Fly6 Rear Camera/Light

Awaiting my fly 12 early next year

I got one of the original ones from the Kickstarter, which I assume is the "Mk 1", think is was about £80 including postage from Australia.

I bought it to act as a "silent witness" for my A road commuting.

I've had no problems with the mounting straps - I thought they might break initially - but still on the first pair (and it comes with more). Easy to fit / remove with the straps.

Daytime images from the camera are good and I like the way it records on a loop.

Nightime ones aren't as good [as its dark].

Used it daily in all weathers without problems, probably had it on bike for about 5,000 miles in total, its never fallen off or let me down.

Battery life is good (for commuting) but too short for touring; charging via USB convenient.

Initially sceptical about cover on USB socket but never had any problems with water ingress.

I like the "beep" charge indicator too.

My one gripe would be the actual fitting bracket (dont know if this is different in the "Mk 2").

The angled bracket comes with an adaptor for aero or regular seatpost.  This is fine for seatpost mount, but if you are commuting and carrying a load on the back (even a small saddlepack, let alone a bag  on a carrier) you cant mount it "out of the box" anywhere else (e.g. pannier rack etc.).  You need to have about 10cm (just a guess) of seatpost to mount the thing to, so if your seat is close to the top tube, you cant mount it there.  There are various things you can do to make it fit, but it would have been nice to have an out of box option to do this.

I have both a Mk1 and a Mk2 version. Bothe perform with ease mounting is simple and easy to use. Pictures produced are rock solid (on the road at least), clear and great exposure. The 720 HD is adequate since any action will happen "up close and personal" or out of the field of view.  The Fly6 concept does need a suitable length of seat post to mount it on - free of encumbrances like a saddle bag.

The only gripe I have with the Mk1 version is the shorter battery life (fixed with the Mk2 version) - I attend to this on longer trips by carrying an external battery pack.

With the Mk2, the little rubber flap that keeps the rain out broke off mine at about 6 months. I now use a piece of electrical tape.

I still swear by these devices - great value and have so far recorded a couple of incidents of very reckless driving.

Adrian

Very impressed with mine and haven't had a problem with the mounts (and that's on some pretty rough winter lane/gravel cycle path terrain).  I do take the whole thing off (mount and light) to charge it up; whether 'easing' the tension on the mounts helps things?  Night footage is good as well.  Mine's purely an 'insurance policy'.  Battery life is excellent as well; 75 min commute (each way) and there's still '2 beeps' left in the battery.  Not seen any driver 'clock' that it's a camera and change their ways though!

The release mechanism is good, pretty solid/safe. The one gripe I have about the mount is that it uses silicone rings to fit it to the seatpost. I've had one of them snap before, not trusting them with my camera or rear light. So I've replaced them with cable ties. Which is fine, as the Fly6 comes with 2 mounts out of the box and you can get more of them, so they can be installed permanently on all the bikes.

I was looking at buying one of these a few weeks ago but was kind of put off a bit by the bad feedback of the mount and the poor release mechanism.

Is it really as bad as what others have said?

Can only echo this. Excellent product from an excellent company.

When I started cycling with cameras I thought the Fly6 was a bit useless in the deterrent department - my philosophy used to be the more visible the camera the better, ending up with one on my helmet and one mounted on the rack facing backwards. After a while however I hadn't noticed any perceivable difference in driver behaviour with or without the cameras, and I wasn't too happy about a) the teletubby look and b) always having to have the rack fitted. 

Now I very much appreciate the integration of camera and rear light, it looks sleek, the footage is good, and I figured I only needed a rear facing one anyway, since I can react to whatever happens in front of me.

It comes with two mounts, but if you want to swap your Fly6 between more than two bikes they also do a mounts-only kit (one kit specifically for aero seatposts and one specifically for round ones).