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-   -   Cycliq Support? Not so much (https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=1172309)

EE_Phred 05-06-19 10:44 AM

Cycliq Support? Not so much
 
In October of 2018, I purchased a Cycliq Fly12CE from the Cycliq Online store. For a while, the Fly12 worked well - there was an instance where the battery would discharge too quickly, but that *seemed* to be resolved by an SD card format and a firmware update. Cycliq's support during that issue was very responsive.


Fast forward to last month, when after a 2 month hiatus from outdoor riding I fired everything up for a ride. After a full night charging (with a green charge light) I powered up the Fly12 and it stayed powered on for 30 seconds than powered back down. Nothing I could do would change this. I reached out to Cycliq support, and within 12hrs I received a canned message from "Justin" asking me to do a bench test consisting of powering up the unit and letting it sit until the battery drained. I was quite clear in my original email that the unit would not stay powered up for more than 30 seconds. I replied to that email saying I could not do the "bench test" because power would not remain on for more than 30 seconds. I followed that up with another email containing a quick (40 second) video showing the progression from fully charged Fly12 to power up then down within 30 seconds.


From the original email, I have heard nothing back from Cycliq. It has been 12 days, and nothing. I even opened up another trouble ticket (after 6 days) directing their attention to my original trouble ticket. It was summarily dismissed and ignored. I would be OK if there was an explanation for the delay, or that they were working on it, but nothing. I've sent several inquiries - all ignored.


I am not optimistic that I will see a satisfactory resolution to this situation. I now have a $270 pile of junk sitting on my desk - one that Cycliq does not seem to be interested in supporting. Worse, I am now fielding questions from my wife about how much money I've seemed to have "wasted" on this item. Yeah, good times.

Basically, I have written my Fly12CE off as well as Cycliq. It is a shame really, because when it worked, it was really good, and there does not seem to be anything else in the market that combines the form factor, headlight, and video together in such an elegant manner. But it has to work.


Last April, I was run over by a hit and run driver and I had zero video evidence to go after the clown that did it. I regard a working video camera as just short of a necessity for my rides after that fiasco - not for protection, but to provide myself (or my heirs) some ability to go after the next criminal that does that.


So, I would like this statement of facts to be available to anyone else considering a similar product. As of now, I cannot recommend the item I have or the manufacturer.


Should this change, I'll gladly update this post.


Mikey

rseeker 05-06-19 10:58 AM

Do you do Twitter? You could write this up in summary form, post it on your Twitter account, @Cycliq in your post and see if that gets any attention.

I bet attaching the video would be really impactful.

https://twitter.com/Cycliq

EE_Phred 05-06-19 06:14 PM

@rseeker,

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that.

Unfortunately, I'm not much for social media...I don't even have Facebook.

Perhaps I should reconsider :50:

pdoege 05-08-19 11:05 PM

My Fly12 is broken in its own idiosyncratic way and I can confirm that Cycliq support is just awful.

If you do get to the point where they grudgingly admit that it doesn't work, they will want pictures of the unit and serial number as well as your purchase receipt.

I haven't received a fixed unit yet, so I can't comment on the overall process.

Podagrower 05-15-19 06:32 AM

Well, this is disappointing to hear. My experience was about as completely opposite as it could be. My Fly12 (not the current CE model) reached a point where it would not turn on, I let it sit for a couple of weeks because I was busy, and when I looked into sending it back for warranty I realized the warranty had expired after it broke, but before I had decided to do something about it. When I emailed support, I explained and asked if there was anything they could do, they were happy to take the unit back and repair it. I've recommended Cycliq to several friends based on that alone.

eja_ bottecchia 05-15-19 06:46 AM

@Podagrower @EE_Phred both of your posts reflect the problem with Cycliq.

In concept the Fly12 and Fly6 are great products. Both, however, are more complex than they need to be. This caused a great deal of problems at the time of the initial roll out.

If you go to DCRainmaker you will see what these problems were (and still are).

Their customer support is spotty. Some people, myself included, have had great success; others have experienced nothing but frustration.

Too bad, the devices have a great deal of potential.

JohnJ80 05-15-19 03:02 PM


Originally Posted by eja_ bottecchia (Post 20930809)
@Podagrower @EE_Phred both of your posts reflect the problem with Cycliq.

In concept the Fly12 and Fly6 are great products. Both, however, are more complex than they need to be. This caused a great deal of problems at the time of the initial roll out.

If you go to DCRainmaker you will see what these problems were (and still are).

Their customer support is spotty. Some people, myself included, have had great success; others have experienced nothing but frustration.

Too bad, the devices have a great deal of potential.

It is a great product with a great deal of potential. I just used the video from the FLY12CE to deal with a school bus driver and got action from that. That said, both the FLY12CE and FLY6CE are funky. They shut off kind of randomly and they kinda sorta work like they are supposed to. What they do is really cool, the actual implementation really drags it down. Perfect company that would benefit by being bought by a bike computer, bike lighting or a bike company and have their management tuned up to behave properly.

J.

canklecat 05-17-19 12:19 AM

Sounds like it might be a media card format issue. Whenever I insert a new media card in my video camera (Ion Speed Pro) it misbehaves, often stopping recordings randomly.

The only fix I've found is to reformat the card while it's inserted into the camera, with the camera connected to a computer via USB (or other appropriate cable). Do a full format, not the shortcut version. Repeat two or three times if necessary.

Once the media card and camera seem to be getting along, let the camera record continuously -- just set it anywhere in your home and let it run until it stops. Check to be sure it's recording as expected, with the run time as expected.

Then I'll hook the camera up to a USB battery and let it run until the media card is filled (takes awhile with a 32 GB card). Check the files again to be sure it's recording as expected.

After that it should continue to record reliably. However -- and this is critical -- never format the card again. Delete the old files, but only while the camera is plugged into the computer. Never plug the media card (usually with adapter) into the computer and delete files from there. It's okay to play, copy or transfer files that way. But don't delete. Do all formats and deletions inside the camera, via USB cable.

It shouldn't be this picky, but that's just the way some digital devices are. It's been that way since the first generation Olympus consumer grade digicams in the late 1990s with those sorta-floppy smart media cards, and it hasn't gotten any better. Same with my various media cards for my Nikon pro and consumer grade digital cameras, Olympus, Fuji, Ricoh, etc.

Some camera/card combinations are very picky. Doesn't matter whether it's SanDisk, Lexar or generic or cheap media cards. I've seen similar problems with all media cards and cameras, but pretty randomly. Some cards will work only in one particular camera. I have a media card that will only play nice with my desktop PC but not my laptop. No idea why. No amount of reformatting, and the other steps I've described, has made any difference. I have an older 1 GB SanDisk CF card that will not work in my old Nikon D2H, and never has, but will function with other Nikons and cameras that took CF cards. SanDisk couldn't explain it either. By the time they concluded it was a mystery, the 1 GB cards that original cost $100 had been discontinued and I could buy better, larger capacity cards for a fraction of the price.

canklecat 05-17-19 12:30 AM

And FWIW, my "old" Ion Speed Pro from 2016 is still going. The run-time per charge is a bit shorter now, closer to an hour rather than 90 minutes. When I plan longer rides I use an external USB battery and cord. The camera will run continuously for hours until the media card is filled or the USB battery is exhausted.

There are occasional glitches. Usually each video file is around 40 minutes long, with a seamless transition to the next file. But occasionally a file will be only a few seconds or a minute or so in length, then it'll pick up again as normal and record 40 minutes per video file. No idea why. Contrails. EMP. UFOs. Hackers messing with the ozone layer. Ghosts.

The one time in almost three years that I didn't run video was the day I was hit by a car in May 2018. Now I run it almost every ride (maybe not test rides around the parking lot to check adjustments).

This week alone I've recorded two near-misses/hits by negligent drivers, and a driver going the wrong way on a one-way street directly toward us, then bashing into a car in an intersection when the errant driver ran the light. The driver didn't appear to be intoxicated. She claimed she was following her GPS instructions. I interpeted that to mean she was looking at her phone and texting while driving and never looked up over the course of the 400 yards or so we observed her swerving around and ignoring our frantic hand signals.

I'm planning to add a rear video camera and possibly a helmet cam. My Ion Speed Pro will work as a helmet cam, but is a bit heavy. I may try a cheap dash cam and separate battery.

The main problem with most action/sports cameras is the dynamic range is poor, with too much noise at high ISO at night. So it's rare to reliably record license plates. The combination of ultra-wide lenses and mediocre resolution makes it harder to record useful identifying images. Some dash cams have better low light performance, but need separate power sources and weatherproof housings for all weather use.

Orlando 06-24-19 03:37 PM

Fly 6
 
Big thanks to 'canklecat' for that interesting information presented. I found it quite helpful. I bought a Fly6 back in 2015 and loved it - for a few months. It setup easily and worked flawlessly. I don't go out cycling on the roads in the winter and didn't use the unit for a few months. There was, and as far as I know still is, no information with the product that stipulated that it should be kept charged and it sat unused for three or four months. In the spring I plugged it in to charge it and it would not charge. I contacted Cycliq through their website and we exchanged numerous emails over several weeks. They did try to help and I followed all of their instructions to the letter but nothing helped. The unit remained kaput. After several weeks of this back and forth I asked if they would not replace the unit. They informed me that the unit was past its one year warranty, by about a week I think, maybe two. I asked if they would sell me a new unit at a discount. They said they're a small company and cannot afford to do that. I was not happy with that, especially because I really like the product and really wanted another one. But I wasn't keen to spend another $250 for a product that would get me through one summer of cycling. Of late I got to wondering if they might have improved the product and checked out their website again and I see they have upgraded the product. I also looked up good ol' Bike Forums to see what I could find. What I've found here doesn't give me a nice warm feeling. Seems Cycliq still has some bugs in the product and customer satisfaction is less than wonderful. Now I'm torn. I've found that good flashing lights really make a difference when I'm out there on the roads. The camera won't prevent a motor vehicle from hitting me but it does provide a record. If I'm hit and killed instantly, c'est la vie, but if I'm busted up and disabled, maybe in a wheel-chair, it would be nice to have a video record so I could seek justice. Hmm... looked at one way, $250 as an insurance policy for the summer is not outrageous. Gotta think about this. Thanks to all posters for their provided inputs. Ride on! :giver:

JohnJ80 06-24-19 06:07 PM


Originally Posted by Orlando (Post 20994897)
Big thanks to 'canklecat' for that interesting information presented. I found it quite helpful. I bought a Fly6 back in 2015 and loved it - for a few months. It setup easily and worked flawlessly. I don't go out cycling on the roads in the winter and didn't use the unit for a few months. There was, and as far as I know still is, no information with the product that stipulated that it should be kept charged and it sat unused for three or four months. In the spring I plugged it in to charge it and it would not charge. I contacted Cycliq through their website and we exchanged numerous emails over several weeks. They did try to help and I followed all of their instructions to the letter but nothing helped. The unit remained kaput. After several weeks of this back and forth I asked if they would not replace the unit. They informed me that the unit was past its one year warranty, by about a week I think, maybe two. I asked if they would sell me a new unit at a discount. They said they're a small company and cannot afford to do that. I was not happy with that, especially because I really like the product and really wanted another one. But I wasn't keen to spend another $250 for a product that would get me through one summer of cycling. Of late I got to wondering if they might have improved the product and checked out their website again and I see they have upgraded the product. I also looked up good ol' Bike Forums to see what I could find. What I've found here doesn't give me a nice warm feeling. Seems Cycliq still has some bugs in the product and customer satisfaction is less than wonderful. Now I'm torn. I've found that good flashing lights really make a difference when I'm out there on the roads. The camera won't prevent a motor vehicle from hitting me but it does provide a record. If I'm hit and killed instantly, c'est la vie, but if I'm busted up and disabled, maybe in a wheel-chair, it would be nice to have a video record so I could seek justice. Hmm... looked at one way, $250 as an insurance policy for the summer is not outrageous. Gotta think about this. Thanks to all posters for their provided inputs. Ride on! :giver:

I recently bought both the front and back new cameras. There were some issues I had to work through with them and they are somewhat slow in replying but I was able to get them to work correctly and reliably. And, I have to say, the results when working with the two local school bus companies over incidents have been pretty amazing. I made the decision this year to do something about driver behavior where I drive after our local Olympic gold medalist was the victim of road rage when she was out training, she took video and posted it, the sheriff picked it up and the social media locally instantly had a positive effect on driver behavior.

Subsequent to that, I had a couple of incidents with the two local school bus companies edging me off the road. The video and emails to the company starting with the line, “I wanted to talk to you about your driver’s behavior before I take this video to the sheriff....” got me immediate responses and virtually immediate changes in driver behavior within a week after they instituted this information into their training.

Anyhow, the main problem I had was that the camera were turning off before the ride was completed. I figured out this was because I had incident detection turned on and I turned on the units before attaching them to the bike. This caused them to see an incident when I twisted them onto their brackets (palm slaps forehead). TUrn them on after attaching to the bike and they’ve been flawless.

So bottom line, I have to say they have been effective for me in changing my riding conditions locally and that’s worth it to me. But it is fair to say the company is a little sluggish and a bit near sighted in their view of their place in the market. I’m sure this thread has more negative impact on their sales than replacing a bad unit out of warrany would. That all said, I’d buy again.

FWIW, I did find a bracket that is 3D printable from Shapeways that allows me to mount my Varia Radar and my FLY6CE camera both on back. That gives a lot of visual warning to drivers and lets me know when cars are approaching too.

paulchuck 12-07-21 07:11 PM

Lousy Cycliq support
 
I have three broken Duo Mounts for the Fly12. They all broke at the hinge and they were out of stock for a year or more. I sent a warranty request along with copies of all my receipts and they said they would notify me when they came back into stock. They never notified me and found out through a friend that he just purchased one.
I dug out my slew of correspondence with them and tried to get the process started again only to get this email this morning.


Thanks for your reply and apologies for the delayed response.

Unfortunately we will not be able to provide a warranty in this instance but can confirm that the mounts are still available.

Kind regards,
Patrick S
Customer Experience Specialist

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not even going to go into the multiple times I was denied warranty because of "user error" .

lefteye 12-21-21 08:32 PM

Fly 12 mount
 
My Fly 12 mount also broke recently, in the same way you describe. It's probably around 3 years old, so way beyond any warranty. I'm using a gopro mount and the Cycliq gopro adapter while I consider other options (thinking about a combo mount for my Karoo 2 and the Cycliq).

I know there has been some bad behavior on Cycliq's part dealing with failed units (and mounts); my experience with their support has actually been ok. They have coached me through some failures to turn on (both my 6 and 12), and helped resurrect units that I thought were dead. And they replaced one (two?) Fly 6 CE units (one failed in less than a year, and the other less than a year after that).

That said, at this point in time they are the only game in town; I think they could benefit from some competition. There is a company with a kickstarter campaign for a rear camera/light that has attractive qualities, including much longer promised run time than the Fly6 (especially the Mark 3 version). There was also another company with a prototype around a year ago, but that doesn't seem to have progressed.


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