Cycliq Fly6 CE HD Bike Camera + Rear Light

EDIT 3 (7-19-20): Below is the original review, posted a few weeks after the original purchase. The unit failed with a broken "on" switch shortly thereafter, and after an extended period of time trying to contact customer service, it was replaced at Cycliq's expense. However, the new unit is no better, and has failed numerous times during rides - the thing has a short battery life and an even shorter temper, turning itself off mid-ride for no apparent reason. The most recent fail was on a Gran Fondo that I really needed to capture. The unit would not come on, claiming there was no SD card, even though it worked fine during testing before the event started.The 2nd unit finally completely failed due to rain water infiltration under the rubber port-cover on the top of the unit, just as I predicted that it would back in the original review from 2019.The bottom line is DO NOT trust your life or recording your rides for posterity to this sorry piece of equipment.************I am 5'8, 200lbs, and in addition to cycling I spend three days a week in the gym. I have absolutely no trouble defending myself should I run across some hillbilly who thinks that I have no rights to ride my bike on the road. However, defending ones self physically may lead to a my-word-against-theirs situation in a court of law. So, to make my position a bit more defensible, I decided to install a bike camera.At first, GoPro was the obvious choice. However, their capture time is dismal, and their prices are overinflated. After some searching, I came across the Fly 6CE on Amazon. Despite a few bad reviews, the Fly 6 looked to be the best option with balance towards run time (claims of 7 hours) along with cyclical recording and video resolutions good enough to capture license plates of passing vehicles.THE GOOD- I rode a few a weeks with the Fly camera on board my bike for short training sessions, as well as a 70+ mile charity ride. The video quality is outstanding. If you are buying the Fly 6CE for capturing video that you can brag about to your buddies or upload to YouTube., then you will be satisfied with this camera.- Easy to use. Turn it on, and it starts recording. That's it. You dont have to have the app or anything else. When you are done, press on button again to stop recording.- Incident protection. The camera automatically locks video files so they can't be recorded over if the unit senses you are in an accident. This is usually triggered when the bike tilts past a certain angle or is lain over on its side.- Alarm. Using the Cycliq app, you can set the camera to record and send out an audible beeping, as well as send you a phone alert, if your bicycle is moved while you are away from it. Of course, you have to be within Bluetooth range.THE BAD- Claims that the Fly6 can capture license plates should be taken with a grain of salt. In states where plates are required on both front and back of the cars, then you may have some success with this. But if you are trying to get the rear plate of a car in the oncoming lane as it is going in the other direction, forget it.- No power brick for charging, no SD Card for recording, USB attachment cable that is to short to be of any use without an extension cable. If you want to piss me off right quick (and get two stars deducted right off the top), ship me an item and then make me pay for accessories for it so that it will actually work. Cycliq sells their own branded SD cards, why not ship them with the product? This is just absolute money grubbing laziness on the part of the manufacturer.- The Cycliq App is wonky, oftentimes losing it's connection to the Fly6CE that is located less than three feet away. Fortunately this does not affect the camera's recording function when the app drops out. I also had problems when changing the settings in the app. Changing the flashers from no-flash to flashing did not immediately turn them on. I had to cycle the Fly camera on and off several times and restart the app before it started flashing. This is not really something you would want to stop and be doing in the middle of a ride.- Always on Bluetooth, with no security. What the manual doesn't tell you is that unless you press the Power and Q buttons together to turn the unit off, the Bluetooth transceiver is ALWAYS on. That is convenient to connect your phone, but it runs the battery down about 4% per day. Oh, and since you dont have to verify your BT hookup with the device, pretty much anyone with the Cycliq app could roll up alongside and control the Fly6, or at least turn it on/off.* NOTE: Pressing both of those buttons together is also the Master Reset function.- Cycliq's battery life claims of 7 hours are bogus. On a 75 mile ride, I got ALMOST 5 hours at 1080p 60fpm - and that is the only mode worth having on if you are trying to capture license plate numbers. On another ride, when I had on the flashers at the lowest setting, battery drain was at 23% per hour, and since the unit cuts off the camera between 6-12%, that is not even four hours of recording time.- Putting the charging/SD card port on top of the device is a design flaw that is just asking for trouble. Ride in the rain just one time without the flimsy cover flap placed askew and you will have yourself a $179 cat toy.- No wifi. This is complete bulls***. To transfer video from this camera, I have to a.) Pull out the SD card and plug it into an adapter, or b.) Plug in the provided SHORT USB cable (and the longer adapter that you will HAVE to buy), both of which place wear and tear on the respective ports and the flimsy rubber cover. There is no way to preview video on your phone through the app either.- 32GB recommended storage capacity. Once again I will reiterate that Cycliq does not supply an SD card with the Fly6CE, but they do recommend 32GB size cards. At full video resolution, this is about 21GB per hour, so you only have about 90 minutes before the Fly starts overwriting the first part of your ride. That is not acceptable, especially if you like archiving your video footage to edit and view later.NOTE: while it is not recommended, I purchased a SanDisk Extreme 128GB to use in the camera on longer rides. The camera did format and record to it until the battery was drained. However, when I hooked the camera to my computer, the contents on the SD card showed up for about 10 seconds - then the computer flashed a warning that the card was not formatted. Apparently, either removing the card from the Fly or plugging it into the SD card adapter had corrupted the file system. Using a third party program, I was able to recover most of the video from the ride, about 81GB. Unfortunately, two of the video segments were irretrievably corrupted. So if you use a bigger SD card that is not recommended by Cycliq, do so at your own risk.- With the .072 firmware update, you can take a picture by pressing the "Q" button. The "Q" button is not on the phone app. The "Q" button is on the device, meaning you will have to awkwardly reach around under your ass, while holding the bike in a straight line, to fumble for the button to take a picture of something you can't see anyway. Makes perfect sense. Why is this not available in the app?As I said, overall the Fly6CE makes a great hi-def camera to somewhat enhance the safety and accountability of your bike rides. In it's basic form, it is easy to use - just press the power button and it starts recording. However, if you require a bit more from your electronic devices, then there are some warts that you will have to accept. It is a great idea, a nifty device, but it (and it's accompanying app) could use a bit more polish.

After 9 months of constant use, I like this product quite a bit.Context:I commute 5 days a week, for a total of of 1 hour’s riding per day, and the occasional weekend ride. I don’t try to turn my ride videos into edited Strava gloriousness so those features are irrelevant to me.Pros:- the image quality is pretty good; you’ll have to use 60 fps to capture license plates but you only need that if the car is super close anyway. I had the chance to test this when a car buzzed me at 50 mph from about a foot away, and I was able to see the license plate and report the driver for dangerous driving. There’s a wide enough angle and daytime image quality is excellent. Night-time quality is decent for the purpose. If you get hit at night, the light will be bright enough to capture the license plate- the 100 lumen light is pretty good, and you can customize both light intensity and flash modes from the app(s)- operation is very simple, and the light stays in the mode you left it on last- the light beeps when turning it on, and the number of beeps corresponds to the charge level, so it’s a great reminder to charge when low without having to check each time- I haven’t ridden this in rain but I did ride it in heavy fog/drizzle and the light worked just fine- I only have to charge this maybe once in 6 days, and I do that at work or Sunday night and it’s actually not an effort- USB-C! Thank goodness for moving to a standard that’s becoming more widespread and will be the future standard. The connector is a lot more reliable and less prone to breakage than USB micro- The mounting hardware is sufficient, and there are plenty of options for whatever kind of seat post you have- The crash detection works well to lock image footage if you go downCons:- the buttons are a bit weird, you accidentally end up pressing the photo button when turning the light on- you won’t get the 7 hour battery charge unless you’re running at 720 x 60fps; bump up the resolution or turn on image stabilization or auto-idle and you won’t get that.- The phone app doesn’t always reliably connect.. The same with plugging it in to my laptop - it doesn’t always connect, and it depends on the cable you use. But then I don’t usually need to. YMMV.- There’s no auto-start, only an auto-stop. That’s dangerous.- The alarm mode is pretty pathetic, given how poor the Bluetooth connection is. I left it just out of sight at a bar and I was nervous the whole time.Improvements I’d like to see:- Better usability with the app- Ability to view videos from the phone to read license plates and give that info to the police without having to wait until you get to a computer- A way to coordinate the Fly12 model so one only has to turn on/off one light to have both turn on and off.- A steady flash mode so drivers can better estimate distance- New bike mounts are a bit expensive: I recently had my bike stolen so I needed a replacement mount but that’s going to set me back $25- The charging port moved to the bottom so it’s more water resistant- Longer radius of Bluetooth connection, but that’s unlikely to happen until the new BT standard becomes currentI haven’t noticed any issues with battery life or mounting becoming less stable.Bottom line: for a rear camera that gives you peace of mind, this is a perfectly good product. More battery life and higher resolution would be nice, but it’s not really necessary for commuting. There’s nothing else that’s this well designed and produced, so I think it’s a good idea to support them.If what you want is a camera to capture your rides, just get a Go-Pro, but if you’re looking for some insurance defense, this is a great product.

An OK rear camera/light, if it were waterproof. The unit became waterlogged on my first rain ride with it and stopped functioning. I sent it in under warranty. The company did send a replacement, and it appeared to work for a time, but now when I turn it on, it typically produces the flashing bezel error and then shuts down. According to the manual, it's apparently not recognizing the SD card. Note: I'm using a cycliq-branded SD card. I've started a new ticket as I'm still under warranty. So far, this is not a reliable device.I'm including a picture of the rubber flap on top of the camera that is supposed to prevent water from leaking into the unit. Simply pressing this flap typically results in partial closure-- you need to run your thumb along the edges to make sure it's seated properly before you ride. Even then, in heavy downpour situations, water can penetrate and fill the unit.It's odd, because the company has solved this problem with their forward-facing camera/light which uses a rigid plastic door to protect from rain. I've never had a water problem with that design.

I bought this over a GoPro Hero 5/6 for the convenience of having a light and camera all in one unit. It works quite well and I can typically get 4-5hrs of recording at 1080p60, which works for most of my 3-4 hr rides; the GoPro couldn’t manage that with the internal battery (would need a USB battery pack). Picture quality is decent but nothing special - certainly nowhere near the quality of a Sony ActionCam or GoPro...but you can make out license plates fairly easily. Image stabilization is OK but doesn’t fair well on trails or tarmac that is made of asphalt-sprayed gravel (i.e. rough roads). On smooth city roads, the stabilization is good. The lighting is bright and has numerous settings for varying visibility and intensities for when group riding. Good product. My only complaints are that image quality could be better and the iOS app reports my fully charged battery as being at 84% capacity. Contacted Cycliq and they said this is a known firmware issue but didn’t make it clear whether the firmware was causing the unit to misreport current battery charge or, worse, not allowing it to fully charge.

Prodotto bello ma per niente funzionale. Acquistato la prima volta,usato neanche un anno, poi reso per motivi di malfunzionamento. Ne ho ricevuto in pochi giorni uno nuovo da Amazon e nel giro di poco ha smesso di funzionare anche questo. Non so se sono io lo sfortunato o è il dispositivo che non è per niente resistente all'uso che se ne fa' 😤😤😤

Je mets cette caméra chaque fois que je fais un tour de vélo (route ou gravel) et cela devient presque obligatoire (comme preuve) et en raison du danger, de nos jours.De très bonne vidéo (depuis la dernière mise a jour de software), une durée de la batterie très correcte, un logiciel pratique et simple, un "clipssage" rapide sur le support, et surtout une possibilité de l'allumer et de le règler directement depuis mon compteur GARMIN (edge 1030 dans mon cas): Je recommande vivement !!

4 meses después de la compra estoy bastante contento con él.Espero no tener que usar nunca las imágenes por culpa de un accidente, por ahora solo por grabación en ruta de compis. Día 29 Marzo, he devuelto el segundo recibido y a la tercera va la vencida. El tercer intento funciona por el momento perfectamente, buena calidad de iluminación y de video, cuando testee la duración de batería os lo comento.Dia 25 Marzo Estoy muy desencantado, devolví el primero porque no carga más del 50% y he comprado otro. Este solo carga hasta el 64%... voy a probarlo un par de días mas y lo devuelvo si sigue funcionando asi.Manual solo en inglés, por este precio podían currarselo un poco más y por lo menos en web poner descargarlo en cada idioma.

Using it regularly. Had to upgrade the firmware when purchased which was a slight hassle, however easy to connect to computer and download clips. high quality video, plus an extremely bright rear light!!