GoPro
GoPro LIT HERO
Four LEDs around the lens, and an entire product built to justify them. The LIT HERO is the 2024 HERO body with 4K60 instead of 4K30, a magnetic mount, and a ring light bright enough to be useful at arm's length in a dark bar, a tent, or a night ride. Whether that is worth the premium over the plain HERO depends entirely on whether you shoot after sunset; the sensor is the same small 1/2.3-inch chip, so the light is compensating for a limitation rather than adding a capability. Reviewers have found it the most confusing camera in GoPro's line precisely because it sits above the HERO on price and below the Hero 12 on everything but the LEDs. The bright spot is runtime: GoPro rates it at over 100 minutes of 4K60 with the light off. Like the HERO, it stabilises footage in the Quik app rather than in the camera.
Sensor area against the rest of the catalogue
Derived from the standard optical-format table rather than copied off a spec sheet, because makers print a fraction that hides it. The table and the arithmetic.
Battery, with the small print
- Maker’s claim
- 1 h 40 min at 4K60 with the light off; GoPro says over 100 minutes, and over 75 with the light on High
- Third-party test
- None collected. We publish a tested figure only where a named outlet has run one and stated its conditions.
Specifications
What the GoPro Premium plan gates
~$59.99 a year, which is why the year-one figure on this page is ~$329 rather than ~$269.
- •Unlimited cloud storage and automatic upload for GoPro footage
- •Guaranteed camera replacement, no questions asked
- •Up to 50% off GoPro accessories
Features
- ●Four built-in LEDs ringing the lens, with adjustable output
- ●4K60 with 2x slow motion
- ●Magnetic quick-release mount plus folding fingers
- ●Over 100 minutes of 4K60 with the light off, by GoPro's figure
- ●Waterproof to 5 m bare
- ●1.76-inch rear touchscreen
Strengths
- +The LEDs are genuinely bright enough to light a face at arm's length
- +Over 100 minutes at 4K60 with the light off, by GoPro's own figure
- +Magnetic mount is quicker than the folding fingers and still accepts them
- +93 g, so it goes where a flagship would be too heavy
Drawbacks
- −Costs more than the HERO and less capable than the Hero 12 — an awkward middle
- −Small 1/2.3-inch sensor, so the light is patching over weak low-light performance
- −No horizon lock and no log profile
- −Battery is sealed; the LEDs eat into the runtime when you use them
- −Stabilisation is applied afterwards in the Quik app; clips straight off the card are not stabilised
What owners say
Summarised from owner discussions and published long-term reviews.
A camera with a genuinely useful feature and a genuinely awkward price. The four LEDs around the lens light a face at arm's length, which owners filming at night, in tents or under a car report as the thing that justified the purchase. The 4K60 ceiling is the other step up from the plain HERO, and GoPro rates it at over 100 minutes at that setting with the light off.
The problem is what sits either side of it. It costs more than the HERO and less than a Hero 12, and the Hero 12 beats it on sensor, resolution, log profile and horizon lock. Owners who bought it are generally happy; owners deciding between the three find it the hardest camera in GoPro's line to place.
What owners like
- +The LEDs work as advertised — owners shooting in tents, garages and at night report them being genuinely useful rather than a gimmick
- +4K60 rather than the plain HERO's 4K30, which is the specification difference that matters most day to day
- +The magnetic mount is quicker than folding fingers and still accepts every GoPro accessory
- +GoPro rates it at over 100 minutes of 4K60 with the light off and over 75 with it on High
Common complaints
- −Owners and reviewers alike find its position in the line confusing: more expensive than the HERO, less capable than a Hero 12
- −The LEDs eat into runtime, and the headline battery figure assumes they are off
- −Same small 1/2.3-inch sensor as the plain HERO, so the light is compensating for weak low-light performance rather than adding capability
- −No horizon lock and no log profile
Questions owners keep asking
Are the built-in LEDs actually bright enough to be useful?
Is the LIT HERO better than the regular HERO?
How much runtime do the lights cost?
GoPro LIT HERO, head to head
Cameras people look at alongside it
More from GoPro →
GoPro
GoPro HERO (2024)
Half the weight of a Hero 13 and about a third of the menu depth. This is GoPro's answer to the question of what an action camera looks like when you strip out everything a beginner never touches: 4K30, 12 MP stills, a touchscreen, and nothing else — even the stabilisation happens afterwards, in GoPro's Quik app, rather than in the camera. There is no horizon lock, no log profile, no removable battery, no front screen, no GPS and no 60 fps at 4K. The sensor drops to 1/2.3-inch, the smallest GoPro uses, with about a fifth less area than the Hero 13's. In exchange it disappears on a helmet at 86 g and takes every GoPro mount ever made. As a first action camera or a fourth angle it is well judged; as a replacement for a flagship it is not close.
Take a Hero 11, delete the screens, the stereo mics, the GPS and the removable battery, and add a second set of mounting fingers on the back — that is the Mini, and it is a far more coherent product than the subtraction list suggests. One button starts and stops recording. There is no menu to fumble with cold hands, no screen to crack, and two mounting axes so it sits flat against a helmet or a chest harness in either orientation. The imaging is unchanged: the same 5.3K60, the same 8:7 sensor, the same horizon lock. What you lose is any ability to frame a shot or swap a dead battery, which rules it out as anyone's only camera and makes it a very good second one.
This is the camera that introduced the tall 8:7 sensor readout, and it is the reason the Hero body has barely changed since. Shooting the full 27 MP frame and cropping to 16:9, 9:16 or 4:5 in the edit is a workflow rather than a spec, and it is still the single most useful thing GoPro has added in five years. The Hero 11 keeps GPS, which the Hero 12 dropped, and the older HyperSmooth 5.0 is a hair behind 6.0 without being visibly worse. Where it falls behind is GP-Log, which arrived a generation later, and the 1/4-20 thread, which did not. GoPro no longer lists it, so remaining stock and used cameras are the way to buy one now.