Cheap helmet cam review
 

I bought a cheap helmet cam from Hong Kong and had a play with it on the weekend:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.45576

overall, pretty happy with it - works well, is small and works with my 16GB microSD card.

Pros:
* Cheap!
* Comes with bike and helmet mount
* Good video quality
* Easy to operate and access files through microSD or by plugging into the computer with miniUSB port
* Can be used as a webcam by plugging into the computer without an SD card inserted (has two USB modes)
* Is charged by USB when not turned on

Cons:
* Mount is flimsy - does not provide a rock solid base for the camera and as such pushes extra shake into the feed (handlebar mount in particular) although you can take it apart and tighten it up
* Sound doesn't work on my unit (I don't really need sound anyway so am not going to send it back under warranty)

Overall pretty happy with it. It is possible to strap to your helmet without the mount system and I will try that further to get a solid base.

with handlebar mount

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoL9NBYj1GM

with helmet strap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eMDEOtRP_k

additionally, the bottom dashboard of the videos was done with Excel 2003, Virtualdub and superimposed with Adobe Elements.

Tested and got 97 minutes of recording compared to advertised 150 minutes - will try again when I am certain it has been fully charged.

man you ride like a jerk

Whoah, nice hate. The handlebar mount was indeed very unsteady. But the helmet mount is quite a bit smoother. But the quality of both videos isn't cappy in the least. No graininess, color is good and it's nice and clear. Gotta work on smoothness though.

Thanks for posting, good to see options for the $200 bike cameras out there!

probably because he races. everyone knows racers are dbags.

I think that the data is out of sync with the video.

Also, interesting tidbit, my roomate in college wrote VirtualDub and I'm listed in the about box as one of the testers.

It definitely is. Watt numbers seem optimistic.

I think he meant: you jerk, ride like a man

He is really big.

But the 0 speeds don't line up with the 0 movements.

Also not sure what the units are for speed. With my Garmin data it's in meters per second and I have to convert it to something more useful...

Thanks for sticking up for me Mikey (I think)

Hey - that's really cool. That is great software. Too bad you can't work with two video streams with it.

As UMD said, I'm big and it takes a lot of power just to accelerate or climb with 100kg of me + bike (+ backpack with clothes, gadgets, laptop etc seeing as this was riding home from work)

LOL

Yeah - noticed that later. Should have looked for some more reference points to line up the data - I only used a start section so the numbers are off by a couple of seconds by the look of it.

The units are km/h which is how it comes from WKO+ exported to CSV.

I was assuming it was km/h accurate to 0.1. Just eyeballing the video and allowing the lag, that looks about right.

Have you tested the cam in lower light conditions or in darkness yet?

As you can see, the vibrations on the handlebar mount are too much, and lowering the tire pressure doesn't help. Try mounting it on the fork blade. I cross-taped mine to the fork and it seemed to have much less vibration, and you have the wheel in the foreground to add some perspective and make it a little more interesting. I also saw a rearward mounted angle from under the saddle by someone here (maybe carpediem) that looked good in a crit, so in a group ride or race that could be a good view as well (you see people's faces instead of asses). This was inadvertently mounted a little cockeyed, some people liked it that way. It got crunched down on the uplaod, orinial quality was better).

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...07NewBFb-1.jpg

Maybe it was just because it was out of sync, it just didn't look like 30 kh/h, although m/s would be really off :lol:

I guess I just didn't really look at it, it just seemed off.

The shape looks like you could probably do what I did with mine, and zip-tie it to the stem. No vibrations.

Yes - part of my commute is going through a couple of tunnels and the video gets VERY crappy at that point. No good whatsoever in low light situations.

Cool - that looks good. The problem with the mount is that it is spring loaded so it can swivel - but that makes no sense from a design perspective for a camera where you want the most stable mount possible. You can remove the rear bracket and I was playing around yesterday cable tying it to my helmet and fork - worked well on the helmet but need to chock it up a bit as it was facing too far towards the ground and it was awkward on the fork and I got no footage as I thought it was going - but it wasn't - doh!

I'm going to see if I can use it next race I do (perhaps Thursday) - there is some issue around having the cams on the helmet (safety requirements and standards). Under the seat sounds interesting...

Does the camera detatch completely from the swivel mount? Try using tape instead of zip ties.

EDIT: Maybe you can zip tie the base to the fork, and tape the camera to the swivel base in the position you want.

It's the base which is the problem - on a spring loaded swivel so it gives extra vibration.

The base can be removed however (two small screws). I'll have a play around.