Mass Heroes Charger

When travelling with a bunch of GoPro HD Hero cameras, then getting all the batteries charged for the next day of happy shooting becomes of concern. Of course, charing one battery per HD Hero camera is easy ... but throughout the day these little suckers basically eat batteries.

While I'm on site, recharging batteries is often not possible. So evenings get packed with constantly petting the charging station; something I don't like. Luckily, GoPro finally managed to deliver its (long promised) new and smart add-on...

Double strike: recharges two batteries simultaneously.

It is already long-established tradition that GoPro between announcing equipment and finally delivering to customers there is quite some span of life in between. Just a few days I finally jumped ship and ordered two of their new dual battery charges through their web shop ... and was lucky to hit the narrow window of opportunity.

Why two of them? Well, with now three HD Heros I don't want to spend my evenings or nights swapping batteries. I'm no battery hero, you know...

The GoPro dual battery charger is a tiny brick with two battery bays. For each bay the charger has its own LED showing the state of charging affairs: while charging, the LED stays amber. When a battery is fully charged, its corresponding LED turns green.

...but incomplete without an USB power supply.

There's a catch, however: GoPro's dual battery charger needs an additional USB power supply. I would have liked it much better if GoPro directly had integrated the two bays with an USB power supply. As the dual charger currently is, you need a separate USB power supply. In the end, this adds to the overall expenses.

I'm using a 4,2 Amps USB power supply that features two USB connectors. This way, I only seize a single wall socket while loading four batteries simultaneously.

In total, the whole set is no bargain. Yet, it offers a decent quality. In particular, GoPro charging equipment and batteries always makes use of the temperature control through a thermal resistor built into the GoPro genuine batteries, which the chargers monitor. I still have to find third party Hero battery equipment that comes with this safety stuff.