SEEMEE DV bicycle camera review

I've been using GoPro Session 4 and Hero 5 black mounted on a helmet for recording my bike rides.

Buy SEEMEE DV camera tail light on Amazon (paid link): 

https://amzn.to/3tCOym0

The small Session camera works great for rides under 1 hour 20 minutes.

The Hero 5 is even better for rides under 1 hour 45 minutes.

And I've been using this, some unknown Chinese maker camera for up to 3 hours long rides.

Also I tried and returned Drift Ghost XL pro and GoPro Max 360.

No point of talking about the great video of GoPro Max 360 and engineering marvel of Ghost XL.

Batteries of both cameras failed in the first 3 days of use.

I bought a Magicshine SEEMEE DV camera taillight on Amazon.

It was delivered in a couple days on December 25th, 2023.

SEEMEE DV tail light is made specifically to use for bicycles.

The SEEMEE DV camera feels very solid and...sexy.

Unusual, pleasant to hold triangular shaped stick with rounded corners.

It comes with a 16 gigs memory card.

A short USB B to USB C cable.

A quick release seat post mount.

And a manual.

The camera is waterproof rated IPX6.

It took me a couple tries to insert the memory card.

It's not the easiest card slot to access for my short fingernails.

The quick release seat post mount means to be operated with one hand.

It's a very neat one!

Let's make sure the camera is fully charged before trying it out.

The SEEMEE camera comes with a large 3400mAh battery.

It takes 4.5 hour to fully charge this battery.

It's enough time to read the manual and to install the app :)

It took me 10 minutes to follow all the steps for connecting the app with the camera.

The camera has to be on. 

Connect your phone to the cameras' WiFi name CARDV with the default passport.

Powering On camera by default turns on the tail light in the last mode and starts video recording.

That is a fundamental safety future I want - be visibly on the road and have a video record.

The SEEMEE DV camera records HD 1080 30fps.

 NO AUDIO.

NO IMAGE STABILIZATION.

It records up to 3 minutes segments in a loop mode.

I put the GST (accident detection) sensor to the lowest mode for now.

Let's talk more about this future after I test it on the road.

We can use the phone for live viewing while the camera is connected over WiFi.

Here we go live view.

Some cyclists like to have rear live view for safety.

I personally prefer not to look at my phone screen on the go.

Rear view, maps, and whatever else - it's all distractions to me while I ride.

Let's check how long the battery will last recording with tail lights flash at room temperature.

I prefer to ride with all lights flashing for that matter.

The camera is on.

I start recording at 2pm.

I let the camera record until the battery completely died.

Now let's put the memory card in my computer.

The 16 gigs memory card has 14.4 gigs of useful space.

The space is not an issue for loop recording.

The camera automatically overwrites the old files to make space for new files.

All normal ride files stored in this folder.

I am looking for the last record.

The last record was made at 8:36 pm.

So, the total recording time in HD with tail light flush was 6 hours 30 minutes.

Great! It's double my average 3 hours ride a day.

Now let's check how many hours of videos were stored on this card.

Select all video files...

The total time of saved files is 2 hours 34 minutes.

I need 4 times more space to save all videos recorded on full battery charge before the camera starts overwriting old files.

Let's take the SEEMEE camera for the test ride in the dark.

I am going to attach the SEEMEE camera to the handlebar for this ride.

And I will record the same ride with GoPro Session 4 on my helmet.

So, we could compare videos.

I love the quick release mount!

That's how the SEEMEE looks like on the handlebar.

I may need to readjust the angle...this will do for the test ride.

I love the SEEMEE red lights flashing on the sides too.

It adds safety!

GoPro Session 4 vs SEEMEE DV

Here you can see and compare footage from both cameras.

GoPro 1080 60 fps on the left.

SEEMEE DV 1080 30 fps on the right.

I commute a lot in dark hours.

Videos recorded in dark are generally worse quality than videos recorded in daylight.

SEEMEE DV camera surprised me with better video quality than the GoPro Session 4.

Wait till we get to the brighter places with incoming traffic.

The GoPro Session also has image stabilization and it's mounted on my helmet.

Frankly, I don't see much of an advantage in this over SEEMEE DV.

It cannot be that my head shakes more than handlebars on any bumps.

The incoming light makes another difference you can see here.

Each camera has cons and pros.

What I actually see with my eyes when I ride is quite different from what any camera can show :)

I took a ride from Roosevelt Island to Columbus Circle in NYC and back.

It's a total about 40 minutes ride of 9 miles, mostly decent bike lines over two bridges.

SEEMEE camera saved all normal files in the folder named Normal.

Let's switch to the folder named Event.

That is where SEEMEE saves videos of accidents.

Oh...the SEEMEE accident detector in the low setting gets triggered on relatively small bumps.

There are more than 10 minutes of videos in this folder protected from overwrite.

The SEEMEE camera could run out of memory space even on short slow rides with this future ON.

Let's check what accident triggered this.

That was not a really big bump!

Okay, let's delete all "accidents" video files.

I have an idea how to save videos of accidents without use of the accident sensor.

Let's get to the settings.

Turn OFF the GST aka accident sensor.

Turn off the camera.

And replace the 16 gigs memory card with 64 or 128 gigs memory card.

That's enough memory to record the whole ride on a fully charged battery without overweighting any files.

If an accident happens, I will need to save the file manually on my phone before I charge the camera again. 

That's much less trouble than daily chores deleting protected video files for making space.

The SEEMEE DV camera has no audio.

This time I attached the SEEMEE on the back to record the rear view.

And I use the GoPro Hero 5 black mounted on my helmet to record the front view.

It is the rear view SEEMEE DV camera that recorded the license plates of the car before and after a potential accident.

The SEEMEE DV camera is made for cyclists.

And I loved it!

Have fun and safe rides :)