Tooo Cycling Front Camera Light Combo - DVF100

The Tooo Cycling Front Camera Light Combo DVF100 reliably saves crisp footage of your rides – so long as the road is smooth and you don't need usable sound – but its physical design needs a serious rethink. It's like the designers don't actually ride bikes, or even particularly try their own products.

Making a box with only two buttons confusing to use is actually quite an achievement, but Tooo combines haphazard instructions with buttons that are almost indistinguishable from the case to make it so.

After some fiddling (and a full six seconds holding the button to switch it on) you can work out what to do, of course, and from that point on you only need ensure it's recording and it'll take care of securing the footage – despite the manual's implication that button presses are necessary to save videos. At least the little touchscreen is clear and responsive, and you can adjust the various settings easily via a couple of menus.

With it attached screen-up to your bars you can at least check for the blinking red recording indicator (the screen may need waking), but if you've mounted it below an out-front mount on the supplied GoPro bracket, you've only an absolutely minuscule white LED to tell you what it's doing.

The manual says to tap the front button once to start recording, then use the big red button on the touchscreen to stop. But if you're hanging this from an out-front mount, the screen is out of sight... there's no mention that a double press of the button will stop the recording.

The manual further says you need to press the rear button once to save a video 'specifically' after an incident, and twice to save a 20 minute video. Do so and you'll see a little 'lock' icon on the file. The unit actually saves everything automatically, however, and you only need the lock to protect a file from being overwritten. Even if you shut the DVF100 down as it's recording, it will still save video up until the last second. That's good if you're the forgetful type.

Long recordings are broken up into chunks, and the default file is three minutes, but you can alter that to five or 10. It's quite a handy way of doing it, as you're likely to be searching for a specific event among miles of ordinary riding, and this helps. One of my single presses to save a video 'specifically' resulted in a zero-second file, however, and I'm still uncertain what 'specifically' means, erm, specifically.

Technically you really will need to use the file-locking presses on longer rides, as eventually the 128Gb internal memory is overwritten with new files – it loops so the memory is never unavailably full. Exactly how long those rides will need to be isn't clear, though, as while Tooo claims 2,400 minutes (40hrs) before it loops, it doesn't say which resolution that's using.

The DVF100 can do everything from 4K at 30fps or 1080p 120fps, right down to 720p at 30fps, while the default is 2K and 60fps. Clearly it's going to record longer in 720p than 4K. My tests in the 2K 60fps default gave around 10hrs before it started looping, so presumably the 2,400 minute duration is in 720p.

On the upside, given that a full battery charge only lasts around seven hours and that, as a dash cam, it's most likely to be used on relatively short journeys across busy urban locations, it's largely a moot point.

Less of a moot point is that Tooo says files are 'protected' 'in the event of an incident,' and by that I assumed the unit would detect an impact via the six-axis gyro and apply the 'locked' status automatically. That doesn't seem to be the case.

As I didn't fancy crashing, I instead dropped the DVF100 from waist height onto carpet while recording, and no lock icon appeared to indicate the file was protected. I tried again from chest height onto wood; again, there was no change to the status of the recording, just a hell of a bang. I didn't go further for fear of breaking it, but from this I'd say you (or somebody else) would need to stop the recording manually after a crash. It's probable the battery would go flat before any evidence was overwritten, at least.

There's a small chance the DVF100 will cause your crash in the first place, as the buttons are wretched. Even with bare hands they're hard to feel as they're almost flush with the case and have the same smooth finish; the travel on them is tiny and lacking any sense of resistance; and the raised dot on the front button feels the same as the edge of both buttons.

I measured these switches as sticking 0.5mm above the case, with just 0.4mm of resistanceless travel. The raised dot that's supposed to differentiate one button from the other is just 0.3mm high, or around half the thickness of a fingernail.

As a result it's hard to tell if you're touching a button or just the case, let alone which button it is. Even when you're on target, it's very hard to know if you've actually pressed it, and if you're wearing gloves it's anyone's guess. This style of 'hidden controls on an expensive 90s hi-fi' look is arguably very slick visually, but it's totally, totally unsuited to cycling.

While we're on the subject, the box shape is fine until you try to fit it in the Garmin-style bar mount. The unit needs to go in at 90 degrees and then twist to lock, which is fine, but the mount needs to be near the stem and there's no clearance in the camera's flat base for that. You can't attach the mount first and then fit the rubber bands either, as the camera blocks the hooks for the bands. The only option is to mash camera and mount together, overstretch the bands and scratch that fancy casing as you twist it across your stem. As there's no quick release, you'll be doing this every time you're away from a secure location.

Once on, it is at least solid and stable enough to give the image stabilisation lots to do, but unfortunately that stabilisation is poor and there's noticeable shake and judder on all but the smoothest tarmac. With minimal shaking the Sony IMX 307 CMOS sensor gives a picture that's plenty clear enough to show number plates – even on the middling default resolution – but rough roads can seriously blur the images, especially at any sort of speed.

You could mount it on your helmet via a GoPro mount for a smoother ride, but at 145g (Tooo claims 90.5g!) the result is top heavy, and if you want the controls you'll need to take your helmet off – it's all but impossible to work while out of sight.

The DVF100 records sound, of sorts, but the mic is muffled by the IPX5 waterproofing and so overwhelmed by wind noise that everything over 5mph sounds like rockets taking off mixed with desperate knocking sounds from lost submarines, asteroid strikes, and that bit in Alien when the Nostromo explodes and just keeps exploding.

Calling it a 'combo' is a bit of a stretch too, as the small light is as basic as they come. It's quite bright at 100 lumens, but its single setting is a random flash and the small lens gives zero visibility from the side. It feels more like a minor extra than a true second function. For town and city use – at least for me – it's only useful as a backup to a proper light with side vision and selectable modes (the box claims 'multiple light settings,' but the single alternate option is 'low power').

The inclusion of adaptors for USB C and mini USB (from regular USB) is a nice touch, and transferring the MP4 files is an easy drag and drop affair. The videos are split between two folders – Archive and Movie – with Archive containing the locked files. Strangely, when connected to my computer, our boxed and apparently full-production unit showed up as Novatech Demo1.

Both file transfer and charging are handled via a magnetic lead, so the unit is very well sealed.

There are no ports or any need for rubber bungs, and a full charge takes just over four hours.

Value

At £299.99 this is up against some serious competition, and unfortunately it comes up short. The Innovv K6 Dual Lens Camera got a positive review when Dave tested it, for instance, and it's only 7g heavier than the Tooo despite featuring both front and rear cameras. It's £70 cheaper at £229.95.

The 4K Safety Camera also films both ahead and behind, is usefully lighter at 115g and is close to half the price at £159.99. It doesn't produce the best quality footage, but otherwise it's very useable.

For another £30 Recall does its Recall Rider Dual Safety Camera (£189.99 and 109g), which is far crisper and, while still not perfect, is also well designed for the task.

If you really want a helmet cam, it's worth checking out the little GoPro Hero, which also does 4K, weighs just 86g, and features the fantastic HyperSmooth stabilisation. You're not going to get the same sort of battery life as a dedicated dashcam, but at least the footage you do get will be clear and smooth. It's a third cheaper than the Tooo at £199.99.

Our best bike cameras buyer's guide covers our top choices from just over £100 to over £450.

Overall

Even I feel like I've given this a bit of a kicking, but at heart this will record reasonable quality footage, keep number plates mostly legible, and last a reasonable amount of time doing it. It's fairly simple to use once you've messed around with it a while, and the build quality/waterproofing feel good. So it's not all bad.

It's just that so much of it is not as good as it should be. The overall shape is ill-considered, the buttons are completely wrong for the job, and the lamp's usefulness is restricted by the minimalist styling – the DVF100 looks smart, but as a direct result it works poorly. That's not impressive. Meanwhile the image stabilisation and sound recording is not really up to the task, especially given the competition.

The unfortunate reality is, you can get similar quality and a design that's far better suited to cycling elsewhere, and for less money tooo.

Verdict

More expensive than many far more effective designs