I purchased the Innovv H5 unit for use when riding various motorcycles I own ranging from the 1970s to modern stuff and specifically wanted one that was easily portable across the bikes without having to either rewire each time I changed bike or requiring me to buy multiple wiring kits etc., so a 5 hour attached battery seemed a good option with the additional benefit of being useable either attached to a Helmet or on the GoPro style fittings on the bikes.
Only had the Camera a week and used for a few small journeys so am still getting to grips with it. I like how easy it is to operate in use but unless I’m missing something then it does seem to have a few unexpected issues which I have logged with Tech Support and awaiting a response.
First problem is the built in Microphone which seems to be either not working properly on this particular unit or is just pretty useless. I’ve used with both the Helmet fitting as well as a GoPro style fitting fixed to the motorcycles and have also tried adjusting the microphone settings via the app, but get the same results which are frankly terrible. In use the microphone won’t even pick up twin 95db exhausts less than a meter from the camera, while at the same time at any speed above 25mph the wind noise it picks up is deafening. It doesn’t even pick up the sound of a horn! I hope this is a problem with this specific unit else the camera on these is void of useable sound and that’s not what I wanted or for a kit selling for this price. I have a few sub £15 cameras and their sound is great. For the price of the kit you shouldn’t have to be watching back a silent video and should the footage be required due to an incident then the sound would seem to be a key piece of evidence.
This brings up the second issue of using the external microphone and the way it’s been designed. The external Mic seems to be designed for use inside a Helmet and the supplied wire length is 50cm suggests it’s only useable when the camera is attached to a helmet. That’s okay of you want to record your own voice or heavy breathing, but that’s not really my thing! It has been designed so you could buy & fit a longer jack plug cable connected in series, but that’s another cable dangling around the bike plus I’ve no idea if the cables or the Mic are actually waterproof if you wanted to fit somewhere on the bike. You also can’t use the 5hr battery pack if you want to use the external Mic and would need to use another power source. You’d then have multiple cables running off the camera for the Mic and for power and that starts to get very messy and problematic. Whilst some of my modern bikes do have USBs (but you’d have to have cables hanging around while riding the machines), my older 70s & 80s do not have USBs and the batteries fitted to them are a wee bit too small to try to power external devices. I’d have to invest in some kind of battery pack, carry it in my jacket and have cables running off the unit, which would be a real faff. Why wouldn’t the kit have some kind of ‘pass through’ connection to allow use of their battery and an external Mic? These issues sort of negate the reasons I purchased the camera kit.
The next few points are lower priority to me, but I think worth pointing out.
The download speed of the video clips to the app is very slow as these are fairly large files. I have Dash Cams in the car which generate similar size files yet seem to download much quicker over WiFi. I’ve found removing the card and connecting directly into a PC is really the only useable option. This raises another design issue, the SD slot is inaccessible without first removing the battery, which in turn means removing a fairly flimsy plastic ‘clip’ which snap-fits around the camera. Every time I do this it worries me that these will snap as they have to stretch and then spring back into place and I’m sure these must have a limited life and will eventually either break or lose their elasticity for securing the camera. I went to buy some spares and found the GoPro style one is £9.99, but they don’t supply the Helmet clip on its own and want £45.99 for complete fitting. Surely they must know this is a perishable part and would offer the clips at a more reasonable price. BTW you also have to remove and refit these clips each time you want to recharge the battery as the charging point is in the same location as the SD card inside the casing.
From a safety & security perspective the supplied fittings are made of thin plastic, whether fitted to a Helmet or on the bike with a GoPro style mount, and this is a fairly expensive bit of kit. I’d want to have some kind of tether fitted as backup, such as a small wire loop or even a zip-tie, in case the mount was to give way whilst riding but there is nowhere obvious to attach to the camera. I’m still looking for options.
