The tech company GoPro Inc, widely known for their action camera GoPro, was originally planning to change the world of sports action cameras and drones with the creation and release of its own drone - Karma.
Karma was announced during the launching event of the new version of GoPro Hero series, GoPro Hero 5 in October 2016. The drone product was released to the market a month after the announcement. Just 16 days after it was launched, unfortunately, the company had to recall all of its drones due to the reports of "sudden death" while the drone is still flying in the air.
According to GoPro CEO Nick Woodman, who appeared on stage with TechCruch at the recently held 2017 Consumer Electronics Show this week, the main cause of the problem was the battery mechanical system and said it can actually be fixed with a piece of tape, as reported by Mobile & Apps.
While the company did issue a massive recall for the drones, Woodman revealed that the battery issue was simply caused by the mounting of the device's built-in battery.
"Due to the mechanical issue, the battery pops out a few millimetres from where it is supposed to be, which then resulted in an all-out power failure to the drone," he said in an interview.
He also said that those who still have not return their drones can fix the problem themselves by attaching a piece of tape to the battery to prevent it from moving.
The recall of Karma made a significant impact to the company's reputation as well as its stock price. It basically opens up a huge door for other competitors such as DJI Mavic Pro, which had dominated the holiday buying season and the camera drone market as a whole.
The recall had forced the company to restructure itself, which ultimately caused 15% of their workforce to be laid off.
Woodman however explained that the company is still doing well overall, although it was not shown in its publicly-traded stock.
GoPro Inc is expected to re-launch the Karma within the year, and Woodman assures that the company has a lot of plans for the future.
