fifty if he or she is moving; and the other in which the Karma circles around and keeps in-frame the person holding the controller.

Those two features help the Karma catch upward to its closest competitor, DJI's Mavic Pro, which has a range of auto-shooting tools.

The question is whether any of GoPro'south new offerings tin make much of a deviation to the company'due south financial situation. Previously a Wall Street darling with a stock toll that skyrocketed to as high as $93.seventy not long after its 2014 IPO, GoPro'south stock has been flat at just over $11 a share for most of the last 21 months. Despite the company's commanding position in activeness cameras, information technology's unlikely that the launch of the Hero6 or Fusion will modify that dynamic all that much.