Cycliq Fly6 CE Rear Facing Camera

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!!

The idea is great, and web reviews suggest it's good. But the reality is very different.1. Half the time when you tell it to start recording, it starts and turns itself off 30 seconds later. So you end up with nothing: it fails to do the one thing it was created for.2. The official phone app STILL DOESNT WORK (30% of all reviews are 1-star, people pointing out the basic features that are still broken, years after release). This is important because the app is an integral part to making the camera part work.3. You can't view the videos on your phone.4. You cana't download the videos to your phone.5. The build quality is INCREDIBLY cheap: compare to GoPro's super-glue mounts, this has a crappy weak strap (!) that holds your £200 device on the bike, and the "twist lock" is much stronger than the strap, so the strap loosens and wears out after a small amount of use, leaving you in danger of the thing falling off. Same poor build quality thorughout: hard to press buttons, huge clunky design that is hard to attach to many bikes (not enough clearance), etc.

I've been using this for five months now, replacing the Xiaomi Yi that I'd previously used. First hurdle, having to install new firmware out of the box was a bit annoying and a somewhat irksome process - however having read numerous reviews about the battery issue with old firmware I wasn't going to try without the upgrade.The firmware fix seems to work for me at least - no issues with fully charging the device or inaccurate charge levels. I've never bothered to try connecting it to Garmins or anything, its purely a safety device for me. For that purpose it works very well - the footage is very high quality. For what it's worth, the mic only captures sound from behind you. Not an issue generally, as my front cam gets everything else - but, for instance, the Cycliq rear camera is very unlikely to capture anything verbal interaction you may have. This is a "to be aware" point rather than a criticism.So what is wrong with it? Basically a few difficult to comprehend design / UI decisions.For instance, the decision to make the only attachment mechanism a .... velcro strap? This just feels completely inappropriate. On the Brompton it's tricky to actually get the velcro strips to match up - and actually keeping the device positioned where you want it is literally a constant battle. You have to check after any bump in the road that it hasn't been jolted to face outward, or loosened enough to slide down the seatpost. This would be bad enough if a fixed mount was an add-on purchase - but it's worse than that - there isn't even fixed mount made for this thing. So yes, this light is only for you if you're either (a) not worried about losing £150-odd worth of camera/light via a velcro strap unfixing itself, or (b) happy to use the carry string to tie on to somewhere on your bike to ensure that if it does come loose it at least doesn't bounce off down the street behind you.Other minor gripes - the buttons. You need to do quite a long press on the LHS button to turn on (unecessarily long in fact ... why not just a normal press?). It also needs to be pressed quite hard and in the right part of the button. It's basically rather annoying. The positioning of the other button on the RHS would be fine except .... that holding down both together performs a factory reset. This means that you have to be really quite cautious about how you grip in order to do the hard long press to turn the device on, otherwise you could be inadvertently resetting the whole thing.Last but not least, the memory card slot. It's really tricky to access, especially without taking the light off the bike. It's right by the hinge of the rubber protective flap for the slot and the charging port, so very fiddly to manipulate a micro SD while holding the rubber flap out of the way. When you push-down release the micro sd to extract, either there is only a tiny length protruding in a quite inaccessible space that you have to somehow get hold of to extract - good luck if you have big fingers!! - or else it pings right out at high velocity. I've lost one mirco SD that way because it just pinged out, riccocheted off the luggage rack on the train and fell down a ventilation grate under the seats. Fortunately it didn't have anything important on and micro SDs are now very cheap ...So why still four stars? Well, as long as you know about these things they are largely manageable. It's also still the only decent quality combination rear light and camera that I've found, so frankly, if that's what you are looking for this is definitely the answer at the moment. It comes with a lot of bells and whistles that I imagine most users won't take advantage of, which somewhat bizarrely appear to have been prioritised both at the outset and in later iterations, over more basic usability considerations.

Great item, even better with the new update from cycliq, make sure rubber boot is securely seated in position, reccomend use with barfly tail gunner saddle mount.

The first Cycliq 6 delivered had a number of faults, including the inability to fully charge the battery and a failure to switch on and operate.After returning it to the company, it was replaced with a new unit.Guess what? - the new one failed to switch on unless it was connected to mains power via the charging cable, making it impossible to use on the bike. The company have recommended reformatting the SD card to resolve the issue, but this has made no difference. Picture quality of inside my office very good, but unable to record any street scenes from the bike!Now six weeks after original purchase and still not able to use it. Very disappointed with the whole experience.I have requested a full refund and await their response.My advice, do not buy until the quality control issues have been sorted.Pete

Expensive junk.Worked only once, then stubbornly refuses to do anything.It works with only 1 type and size SD card (32Gb), so why not provide one given the price?The buttons are difficult to press, being recessed and covered by fairly hard rubber.The support documentation is contradictory.Other than distracting beeping sounds there's no telling if the thing is recording or not.The tie on options provided are very limited: a velcro strap for the seat post. It fits on nothing else. Fine on a racer but pretty useless on anything that has a luggage rack. There are aftermarket brackets and attachment options available but quickly add €30 to €40 to an already expensive item.It's a brilliant idea that was destroyed by cheap manufacturing and a lack of attention to quality control. The decision to use antiquated specs that does not allow for large capacity SD cards is baffling.

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.

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.