Uploaded January 2017 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
After a couple of months with Hero5 (which I bought myself as a regular customer) there are a few things I don't like, so hoped it would be a useful video. These are my personal thoughts for my specific use, so maybe I am just a grumpy old man ;)
My main hate is the frame which is a really bad design, its awkward to use, the rubber camera coating sticks/binds, and you often end up touching the lens. Gopro don't make a lens cap (another niggle) but aftermarket ones are available (I prefer the hard plastic type as they clip on securely, the soft silicon ones are fine but come off too easily). But lens cap has to be removed to put in/out of the frame. The old Hero3 style wrap around frame was much easier/better. I just wish someone would make one (if you know of one, please comment below!).
Not being able to rename Wifi SSID or set wifi password is just silly, and I hope Gopro will fix this, but it concerns me they didn't realise this would be a problem from the start - if you are managing multiple gopros and/on multiple devices this is just needlessly awkward.
SD card slot is fiddly, but not the end of the world, again just not as good as it could/should be.
I hate long videos, so cut this short at ten minutes, but I am also annoyed that auto low light disables gyro stabilisation, which makes no sense to me, they are separate features and should not be linked. I actually thought this was a bug, so contacted gopro support who replied that this is in the manual, so someone obviously thought this made sense - I'd love to know how/why, as to me this seems like a fault or to cover up a problem.
Its also bad that the Hero5 has GPS logging built in, but you cannot use this for anything easily, Gopro have a 'quik' app which is appalling but can add basic overlay (speed/compass/track), but is designed to only allow you to create a video 15/30 or 60 seconds long, to add GPS overlay to a full video is awkward, you have to open the video in view mode (not create), then export clip but this will chop off the first and last few seconds which is very irritating, and quality of output video is poor. Gopro bought Dashware (who produce GPS overlay software) over a year ago, and still don't support Hero5 (should have supported it from launch). What is crazy is 3d party software (such as racerender) supports Hero5 GPS BEFORE Gopro software which makes no sense at all !
Lack of UK distributor or support is also bad, I suspect gopro had to save money so don't want to split margin, but they need to make sure customers don't notice this, so quicker delivery (battery/charger took over a week to get to me), and proper support (emails can take a week to get copy/paste/standard responses, I've been waiting a month now for replacement battery even after gopro agreed to replace this on 14/12/16 (today is 14/1/17), I chased 4th Jan and gopro support are just not interested, they say they haven't heard from warehouse, like thats the end of it ;) UPDATE Someone raised this with gopro for me on evening of Friday 13/1, and this was resolved next working day, I had a dispatch email Tuesday, and received replacement battery Weds, so not sure what happened there. I did get an explanation that they have battery supply issues "As for the stock of batteries, I apologize for the lack of availability. We have received small batches of the battery to our European warehouse but unfortunately have not received large enough quantities to make it available online for long. Currently we do have a few in our warehouse and if they have not gone up online, you may be able to contact us via phone and we can try to place an order for them manually."
Hopefully useful info and not just me moaning - any questions/suggestions please comment below !
After a couple of months with Hero5 (which I bought myself as a regular customer) there are a few things I don't like, so hoped it would be a useful video. These are my personal thoughts for my specific use, so maybe I am just a grumpy old man ;)
My main hate is the frame which is a really bad design, its awkward to use, the rubber camera coating sticks/binds, and you often end up touching the lens. Gopro don't make a lens cap (another niggle) but aftermarket ones are available (I prefer the hard plastic type as they clip on securely, the soft silicon ones are fine but come off too easily). But lens cap has to be removed to put in/out of the frame. The old Hero3 style wrap around frame was much easier/better. I just wish someone would make one (if you know of one, please comment below!).
Not being able to rename Wifi SSID or set wifi password is just silly, and I hope Gopro will fix this, but it concerns me they didn't realise this would be a problem from the start - if you are managing multiple gopros and/on multiple devices this is just needlessly awkward.
SD card slot is fiddly, but not the end of the world, again just not as good as it could/should be.
I hate long videos, so cut this short at ten minutes, but I am also annoyed that auto low light disables gyro stabilisation, which makes no sense to me, they are separate features and should not be linked. I actually thought this was a bug, so contacted gopro support who replied that this is in the manual, so someone obviously thought this made sense - I'd love to know how/why, as to me this seems like a fault or to cover up a problem.
Its also bad that the Hero5 has GPS logging built in, but you cannot use this for anything easily, Gopro have a 'quik' app which is appalling but can add basic overlay (speed/compass/track), but is designed to only allow you to create a video 15/30 or 60 seconds long, to add GPS overlay to a full video is awkward, you have to open the video in view mode (not create), then export clip but this will chop off the first and last few seconds which is very irritating, and quality of output video is poor. Gopro bought Dashware (who produce GPS overlay software) over a year ago, and still don't support Hero5 (should have supported it from launch). What is crazy is 3d party software (such as racerender) supports Hero5 GPS BEFORE Gopro software which makes no sense at all !
Lack of UK distributor or support is also bad, I suspect gopro had to save money so don't want to split margin, but they need to make sure customers don't notice this, so quicker delivery (battery/charger took over a week to get to me), and proper support (emails can take a week to get copy/paste/standard responses, I've been waiting a month now for replacement battery even after gopro agreed to replace this on 14/12/16 (today is 14/1/17), I chased 4th Jan and gopro support are just not interested, they say they haven't heard from warehouse, like thats the end of it ;) UPDATE Someone raised this with gopro for me on evening of Friday 13/1, and this was resolved next working day, I had a dispatch email Tuesday, and received replacement battery Weds, so not sure what happened there. I did get an explanation that they have battery supply issues "As for the stock of batteries, I apologize for the lack of availability. We have received small batches of the battery to our European warehouse but unfortunately have not received large enough quantities to make it available online for long. Currently we do have a few in our warehouse and if they have not gone up online, you may be able to contact us via phone and we can try to place an order for them manually."
Hopefully useful info and not just me moaning - any questions/suggestions please comment below !
