GoPro Hero 5 release date delayed until October 2016 for Karma drone compatibility?

The Hero 4, the predecessor of the GoPro Hero 5gopro.com

The release of the GoPro Hero 5 was one of the most highly anticipated last year. Initially scheduled to be out last October, the launch was postponed to December 2015. The month has come and gone but the action camera is still not around.

The latest iteration of the most wanted extreme-action videographic equipment is now said to be released in October this year. This is reportedly to give way to the introduction of the Karma drone, the new and highly anticipated quadcopter from the company.

The GoPro Karma is said to be a gizmo that can be used alongside the GoPro Hero 5 and previous versions of the action camera. GoPro founder and CEO Nick Woodman said during this year's Consumer Electronics Show that it was made to "be woven into someone's active lifestyle."

This potentially delays the release of the GoPro Hero 5 because the company is believed to be working on making the flagship compatible with the Karma drone while also adding new features and polishing the device overall in the process.

The camera manufacturer is also apparently finding ways to make the action camera small enough to fit in the Karma drone while enriching it with more features that will make the users' patience worth it.

GoPro is also believed to be designing the Karma drone for every GoPro user, regardleess of whether their action camera is the newest or an older version. The quadcopter should work seamlessly on all units.

This was hinted at in Woodman's statement at CES (picked up by Engadget), where he said, "We make everything backwards compatible, our goal is that your older GoPro will work with anything new we make, and vice versa."

As for the specs of the GoPro Hero 5, word is that it can record videos in 4k resolution at 60 frames per second, thanks to the Ambarella H1 System on Chip. Users can also expect an enhanced 2.7k performance and higher frame rates for 1080p video capture.