Innovv K6 Dual Lens Camera

Innovv's K6 Dual Lens camera system has a lot going for it: front and rear view, decent footage, run-times basically as long as you want. If you want to fit a system to one bike to make sure you have a record of anything that happens to you, it's well worth considering.

> Buy now: Innovv K6 Dual Lens camera for £229.95 from Innovv

Fitting the Innovv K6

The first thing you'll think when you open the box, if you're anything like me, is 'well, this is going to make my bike look pretty untidy'. There are a lot of wires and bits of metal. But actually, once it's fitted it's pretty unobtrusive depending on what you've done with the battery.

The front and rear camera mounts are well made and simple to fit – although you'll need to relocate your tools if you use a saddle pack – and the only obvious wire is along the top tube.

Fitting it to my Kinesis Tripster ATR, I managed to hide the rear camera connector under the saddle, which makes the whole thing pretty neat. I set my camera under the handlebar as I had more space there, but because the camera rotates in the mount that's simple enough.

Swapped to my Tern GSD cargo bike I needed the (supplied) rear extension to run the lead down the step-through and back up the frame; it wasn't quite as neat, but it's still very fit-and-forget.

Both camera bodies and mounts are alloy, and the cables and connectors are nice and sturdy. The whole system is IP67 rated, which is chuck-it-in-a-pond waterproof. The only bit you'll need to be careful with from a weather point of view is the battery.

It's not the kind of camera system you're going to move between bikes too often; it's designed to be fitted and left in place, so if you swap bikes a lot and want footage of them all it's probably not the one for you.

Innovv K6 battery life

The K6 doesn't have an internal battery at all, and relies on an external pack which will give you some quite prodigious recording times depending on what size you pick. Innovv claims that a 10,000mAh battery will give you 13 hours of recording time, or 15 hours with the WiFi turned off. I managed 11 hours from a full battery pack that size; the actual run-time you get will depend on the pack's size and quality. But 11 hours is impressive.

Many camera systems will manage your commute or a club ride depending on its length. Not many will let you ride all day knowing that you can rely on continuous footage for the whole thing. You can add a 10,000mAh battery pack for £22.95 when you buy the camera, which is a decent enough price, although you can have one for a fair bit less than that if you shop around.

It's a similar story for SD cards: a card is not included, but you can have a 128GB micro SD card (256GB is the maximum supported) for less than a tenner these days, and that's enough for around 8 hours of front and rear footage. It's not really worth adding it on at the point of purchase.

But what to do with the battery pack? Easy if (like me) you have a bag on your bike already: just sling it in there. On the Kinesis I used the frame bag, and on the Tern the battery was originally in the front shopping bag.

If you don't have anywhere to put the battery already then Innovv includes a strap-on bag for the battery pack but this is a bit of a weak point in the system. When I first unpacked it I thought you'd be able to hang it from the top tube and I worried it would swing about, but actually the straps are on the side so you have to mount it laterally, which is a bit weird.

Innovv's own picture on the site (below) shows it on the bottom of the down tube, where it'll get absolutely soaked from tyre spray, and also the wire looks like it'd interfere with the tyre. Not ideal, but if you fit it on the top tube you'll probably hit your knees on it because it's quite wide.

It's not really an issue on the Tern where there are any number of places to put it (I mounted it behind the front rack), but on a road bike, If you don't already have one, budget £15 or so for either a top tube bag or a small frame bag for the battery. You can lob some sweets in there too.

Innovv K6 picture quality

When I first started testing the K6 camera system the rear image was mirrored, which was odd, but a firmware update has fixed that, and given you an option in the app settings to un-fix it if for whatever reason that's what you want. You get a 2K (2560x1440) picture from the front camera and an FHD (1920x1080) rear image, both recording at 30 frames per second.

Bike cameras vary hugely in their resolution and picture quality. This system isn't going to rival something like the new DJI Osmo Action 4 or the latest GoPro, and it's not really supposed to: this is a camera for filming your rides, not making films of your rides. What you want it to do is capture everything that's going on. And, should you have an incident that you need evidence of, you want that evidence to be of sufficient quality to be usable. In reality that means: you can make out the number plate on the car that close passed you. Or drove into you, or pulled out in front of you, or whatever.

Here's a quick reel of some passes filmed on the K6. I've used it in a wide range of conditions, from bright sunlight to nighttime in the pouring rain. I'll point out first that these passes aren't especially bad (although the Disco and the recycling truck could certainly have done better), but at those passing distances, and in all these conditions, I can get the vehicle registration from the original footage.

Given that a proper close pass would put the number plate even closer to the lenses, I'm pretty confident that this system would allow you to identify a close passing car more or less every time in daytime conditions, and probably nine times out of ten at night.

Having front and rear views helps to show the nature of the pass, and of course it gives you two stabs at getting the number plate. The resolution of the front camera is better, and the picture quality as a result is the pick of the two, but they're both very usable.

> What to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling

For the next iteration of the camera I'd like to see Innovv upgrade to 60fps capture, which I generally find is better for picking out number plates just because you've got twice as many frames to work with.

There are times in the rain (like with the taxi footage) when water will obscure the picture; it's a small lens and a couple of drops will do it. And you'll want to make sure that the rear unit is protected from spray too: if you have mudguards then that won't be an issue, but if not you can use something like an Ass Saver below the camera to keep the lens clean. The rear is much less likely to clear on its own if it gets dirty.

If you do have a close shave then pressing the button on the front camera will move that footage to a separate folder on the SD card so that it's not deleted if the card fills up – once the card is full the camera system rotates the files, deleting the oldest to make space for the newest.

There's also an automated accident mode based on sensors in the camera, but it doesn't really work for bikes. Innovv sells the K6 as a solution both for bikes and for motorcycles, and the detection is really set up for motorbikes, with their efficient suspension and big tyres. On a road bike on British tarmac pretty much everything except cafe stops ends up in the accident folder, even on the least sensitive setting. Assuming the sensors in the system can cope with the magnitude of the shocks from skinny-tyred rides, this seems a pretty easy fix down the line.

Innovv K6 app

The K6 camera is Wi-Fi enabled and you can connect it to the Innovv app on your smartphone. This gives you access to all the settings in the camera, and you can have a live feed of either camera, or both, on your screen. In theory you could have the phone on your bars and use it as a rear-view camera; I don't think I'd ever do that, but your mileage may vary there.

You can also view footage on your phone and download the files to it, which might come in handy from time to time.

Mostly, though, I expect I'd be pulling the card out if I ever needed any of the footage.

The app has links to an FAQ and the Innovv forum, where you might get answers if you're a bit stuck. The app is pretty basic but entirely functional, so no issues there.

Should you buy the Innovv K6?

If you're committed to filming your riding for your own peace of mind, and to bring errant driving to the notice of your local constabulary, then the K6 system has a lot going for it. It's well made, you get all your front and rear footage in one place, the battery life can basically be whatever you want, and the footage is good enough to pick out vehicle registrations. The camera system has come over from motorcycling and there are some issues associated with that: the accident detection sensors need to be calibrated differently for cycles, and the battery bag isn't really that useful for a road bike. Overall, though, it's pretty good.

There are other ways of getting front and rear views. A 360-degree camera like the Insta360 X3 gives you both views in one camera, but it'll cost you about twice what the K6 will set you back, and for the best footage you'll probably want to mount it on your helmet, which isn't something I particularly like to do.

The Techalogic DC-2 that George reviewed last month also does front and rear from your helmet, with two separate cameras capturing 2K/60fps footage. It's similarly priced to the K6, although a separate battery for extra run-time costs more.

Or you could get two action cameras. Two Akaso EK7000 cameras, for example, will set you back less than a hundred quid and you'll get 4K footage from each; plenty of aftermarket mounts are available to fit them to your bike. It's nowhere near as neat as this system, though, and the battery life will be a limiting factor for rides over an hour.

Cycliq's front and rear camera lights have longer run-times and the footage is good, but you're looking at over £500 for a set. Although that includes lights as well as cameras, of course.

At £230 I'd say this system is a good investment for anyone who wants to record all their rides. It's not perfect – the footage could be better, as could the battery bag – but it's offering a fit-and-forget solution that's pretty well thought out.

Verdict

Well-made fit-and-forget front and rear dashcam for your bike, with huge run-times available