GoPro goes live with Periscope and a phone

You can do some pretty awesomesauce things with a GoPro already, what with the tolerance for outdoors and water, but now you can do it all live.

This week, GoPro has added a feature to its app that will allow owners and users of GoPro cameras to make sure their exploits aren’t just captured in full, but streamed live to fans across the world.

Officially, the GoPro app will now connect to the Twitter-owned live-streaming service “Periscope”, allowing anyone tuned to your account to see what you’re doing in real time while the video is being captured to the microSD card inside the camera.

To make this work, you can’t just rely on any old camera, with a GoPro Hero4 Black or Silver being needed. Sorry owners of the super-small-Session, but your camera just isn’t ready for real-time prime-time, at least not yet.

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GoPro Session owners won’t be feeling the love with this update.

When you’re ready with the right camera, the updated GoPro app, a web-connected iPhone, and a Twitter account, the activity can be broadcast live to a Twitter account, allowing anyone who follows you to go online and watch what you’re doing.

“As a skier myself, I’ve always loved extreme sports, and I love how GoPro can show us all of the crazy things these athletes can do,” said Pablo Jablonski, iOS Engineer for Periscope.

“As an iOS engineer on Periscope, bringing these two technologies together has been a the fulfilment of a longtime personal wish. Starting with X Games and moving forward, Periscope and GoPro together will bring these live moments to all the fans.”

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Imagine watching this live.

One thing you may have already picked up in this story is the insistence on iOS, which may be a little alarming since GoPro isn’t specifically an Apple-over-Android affair. Unfortunately, in this instance it is, with GoPro’s Periscope support only going to Apple devices thus far, and only officially to the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, with iOS 8.2 required as a minimum.

Anyone on any platform will be able to see the videos broadcasted via a GoPro and Periscope — Android, Windows, Mac, whatever — but right now, broadcasting is for Apple iPhone owners now, and recent ones at that.

As for when this will be coming to owners of the other platforms, GoPro isn’t saying much yet, but the moment it does, we’ll let you know.