They can also be used to "grass" up poor and dangerous drivers if your force acts on submissions. Drivers take notice of fixed penalties and fines. They'll have to declare any on insurance for 4 to 5 years and will likely incur an extra premium as a reminder.
the supplied mount will fit a seatpost or other thick tube but is a little basic. On my bike the rackpack obscures a fair bit of the image so I purchased a saddle rail mount for a fiver from eBay. At 26g it's less than half the weight of the supplied mount
you can also manage and download video and photos from the camera
I've used a £40 Aldi rear light and camera combo (a gen 1 fly 6 clone) for over three years. It is only 720p resolution and can be a bit grainy, so I replaced it with a Teentok from eBay although Amazon have them too. If you're careful you can get them for about £110 currently.
It comes with a basic mount and a usb cable (not shown). It has a decent sized camera lens above 5 very bright red leds
On the left hand edge from the top there is a mic hole. Power button, light mode button, and a photo button. You can also see the go too mount moulding on the rear.
Right side has the microsd (not supplied) slot and a micro USB socket hidden under a snug fitting rubber flap
Once fitted the camera nestles snuggly under the saddle. The fixing seem to be stainless steel. I'd recommend using unlock nuts and or threadlock. From a security perspective, it's an improvement over the Aldi cam which was secured.using a velcro strap.
Operation is pretty straightforward.
Press the power button to turn on. The camera will bleep twice and LEDs start flashing. Recording starts automatically and the unit will bleep a third time when it starts, but unlike the Aldi (which has a circulating led) there's no dedicated indicator.
Press the middle button to change led mode. If LEDs are off then the middle led will briefly flash every 3 minutes as a reminder that unit is on and recording.
Press and hold the bottom button to turn on the wireless network. The unit will bleep twice when it starts You can then connect computer to the camera to view and download videos and change settings. One nice touch is that you can change the ssid and the passphrase for the wireless network rather than it being hard coded into the camera.
I bought the camera at the end of January and at the time of writing hadn't had chance for more than a few short local trips, but I have done some run time testing
1. Runtime with steady light - 4 hrs
2. Runtime with no light - 6 hours 45
3. Charge time from flat - 3 hours
Sample video below
The app is called Ricam and is installable from the play store.
It's a little tough around the edges but it does work. Once connected to the camera's wireless network, set the app and click the big button on screen to connect to it.
Once connected there is a battery indicator and the usual settings gear for cog. Theres only one page. Date and time are synced from the app host
I found that the camera was locking files so they could not be overwritten automatically. This seemed to be the collision detection being over sensitive. A quick email with the support contact included with camera and I received a new firmware file within 24 hours which has resolved the issue.
Since installing the updated firmware the app will occasionally report that the camera is not authorised. The only solution is to powecycle the camera whilst clearing the app data within Android. The app will also occasionally report that the camera is busy. The short term fix is to exit and reconnect.
Verdict
This camera seems to be good value for money and works well considering you can get one for nearly half the price of a Fly6.
It's neater than a lot of the go pro clones hand has a light built in. If you don't want the light, then I'd recommend a Drift Ghost X for an extra £15 or so which has similar runtime and a more polished app.
The app has a rough unfinished feel and some bugs, but I'll probably only use it occasionally for managing settings as if extracting video for submission, I'll copy to my file server for safe keeping.
Not much to say other than that I have had same experience and views as above. Now have three of these and love them. App is indeed a bit sub-par ... but it works better than the Cycliq one ever did.
ReplyDeleteMy only warning would be on the port flap - it isn't particularly durable and it's easy to not get it fully closed. One of the lights unfortunately got water ingress after I forgot to remove them when we were on holiday and storing the bikes outside - and it did die. I've taken apart and trying to clean the corrosion off but seems likely that it won't be resurrectable.
As such am contemplating adding some duct tape over the port flap for rainy conditions in future.
I bought this to replace broken or lost Garmin and GoPro cameras I had used as rear cameras so I compared this unit to those and came away with pros and cons.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem I had was recording control. You have to know that turning it on starts it recording. Even more confusing is when you connect it to the RICAM app it starts recording and you have to click the Stop icon to stop it. I find that lack of control a bit problematic but I've come to accept it.
Battery life is great compared to my previous cameras. It can record on its own from 4-7 hours depending on the light settings whereas I had to connect my previous cameras to an external battery to avoid having to continually swap in new batteries.
The lower picture quality is both a con and a pro. It's a con for obvious reasons--I was used to 1080p 60fps and this unit gives 1080p 30fps which isn't as good for identifying license plates but still decent enough. It's a pro because the video takes up much less space per minute than my previous cameras. A 64GB SD card will store around 11.5 hours of video.
I have the front version and I am very pleased with it although its my third one. After buying the first one water ingress caused the lens to cloud over so I sent it back, the second one the bracket just broke when I adjusted it. The manufacturer sent me replacements.
ReplyDeleteHowever since then no problems, I have timed the units and in all cases without the light it lasted about 6 hours 20minutes which is good enough. With the light on it was down to 4 hours so I'd be happy for a less bright front light and more camera. The Ricam App confused me when it said "Please Later" instead of "Please Wait". Someone needs to tell the Chinese.
The picture quality is good and I recommend buying a 125Gb card with the device as my old one gave me a few problems. Once its set up with the right date etc using the App theres no need to do anything else. Just keep it charged and when theres an incident report to the Police. I have reported a few incidents so far with positive results to the Operation Snap team in North Wales.
I also use the Teenok rear camera. Picture quality is ok, but can't make the app work on Windows! Also all files are 'LOCKED'. Anyone has the Teenok tech support number? Downloading new firmware has not fixed the problem. Any help is appreciated. thanks.
ReplyDeleteTeentok can provide you with a firmware update that will lower the sensitivity of the collision detection - it worked for mine. There wasn't a number but they were helpful and responsive by email
ReplyDeleteHi! I've attempted numerous times to find this app in Google play. is anyone here able to send me a link please?
ReplyDeleteThe app in this review has been withdrawn. Search for Viidura (two i ). that works with this camera and others.
ReplyDelete