GoPro CEO Nicholas Woodman on Building a Google Glass-style Wearable
GoPro is a brand of high-definition personal cameras, often used in extreme action video photography. They are known for being lightweight, rugged or mountable in unusual places such as outside planes, cars, or boats.
In an interview with Nicholas Woodman(CEO for GoPro), he was asked whether GoPro is working on a Google Glass style product, he suggested that while the company is looking at the space it’s more with a view to thinking about how to interoperate with those type of devices, rather than making a dedicated pair of GoPro Glasses itself.
I think what’s going to be exciting is you’re going to see more of these products working together,” said Woodman. “You already see it with GoPro and smartphones and people often ask me are you afraid of the smartphone? And the answer is no — the smartphone is helping our business because it’s killing traditional cameras… which is opening up retail shelf space for GoPro and opening up consumer dollars for GoPro.”
”GoPro is used in a totally different way to a traditional camera, and then beyond that the smartphone makes for an incredible video remote control for a GoPro right?” said Woodman. “Now I can preview and control my GoPro with my smartphone, playback my videos and share them directly from the smartphone. Never needing to hook my GoPro to a computer.
“And then you think of things like Glass and what not — a Glass-like product become terrific heads-up hands-free remote control devices for the GoPros and I think it’s just going to become more and more enabling and you’re going to be able to use your GoPro in even more versatile ways thanks to these complementary products.”
Woodman said the company is not feeling complacent about potentially having a Mountain View sized competitor, in the not too distance future. ”We’ve very careful to be very appreciative for the success that we have right now but also we still wake up sacred every morning. You know we’re smart but we’re not that smart. Fear drives you a lot harder than success does,” he added.
Nicholas does not seem to take Glass as its competitor, instead he sees Glass (or other wearables) as an excellent way for folks to interact with GoPro cameras.
During the interview he was asked which is the best video he has ever seen recorded by the GoPro, he said there are many but the one that come first in mind is :
[youtube id=”LStXdttFj_o” width=”100%” height=”300px”]
