The new "GoPro"

Since GoPro has had such a huge success many companies have tried to make some sort of action camera to compete. Some of the GoPro "wannabes" are DBcam, ActionPro, HitPro, and Polaroid XS extreme. With the GoPro camera being the best action camera in the market. You can find thousands of reviews online from all kinds of extreme sportsmen and women that all rave about their GoPros. 

It seems to me that the only reason that anyone would choose an alternate to GoPro for action camera is that the alternate option is less expensive or you have stock in that company or you are brand loyal or you are a hipster and you buy Polaroid expecting to have an instant video you shake. 

So another company to move into the action camera industry is Garmin. Garmin is usually something that is thought of as a GPS navigation and fitness device. The creators at Garmin started out with a small lipstick shaped camera with a LCD screen on the top. There was problems with this so the Garmin Virb EX ended up looking similar to the GoPro's design. 

To compete with GoPro, any company needs to set itself apart and be something more. There is an image that people buy when they buy a GoPro. Since it is the original extreme sports camera, it is what the most "sick" "killer" extreme sportsmen use. If you use anything else you are viewed as less serious or cheap. This is also the case for the brand Garmin though. They are a trusted, well known brand in the technology field, so they may be able to compete.

The Garmin Virb EX is definitely not cheap being $400.00 its about the same price as a GoPro. There are many things that set it apart from the GoPro though. It can dive 50m underwater without the use of a cover. One of the coolest features is that you can track its last known GPS co-ordinates in an app! That means when you high-mark that mountain on your Ski-Doo summit and forget to keep the throttle pinned, you can find it. Yeah, I have tried this at a not so amazing speed and lost some important things during the flip. I am not really a snowmobiler. I just ride and try to keep up and attempt a cool thing now and then or when I've had a shot of liquid courage. ;)

You can also use a Bluetooth microphone with it. Maybe so that you can do an awesome voice over of the sick stuff you are doing. I would personally use it to do a video diary of my horse rides. It also uses Wi-Fi and can pair with tons of different accessories like a heart monitor, multi-sport watches, OBD tools that capture heart rate, speed, RPM and even throttle postion. This sets a whole different dynamic to your videos when you actually can see the speed or things like vertical drop.

I think it is awesome that Garmin is trying to step into this industry and diversify themselves from just being a GPS brand.