Review: Voice command and easy controls make new Hero5 the action cam for everyone

REVIEW: GoPros have notoriously been difficult to use but the new Hero5 Black is about to make your life a whole lot easier.

SOME people need a good talking to. Now you can do the same to your GoPro.

With the launch of the Hero Session last year, GoPro started to acknowledge that some people found GoPros too complex for simple use.

The cube camera of the Session solved some of the issues but not all of them.

With the new flagship Hero5 Black, GoPro has got it right.

This camera doesn’t need an extra waterproof housing for general use, with the new design being waterproof to 10m which is good enough unless your average family holiday involves scuba diving.

HANDS ON: GoPro Karma drone in action

When the average consumer buys a GoPro, they’re not planning to do a sensational stunt off a mountain or take up extreme sports. They’re after a camera that will be fun to take on that family beach holiday or skiing or just using around the backyard pool. They want a camera that is rugged and tough for everyday adventures, like skateboarding in the park or riding your mountain bike on a trail.

But for the everyday consumer buying a GoPro, it needs to be simple enough to use every day.

The first step towards achieving that is the 2-inch touchscreen on the back of the Hero5 Black.

With the previous Hero4 range, you had to choose between the Silver model that offered a screen but not 4K video, or the Black model that offered 4K but no screen.

This new Hero5 offers both the screen and the ability to shoot up to 30 frames per second in 4K.

The screen in the GoPro Hero5 makes it easy to frame your shots. Picture: AFP

Instead of changing your settings through a combination of buttons on the front and side, you just hit the touch screen with simple icons and memory making it simple.

For example, go to video and you select a field of view from medium, wide, superwide, narrow and linear (to remove the fisheye effect of the very wide angle) and you see the change through the screen as you do it.

The other big step towards the easier use of a GoPro is a voice command.

Voice command with gadgets is often a bit of a gimmick. Sure, you can talk to your smart TV but often it’s just as easy to grab the remote.

With a GoPro, it’s often not easy to hit the button because of where you’ve mounted the camera, from the top of your bike helmet to the front of your kayak.

There are basic voice commands you activate by saying GoPro, such as start and stop video or change between video and photo modes.

And there are a few hidden extra. If you’re hurtling down the green slope in total terror, which is my version of a ski holiday, saying “that was sick” will tag a particular part of your video so you can find it more easily.

You can also issue a particular expletive — but we’ll leave you to experiment with swearing at your GoPro to work out which one.

There are other reasons that this is an improvement on what GoPro has done before. This GoPro can shoot in raw, it has a bigger battery which charges through USB-C, and it will auto load up to the new GoPro Cloud service, assuming you are willing to pay for a monthly cloud subscription, and has image stabilisation.

Voice control makes it easier to turn your camera on and off and start shooting video when the camera is mounted in a hard to reach place. Picture: AFP

One of the weaknesses with GoPro was software and that’s an improvement with the new Quik app for mobile and desktop making it easier to turn an hour of video into a quick grab to share on social.

If you are thinking of buying a GoPro Hero5 Black, my tip is you want to set aside some money for a few extras I think are essential.

The first one is the Remo, a Bluetooth remote that lets you activate your camera by either just clicking it like a button or voice commands. If you’re GoPro is a few metres from you, then wind noise affects the ability to use voice commands and this gets around that problem.

The other accessory is the Quick Key microSD card reader. You take your microSD card out of the GoPro and insert it into this and then wireless transfer the photos to your iPhone or iPad, so that you don’t drain the camera battery just transferring images.

There are many people who own a GoPro and probably don’t see a need to buy another.

That’s understandable although it’s a pity. Because this is a GoPro that you really want to use.

GoPro / 4.5/5 / $570 / gopro.com