I hate GoPro

Do you have any footage of you surfing? I had zero for the first 15+ years of my surfing journey. And now I do, thanks to GoPro. You’d think I would be GoPro’s biggest fan.

But no. I hate the GoPro.

But perhaps not for the reason you hate the GoPro. It hasn’t always been this way.

???? My early GoPro days

I was an early adopter and still own a Hero 3. If my memory serves me well—because in most cases it doesn’t—we bought our first GoPro during a surfing vacay in Waikiki, in a Quiksilver store. Thanks to Dan Lopez and Hawaii Surfboard Rentals, we could add the mounts on our boards.

Let me digress for a second. If you’re renting a board and want to use a GoPro, check two things first:
1. Can you install a mount? 2. Do you have to remove the mount before returning the board?

The latter is a pain in the ass if you’re staying in a hotel, but many rental places (i.e., Moku in Waikiki) require you to remove it. Hawaii Surfboard Rental doesn’t—which is why Dan’s got my business for life.

OK, and now I distinctly remember that, of course, the GoPro ended up on my husband’s board, because there’s no footage of me surfing from that trip. But no point crying over spilled milk.

The next time I used the GoPro was when riding horses at the Hunewill Ranch in Bridgeport (I cannot recommend it enough). I’ve been a regular guest and always wanted to have some footage from our horsey adventures. I wore a chest harness, could easily access the camera, turn it on and off when needed—total bliss.

???? Tyrannosaurus arms meet modern tech

That brings me to the main reason why I hate the GoPro. Cue this year’s surf trip to Waikiki. After an 11-year absence. This time, I was getting my own GoPro—Hero 13 Black—and it was staying on my board!

Ahead of time, I re-learned how to use it, what the new features were, and tested it out. But when I put it on my board, one thing became clear. I have Tyrannosaurus Rex arms and I can’t reach the record button on my 9’6” Robert August longboard without pearling.

In hindsight, I’ve always had shorter arms and I carry surfboards on my head. But but but—I imagined in the age of AI, there would be an easier way to turn the damn thing on and off. Because battery life. We’ll return to this.

Hero 13 Black offers a voice activation feature. And it works, like really really well. In a quiet room. But not in the ocean. Unless you want to shout and a) scare all the honu away, b) look like a prized kook. So that’s out.

You would think there would be a GoPro Apple Watch app—but no more. And even if that was the case, if you’re already using your Apple Watch to track your surfing workout, it does that waterproof locking thing, and you can’t easily access other apps.
Argh.

Every time I was about to paddle for a wave, I got to suffer the indignation of reaching for the record button with my Tyrannosaurus arms, pushing the nose of the board in the water and staring down into the abyss. OK, it’s not that deep. And if I had to switch the damn thing off, I had to get off my board and swim up to it.

So many waves missed (on film) because I was not in control!

You could just leave it running, Zuz? Yes, I could (and I did), but battery life in 4K is poor, and your camera dies in under 1 hour.

You could shoot in lower resolution, Zuz? Then what’s the blood point of having 4K? Have you seen how insanely good the footage looks?

Isn’t this like a first-world problem, Zuz? Doesn’t a GoPro retail for like $300+?

Yes it is, and yes it does. So why GoPro in the first place?

???? It goes deeper than that

It goes deeper than you think. I’ve been surfing for a long time, and barely any photos of me even holding a surfboard—not to mention none of me on an actual wave—exist. In the day where Instagram is filled with drone and GoPro footage of people learning to surf, it’s a bit disheartening.

I tell people I surf, but until they’ve seen me riding on a wave for 20 seconds, that doesn’t quite register. Which, in my line of work—building The Wipeout Weekly into a media surf empire—is somewhat detrimental.

When I posted my video on Facebook, my Dad’s reaction was, I quote: “At last. You’re doing quite well.” I think for anyone who has to deal with parents who don’t understand what you do for a living, this comment is pretty poignant.

???? Dear GoPro: Just fix the battery

Where am I going with all of this? GoPro, if you’re listening—just fix the battery life. You can see that I am not complaining about overheating and freezing mid-recording. Or buggy firmware. Or low-light issues. Or how ridiculously hard it is to get the SD card out of the housing unless you have long fingernails. Or even that your mounts are soooo overpriced. I can get these ones cheaply.

I just want you to make the camera run longer. Because I am not gonna spend my sesh getting stressed about turning it on and off any more.