GoPro drones to take to the skies

Everyone else has been sticking its action cameras on their drones for ages now, so it was only ever going to be a matter of time until GoPro decided to take to the skies itself.

And that's exactly what it plans to do next year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The GoPro consumer drones are expected to cost between $500 and $1,000 and will take on the likes of Parrot, 3D Robotics and DJI in the emerging drone market.

In an email, a GoPro spokesman told the WSJ that, as a result of the “jaw-dropping GoPro footage" already being recorded by GoPro devices attached to third-party drones, GoPro had joined the Small UAV Coalition, a drone advocacy group, “earlier this year, to study the policy implications and to protect the rights of our users".

It's clear that drones are big business. Amazon has been testing flying delivery devices this year and Nixie, a wrist-mounted drone that's designed to fly off to take selfies, scooped the $500,000 grand prize in Intel's Make it Wearable competition. Nixie is designed to take off and snap action shots from above before returning to your wrist.

Essential reading: The best wearable action cameras

GoPro was the subject of exciting takeover news earlier this week with CCS Insight, who publishing its Predictions for 2015 and Beyond report which contained a forecast that the action cam specialist would be taken over by Google.

2015 looks like being a bumper year for the San Mateo based company.