Three months after being recalled, GoPro's Karma drone re-listed

Three months after being recalled, GoPro's Karma drone finally announced that it will be re-stocked. In addition to GoPro's own official website, it also includes retail channels such as Best Buy and Amazon.

Karma's bare-metal price is still $799, and the price of the Hero 5 Black is $1,099. In addition, Gopro offers a Karma version that does not include a stable pan/tilt and is priced at $599.

In November last year, just 15 days after Karma's release, GoPro announced that it had recalled all the sold Karma drones, about 2,500, and said it would not replace the product, but gave the user a full refund.

Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro, once said that the reason why Karma was recalled was simply that there was a mechanical problem associated with the battery retention mechanism, so that vibration during flight would cause a small amount of battery to loosen from the connector and lose power. He believes that the problem is not in the design of the drone, but in the mass production phase.

However, GoPro claims that the battery lock has been redesigned and that the upgraded version of Karma will no longer have the previous problem.

Due to the launch of Dajiang Science and Technology's Mavic small drones and the impact of the recall, GoPro also laid off 15% of its work in November last year, which is the second layoff of GoPro in 2016.

Despite all the unfavorable factors, Nick Woodman said at CES 2017 that the user responded well to Karma. Although the product was unfortunately recalled, the value of the drone was confirmed by the user and will continue to develop Karma 2. More drone products will be launched in the future.

GoPro will release its fourth-quarter earnings this week, when we can see the real impact of the Karma recall on GoPro.