Originally Posted by
Orlando
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!
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.