Recommendations for cameras for safety please

here for the replies.

I’ve been hovering over the Insta360 for a while now.

my biggest issue is my own ability to a) charge the camera and b) download footage. I’ve had helmet mounted and handlebar mounted cameras before but either drifted away from using the for either reason a or b.

in reality, I can see myself getting the meta rayban glasses as I will wear them as I do my current sunglasses, the software is meta, charging will happen as I charge my watch (maybe🤷🏼‍♂️)

Garmin just launched a new front Varia light & camera. Like a lot of people, I love the Varia radar so assumed I would buy the rear camera immediately. Reviews were not great so I'll be waiting to see if it has improved and how reviews of the front camera look

The Ghost Drift XL is a good option in terms of price, battery life, quality and discreetness and was top of my list until I picked up a Cycliq Fly6 from a fellow boards member a number of months back.

The Fly6 is good quality, discreet but the battery life isn't great and it's expensive new. With flashing light set to it's brightest and camera rolling I get about 2 hrs from the batter which doesn't quite last me two days so it's a bit of a chore having to charge it each evening. Annoyingly you can connect the Fly6 to your phone (bluetooth) to update settings and check batter life but not to review video, this has to be done via cable and laptop/PC.

This is true. If from a known/ trusted seller I'd say that could be the best option. But whenever those ads appear I'm generally skint, so timing is key too 😂

Any updated recommendations for a rear mounted camera to catch a$$holes :( ?

Two nice long spins the weekend and a thousand perfectly fine overtakes but one malignant tumourous f**stick has me googling rear cameras all morning. Rocket-close-passed the two of us single file on that sh1t narrow twisty section beyond Brittas on the way to Tallaght.

The Garmin Varia seems to be the most suitable and integrated solution for 4-5 hour spins. Go pros seem to only have a couple of hours battery life which is no use.

I'd have thought at this stage that there would be a zillion cheap Temu versions but, I'm not finding them.

Varia still on top of the pile I think.

Also struggling to find throw-away emergency backups on Temu.

Are there low power modes on the gopros? 2 hours battery life is no use. Has to be 5 hours or more. It's very often towards the end of a spin coming back into urban areas home later in the morning that you get traffic interactions

The Ghost Drift XL is supposed to be up to 9hrs recording. It's a camera only so no additional light to drain the battery like with the Fly6. There's a Ghost Drift XL Pro version also but recording in 4k cuts battery life to 4.5hrs.

I've used a mix of front and back over the last couple of years. Starting with a cheap HD on the front and a decent mix of camera and light on the back - both sub 100 and decent image quality for the prices but stabilisation was awful on both. I swapped the front to a GoPro Hero 13 this summer before some nice Greenway runs and the Horizon lock alone is a game changer, it's god tier image stabilisation on a bike and being able to run it live from a power pack solves battery life issues. I had installed a rear view (non-recording) camera a year or so ago due to a health problem that made turning an issue and then upgraded it to the same with recording a few months back but at 720p for the recording at least it's hard to make out details like license plates. All of this has an inherent issue of multiple devices, differing battery life/charging units/clarity and file download options. It's a PITA.

So after all that I'm going to replace both with an Insta 360 X5 and try a right side handlebar mount to capture front and back in one go. It being on sale right now on Amazon (459) helped with that decision :) . I'll update here with results after it arrives if there's any interest.

I took the 360 for it's first spin today. Overall very happy with it but for faster moving cars coming from the front the license plates were often too blurry to read, rear was usually ok. I think it might be because I was using 8k@30FPS so next time will try dropping the res and upping the frame rate to compensate.

Import duties factored into the .ie price?

Right, so a pure Paddy tax then.