Contour is no mour...

[Capricorn]

Contour Inc., one of the pioneers in wearable camera technology, has abruptly closed its Seattle headquarters — surprising many of its employees and leaving the future of the company unclear.

Founded in 2004, the company employed more than 70 people at its peak. It has faced stiff competition in recent years from rival GoPro, but Contour had made the prestigious Inc. 500 list as recently as last year with reported 2011 revenues of $27.3 million (dwarfed, it should be said, by GoPro's $500m+ revenues from over 2 million cameras sold in 2012 - ed).

“As of Friday Contour is CLOSED,” wrote Jacob Hase, the company’s former social media manager, in a public post on his personal Facebook page this week. ”Ya, it shocked all the employees even more. Incredibly hard to just walk away from something you put so much energy into.”

He added in a follow-up comment, “No one really knows what happened. We were just told we are no longer are employed by Contour and the doors were locked on Friday.”

Contour’s cameras, which can be mounted on helmets, bikes and other equipment, are popular among outdoor sports enthusiasts and others as a way to create first-person point-of-view videos.

The company’s headquarters space, in a large suite at Seattle’s Northwest Work Lofts, was locked as of early this afternoon, with no one inside, and others at the complex confirmed that Contour employees haven’t been seen there since last week.

Cameras and accessories on the company’s website, including the $350 Contour+2, are listed as temporarily out of stock. Remaining executives with the company haven’t yet returned messages from GeekWire seeking information on the status of the business.

Marc Barros, the Contour co-founder and former CEO who left the company earlier this year, is no longer affiliated with Contour and said via phone today that he hadn’t received any official word about what was happening beyond what he had read on social media.

Barros said it would be sad to see Contour go away. “People spent a lot of years building a great company,” he said.

A search of King County and federal court records didn’t turn up any further clues. We’ve left a series of messages with Contour executives and former employees and will post updates as we learn more.

 

VitalMTB

[Joeboy69]

Lost my Contour when it rattled of my bike at last year's Lost city race ... replaced with a Drift, but wish it had better battery life!

[Danger Dassie]

Sorry to see.

 

There's also the iON action cams and Sonio (sp?) ... couple of really good products out there.

GoPro is a great product and in many ways sets the standard with their latest edition. They're not exceptionally better though, their biggest strength is incredibly good video edits to boost their brand.

 

Puts them way ahead of other action cams in the market.

[Helpmytrap]

GoPro is a great product and in many ways sets the standard with their latest edition.

Not necessarily, between my father and I we have 2 Hero1's (although one has stopped working recently) and 2 White Edition Hero3's. My use is cycling while his is flying. Anyway, the Hero1's video quality is marginally better than the white edition Hero3 (both on 720p wide angle.) That obviously doesn't apply to the Silver and Black edition though.

 

And I agree, GoPro's success came from their proactive marketing and PR.

 

EDIT: Granted, the Hero3's Wi-fi phone app's capabilities far exceeds the features of other products. I take it you were referring to this?

Edited August 7, 2013 by Helpmytrap

[Danger Dassie]

Not necessarily, between my father and I we have 2 Hero1's (although one has stopped working recently) and 2 White Edition Hero3's. My use is cycling while his is flying. Anyway, the Hero1's video quality is marginally better than the white edition Hero3 (both on 720p wide angle.) That obviously doesn't apply to the Silver and Black edition though.

 

And I agree, GoPro's success came from their proactive marketing and PR.

 

EDIT: Granted, the Hero3's Wi-fi phone app's capabilities far exceeds the features of other products. I take it you were referring to this?

 

Have an iON with the Wifi, but yeah the Wifi on the Hero3 is great. But I've found the video quality to be better as well in low light and changing light. Specially with some HDR grading on post work.

 

Would be great to have the GoPro editors packaged into a box too, along with their edit suite .... eheh

[-cK-]

Oh my word and I bought a Roam 2 just this June.

[PhilipV]

hmmm, remaining stock is worthless now. should go cheap...

[ZION]

R7

 

http://www.r7usa.com/images/fits11b.jpg

[Dexter-morgan]

I saw a go-pro rip-off being sold at Rievlei shop, any of you guys used it, any advice opinions? Apparently just as good??