Monday, April 25, 2016

Cycliq Fly 12 Front Camera + Front Light - First Impressions

After a long wait, the highly anticipated Cycliq Fly 12 is finally here! The Cycliq Fly 12 is a combined front camera plus front light, with some pretty impressive specifications. This follows the successful Cyclic Fly 6 rear camera plus rear light which I also ordered through Kickstarter.

As expected, the Fly 12 arrived later than planned after successfully being funded on Kickstarter. I already knew that this would happen, so I was not too worried that the product was being delayed. It was helped by the fact that I had previously received my Fly 6 successfully, and that there were frequent updates regarding the status of the Fly 12 production samples.

Here is a quick look at the Fly 12!

Unboxing the Cyclic Fly 12!

Key features include Full HD video recording, a powerful front light, long battery life, wireless connectivity, looping recording and rain proof construction.

Detailed specifications of the front camera plus front light

Contents of the box. What stunned me was the "Coming Soon" sticker on the Google Play app, which means that I would not be able to link it to my Android phone yet..

Large camera lens plus large front light dominate the front of the unit

Array of accessories and manual that comes with the Fly 12. Don't think I will need any of them...

Comes with a safety lanyard and a M5 bolt to replace the quick release knob on the GoPro-style mount

The different colours of the indicator light (at top of unit) and what they mean

Incident protection mode to prevent accidental overwriting of critical footage. Same concept as in the Fly 6.


The Fly 12 uses a GoPro type of mount, and is temporarily fixed to the packaging

To remove the Fly 12 from the packaging, first unscrew the bolt holding it from the bottom...

...then twist the whole unit and it detaches from the packaging! Doesn't this look familiar?

Yes, it is the Garmin quarter turn mount! What does this mean?

This means that I can either use the Garmin mount to hold the camera, or use the GoPro mount to fix the camera! The Garmin mounting is actually more convenient as I can quickly remove the camera for charging.

You can use the supplied mount to fix the Fly 12 onto your oversized (31.8mm) handlebar.

A rough size comparison. Looks quite big as it is one large unit...

Close up look of the front. Full HD camera with 400 lumen front light, very impressive!

Rear of the Fly 12 is where you plug in the Micro USB charging cable or insert the MicroSD card

This shows what the two buttons at the rear of the camera does

Weight of the Fly 12 without any mounting is 243 grams

I was going to replace the quick release knob on the mount with the M5 bolt, but I found that the M5 bolt does not work! The hexagon shape at the top of the bolt was not formed properly.

I found another suitable M5 bolt and changed the quick release knob to the bolt

Indicator light as shown at the top of the unit

The unboxing of the Fly 12 is complete, and the next step is to install it on the bike and test it out. Since this Fly 12 is quite big, I would prefer not to install it on the road bike as it would look out of place. Instead, I will install it on the Avanti Inc 3 commuting bike, and replace both the Lezyne front light and the Shimano Sport Camera.

To be continued!

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