Recall Rider Dual Safety Camera

As its name suggests, the Recall Rider Dual Safety Camera has two lenses, one front facing, one rear facing, so it can record what's going on in front and behind. You can record with just a single lens or both, depending on where you have the camera mounted, bike or helmet. Though the quality of footage isn't as high as some, it's generally enough to pick out number plates and other defining features.

For more options, check out our guide to the best bike cameras.

> Buy now: Recall Rider Dual Safety Camera for £179.99 from Recall

I've used the camera in a variety of different conditions, from rain to sun, and it's held up well, with no issues arising from the weather.

It mounts using a regular 1/4in thread, the same as DSLR and other standard cameras, but in the box is a 1/4in-to-GoPro converter, so you can fit it to a GoPro mount. For the majority of my testing I fitted the camera to my Garmin mount, which has a GoPro mount underneath.

You get a helmet mount as well, along with a few other options including some sticky mounts and a headband mount that can be worn without a helmet.

In the box there's also a 128GB micro-SD card to record to, along with a small frame bag and a portable battery pack.

How to use

Using the camera is straightforward – just turn it on by pressing the power button and it will start recording 1080p through both lenses. Then just press and hold the button to turn it off when you're done. If this is all you want, there's no need to change any settings, but if you want to alter anything you have to do it through Recall's app, RoadCam.

To do this, connect your phone to the camera by pressing and holding the camera's power button, then stop the recording by pressing the camera icon button. Press and hold the Wi-Fi button, then connect your phone to the Wi-Fi of the camera. You can then enter the app to change any settings.

This sounds a little convoluted, but the instruction book explains everything quite well, and I had no issues when doing it.

A small speaker in the camera gives you voice feedback, letting you know that recording has started or stopped, but there isn't a flashing red light like most cameras have. When out on the bike, the sound can get snatched away by the wind, and there were a few times when I wasn't sure if I'd started recording or not while I was riding (with the camera mounted on the handlebar), because I couldn't hear any confirmation.

It's possible to use the app to start and stop recording – handy when the camera's on your helmet – but this drains the battery faster as the Wi-Fi has to stay on.

Settings & quality

The recording quality options are 720p and 1080p, with upscaling available to output 2K and 4K, though the 4K upscaling is only available if you've recorded with one lens, not both. (The footage below is 1080p.)

The quality of video isn't the best available, especially when you compare it with footage that the latest smartphones can produce, but given the price of the camera, it's not that surprising. It's not unusable by any stretch, but if you need to pick out a number plate in the event of an incident you might struggle a little, depending on factors like what speed the car was travelling at and the weather.

> 10 tips for submitting good quality camera evidence to police

It struggles when the lighting is sub-optimal, which unfortunately is quite often in the UK, meaning that if you go under trees or through some shade then the output can be very dark and lacking in the quality I'd hoped for. It is possible to manually change the exposure settings of the camera through the app, and bumping up the exposure helped a lot with getting a brighter image, but it's a shame this isn't done automatically in the camera.

Also, there seems to be little in the way of vibration damping or image stabilisation, which is noticeable when the camera is mounted to the bike, and especially so when mounted to your helmet – it rattled around a lot due to poor tolerances of the helmet mount, and produced shaky footage (as well as making an annoying noise).

It's fine on smooth tarmac, but can mean some frames aren't really usable if you're riding over bumpy road surfaces, so should you have an incident here the video output might not be very useful.

I've also found that if there's any moisture on the camera lens then it's pretty useless, even struggling to pick up number plates on cars that pass quite closely.

The microphone is rather sub-optimal, too. I had one incident with a driver that wasn't caught clearly because of how little the microphone picked up, which was frustrating.

File storage & format

The camera stores files in two different folders, MOVIE and EMR, and I really can't work out what determines what goes where. On one ride I will get eight-second clips in the EMR folder, and five-minute clips in the MOVIE folder, but another ride will have it the other way around... But everything gets recorded, you just have to hunt a little.

It's worth noting that the Recall Rider camera outputs its videos in a .TS format, which is only playable through the app VLC Media Player – unless you want to pay for a plugin on other video player apps. If you don't want to use VLC you can convert them, but this takes a long time. Davinci Resolve, the video editor I use, is unable to process these videos, they needed to be converted into another format, which was a little frustrating.

Battery

A full battery lasted just under two hours, which, oddly, remained the same whether I was recording with both lenses or just one. This also didn't seem to be greatly affected by the quality which was being recorded at the time.

Recall includes a battery powerbank in the box (and a frame bag and waist pack to store it in), which can be used to boost the battery life to around seven hours.

If you use the powerbank then be aware that the USB-C port of the camera is exposed, should you need to use it in wet weather.

Value

The Recall Rider is cheaper than many cameras we've reviewed, and though the footage quality might not be as good, if you're just looking for something to protect you on your commute then it's a decent option.

It's about £50 less at RRP than the similar Techalogic DC-2 camera we reviewed last year (the Recall Rider is currently reduced to £179.99) and the video from both is very similar. The Techalogic's battery does last at least an hour longer without needing a powerbank boost, though.

Some of the latest GoPros are coming down in price – the Hero 10, for example, was £249.99 but is now £219.99. When it comes to comparing the video quality, a GoPro will win any day – but they only record in a single direction; you'd need two of them to catch footage from ahead and behind as the Recall Rider does.

Likewise, the Cycliq Fly12 is £299, and the quality is a bump up from the Recall Rider, but again it's a front-facing camera. To get the Fly6 Gen3 is another £209, so you're looking at just over £500 for recording in both directions.

If you're after a more permanently mounted solution, Innovv offers its K6 Dual Lens Camera, which is actually two cameras, front and rear. At £229.95, it's a little more than the Recall Rider, and a lot harder to remove, or swap around, but the quality is a little better.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a camera to make videos to stick on Instagram and the like, I'd recommend spending more for higher quality footage. But if you commute regularly on busy roads and simply want a way to provide video evidence in the event of an incident, the Recall Rider is a pretty good choice.

> Buy now: Recall Rider Dual Safety Camera for £179.99 from Recall

Verdict

Decent option for capturing footage while cycling, but the quality won't blow you away