My take on the Tooo Cycling DVR80 rear camera/lights

With three of my clubmates involved in a car accident in the last year or so, I thought it was time to get another fancy gadget: a rear camera.

This is a quick review of my initial take on the To Cycling DVR80 rear camera/light. The DVR80 is a frontal assault on the Cycliq Fly6 camera.

The stats are easily available to compare on the respective Web pages. The big attractions of the DVR80 are its very long battery life (claimed up to 7-9.5 hours of camera recording—I assume depending on light usage) and good storage capacity with circular overwriting (40 hours with 128GB card). The price is also reasonable.

Purchasing

I purchased it from Sigma Sports, which became one of my top online cycling shops following a slow road to bankruptcy from Wiggle. I ordered it without a micro SD card, so I went out on my first mid-week ride without any recordings. Thanks to Amazon (which I try to use as little as possible), the 128GB SD card arrived in time for the following weekend ride.

Unboxing

I won’t post the pictures because I didn’t take any, and I didn’t take any videos either. The box is very nice, worthy of Apple, with a magnetic latch. All the mounting options are included—there’s no need to buy a separate aero seat mast gizmo. It also included two mounts for a “normal” seat tube and an aero seat post adapter, a nice touch.

Installation

It mounts well. This is the mount for round seat tubes, but it works fine on my wide and rectangular Madone seat tube. Obviously using the o-ring style attachment system. Two sizes are included. The rubber interface seems spongy enough to hug a fat D-shape tube well enough. The device is detachable using a proprietary linear, sliding mount vs the quarter-turn style. It looks like a solid connection. Good satisfying click when it locks in. On the downside, there’s no backup safety lanyard system like with some cycling electronics. I anticipate it staying on track with the seemingly solidly thought-out mounting system. But things happen, of course. It looked less ungainly and clunky in real life than the online pictures.

Build Quality

It’s hard to gauge quality on a first take, but it seems decent. Everything worked out of the box. Rub rubber inserts protect the USB connector (USB C) and microSD card slot. They seem solid and are easy to close.

It seems well sealed. I wasn’t getting “junk vibes.”

Phone App

There is no app. Move on. To adjust the date, you must edit a file by hand. I wonder if you must do it whenever you want to go on a ride.

Light

It works great as a light. You should ask the clubmates following me for confirmation. It comes with three different modes to enhance visibility during low-light conditions. The one-button interface makes it easy to switch between modes, even reaching behind the seat while riding. I have no reason not to believe the specs on lumens (80 lumens), etc. It seems nice and bright in daylight.

Video

OK, this is where things take a turn for the (slightly) worse.

The only way to get the video is to pull the microSD card and mount it as a drive or use the USB cable. I used a microSD adaptor and a card reader on a Mac. It was easy to find the files. They were nicely listed by date (the wrong one, as I didn’t edit the setting.txt file) and in a manageable size: 3 minutes, 155 MB.

But they all use a “TS” extension. Not MP4 or any formats commonly used by others. Odd. I could read them in Quicktime but have yet to upload them to YouTube or other platforms.

But the below note aside, the video and sound are a letdown. I would challenge the Full High Definition 1080p at 60 fps. Poor color depth, blotchy compression artifacts (even with the raw TS file). Having said that, you can read a number plate.

The sound is “meh.” You can hear people talking, but I listened to a ton of wind noise. It was not unexpected, but it was still not great.

Watch me overtaken by an old Rolls Royce driver who doesn’t know the regulations have changed since the 50s. You now need to leave 1.5m when overtaking a cyclist.

Runtime

The big test: Does it really run 9.5 hours without light? I’m running it now and I’ll update you with the results.