GoPro’s FPV drone camera is the start of its new era of anti-heroes

GoPro’s discontinued Karma drone had such a bad start in 2016 that you would forgive the cameras for never wanting to fly again. But its new Hero for FPV (first-person view) drones reveal a more sensible, laser-focused approach that should help banish these ghosts – and give us an intriguing insight into what other Hero cameras can expect this year.

Hero 10 Black Bones is the real anti-karma. Instead of jumping outside its comfort zone and building a drone with an unfortunate tendency to lose power in the middle of flight, GoPro has instead stripped its flagship action camera and made what looks like the perfect little camera for FPV fans. You can see why in our handy review of the GoPro Hero 10 Black Bones.

When it comes to product launches, this is about as close to a guaranteed home run as you can get. Yes, FPV drones are still pretty niche, but a significant number of pilots have reverse-engineered Hero action cameras to make them suitable for small drones for years. The growing community has also often begged GoPro to make a newer version of its former small action camera, the Hero Session (which arrived back in 2015).

GoPro Hero 10 Black Bones on a flying drone

(Image credit: Future)

Now, the Hero 10 Black Bones is the camera. And that means we can expect to see many more videos like Tesla’s swooping Gigafactory tour. The only real downsides are that Bones is currently only the US, where GoPro tells us “we do not yet have a date for international availability”. And the fact that, oddly enough, it’s more expensive than the Hero 10 Black, despite the fact that ‘Bones’ lacks screen, battery, speaker, GPS or waterproof build quality from its all-round sibling.