Symptoms Related to GoPro Overheating

• GoPro hot to the touch, raising concern for it’s welfare.
• GoPro switching off and feels hot.
• GoPro temperature icon showing on screen.

Most Successful Actions.

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• Check if there is an Over-Temperature indicator on the screen.
• Do some testing at home to see whether the problem is environmental or camera based.
• Check battery pack to see if the fit and connections are snug. Especially Aftermarket products.
• What settings are you running? If you’re using one of the higher resolutions, maybe the data transfer rate is making the work harder.
• Is the WiFi running, and if so are you using it/do you really need to use it?
• Try fitting the skeleton door if you don’t really need full protection.
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WHY:

Hero 3’s run pretty hot; we can’t yet comment for the 3+. Having squeezed the size down and put even more pressure on the battery (which is often the source of the heat), there are no real surprises. So what are your options if this is a concern for you?

Before doing a little analysis, be clear that this subject is discussed in the manual so it is a known issue under certain conditions and the camera has a mechanism to deal with it. So does it concern you because you don’t want your head to catch fire, or do you believe it to be the root of a bigger problem?

Just concerned because it feels damn hot? Normally there is a temperature indicator that will flash if the camera is beginning to over-heat. If you see this it’s probably time to switch it off for a while; and not just left on standby….completely off. On standby it’s still consuming, and if it’s consuming it’s heating.

Did the camera shut itself down, and it felt hot when you checked out what was happening? Maybe you should run a dry test and leave it running on the bar whilst you survey the LCD display. Find out if it’s just shutting off or you’re getting an overheat indicator before it switches off. If you didn’t see the indicator then you maybe you’re reading too much into the fact that it was hot and you should look elsewhere…try software level or card problems.

What conditions are you using it in? Out on the beach with a full waterproof housing, or in sub-zero on the north face of the Eiger? Clearly climate and enclosure are going to have an impact and, without stating the obvious, leaving it on the beach in full sunlight isn’t going to help. Try keeping it in the cool bag with your drinks when you’re not using it, and if you’re not surfing the pipe for 1h30 solid, give it a rest between runs.

If you’re in the snow, bury it for five minutes.

More seriously, aside from GoPro Lab’s possible issues, have you bought any aftermarket batteries or chargers. The standard battery already has a big job on, and we see that search results throw up cheaper batteries that have a higher mAH. It would be foolish of us to say any given battery is a good or bad choice without knowing fabrication details, but in the wider scheme, different maximum mAH and different charging currents can give similar batteries different output capacity curves. Some suppliers/manufacturers will manage this well and some will cream of the top off cheap imports. The results could be a little bit like “over-clocking” a home computer; your on-line gaming performs better, but the boost in performance results in riskier operating conditions.

As the battery is generally the cause of the heat (aided maybe by the processor) we would recommend charging either out of the camera or in the camera from a suitable wall usb charger rather than computer usb. And give it full cycles by letting it become fully discharged before giving it a full charge. Do not be tempted to give short boost charges just because it’s Li-ion. Those who had issues straight out of the box, finding that the battery life was poor until going through three or more full charge cycles will already understand this. Bear it in mind and maybe test it out yourself and noting any performance differences along the way.

We’ve not yet seen a heat-sink aluminium door on the market, and maybe this could be an option, but in the meantime just be kinder to your camera and set it up with a 120 second auto switch off setting…or you could ride faster to cool it down!