Rear radar - any good?

[simongt]

Rant alert! I was looking forward to getting another car but after being a passenger in my neighbours new car im not.

With you on this one Chief Broom. Recently bought a two year old Kia Ceed replacing our 15 year old Hyundai I.30 and it has more techno that you can shake a stick at - !
Thing like that auto adjusting headlights are useful, but I still don't trust the reversing camera and use the door mirrors when I do reverse.
Trouble is that it is very difficult to get away from techno in cars now unless you can find a very good make / model about fifteen years old.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Rant alert! I was looking forward to getting another car but after being a passenger in my neighbours new car im not. The damn thing warns/beeps every few minutes and even overrides the steering,well **** that! The relevance here being i venomously hate tech and its vile intrusion.
My bike will remain the last bastion against tech ***te and my mirror will go on doing its job.

It is probably like mine and the beeps can be disabled if you spend a few minutes going through the menu

probably - if I ever buy another car I will be checking this out before I part with any money - mine was annoying when I first got it!

 

[cougie uk]

I was sceptical until I got one. Then my pals hooked into my sensor on a sunday ride. Now they both have one.

If you know someone with one - just add their radar as a sensor. It gives you eyes in the back of your head.

Sure you can hear traffic behind you - but you can't hear cars idling behind you or hear properly if you're on a fast twisty descent.

It's a big hit for me now I've used it.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I was sceptical until I got one. Then my pals hooked into my sensor on a sunday ride. Now they both have one.

If you know someone with one - just add their radar as a sensor. It gives you eyes in the back of your head.

Sure you can hear traffic behind you - but you can't hear cars idling behind you or hear properly if you're on a fast twisty descent.

It's a big hit for me now I've used it.

Yeah - some electric cars are difficult to hear with the wind in your ears

 

[Ridgeway]

It was a Garmin Varia I was given, I take it no one else makes a similar product. It's not exactly obvious from the product name what it does, which would explain why I'd never bothered with any of those threads before.

But if you've all had them for ages, what are you using them with?
View attachment 758073

Use mine on a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt, works well.

Question is what did you try to connect it that didn’t work ?

 

[cougie uk]

Yeah - some electric cars are difficult to hear with the wind in your ears

A lot of 'normal' cars are very quiet when they're tailing a cyclist too.

 

[PaulSB]

It was a Garmin Varia I was given, I take it no one else makes a similar product. It's not exactly obvious from the product name what it does, which would explain why I'd never bothered with any of those threads before.

But if you've all had them for ages, what are you using them with?
View attachment 758073

With regard to connection I think you have simply been unlucky. I'm currently using a borrowed Garmin Varia with light and radar only. It connected seamlessly and first time with my Wahoo Roam. It now connects every time the Roam is within range.

I too was in the why bother camp, another bit of unnecessary tech. Last June I was hit from behind by a tractor driver doing 35mph. Yes, I knew it was there but didn't know it would hit me!!!!

In October I began to consider a Varia. A friend offered to lend me his old one to trial before buying from him. I have previously relied on sound and frequent shoulder checks. I became aware people with a Varia would call "car back" before I heard it. For me this is a game changer.

The Varia picks up vehicles 200+ metres away. I then shoulder check to see what is there and what action, if any, I should take. After a major RTC, which I'm lucky to have survived, the Varia gives me added confidence.

Two points to stress; it is most definitely NOT a safety device but an information device. Secondly it's no substitute for the correct shoulder checks when maneuvering or when one is informed of a vehicle behind

If you decide to give it another go don't bother with the camera version. As a friend commented all it does is give your family a video of you being wiped out. A video of the tractor driver running me down would have made no difference to his being charged with due care or the outcome of the PI and property claims I have against him.

I think this is a valuable piece of kit and I speak as someone who dismissed it as a gimmick......until I used it.

 

[Mr Celine]

Use mine on a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt, works well.

Question is what did you try to connect it that didn’t work ?

A Garmin Edge 530

 

[Sea of vapours]

That's odd, the Edge 530 is listed as compatible with the RCT715 on Garmin's compatibility table for the RCT715:
https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/721258/pn/010-02476-00#devices
i.e. it should have worked.

That said, however, if you do decide to (re-) try one, the RTL515 (radar plus light unit) is perhaps sufficient, as others have said, and more 'tried and tested'. It's certainly an awful lot cheaper, weighs less, and has much better battery life.

Oh! And currently £125 in Tredz's January sale, rather than the RRP of £170.

 

[HLaB]

A Garmin Edge 530

It should work fine:

This reviewer connected to their 530 https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/reviewed-garmin-varia-rct715/

This may help:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOvK80fGWV8

 

[Mr Celine]

That's odd, the Edge 530 is listed as compatible with the RCT715 on Garmin's compatibility table for the RCT715:
https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/721258/pn/010-02476-00#devices
i.e. it should have worked.

That said, however, if you do decide to (re-) try one, the RTL515 (radar plus light unit) is perhaps sufficient, as others have said, and more 'tried and tested'. It's certainly an awful lot cheaper, weighs less, and has much better battery life.

Oh! And currently £125 in Tredz's January sale, rather than the RRP of £170.

As I said upthread, the user manual states it's only compatible with the 1040, 840 and 540.
link to user manual

And I wasn't impressed with their suggestion that I go to their sales page and buy one that is.

 

[HLaB]

As I said upthread, the user manual states it's only compatible with the 1040, 840 and 540.
link to user manual

And I wasn't impressed with their suggestion that I go to their sales page and buy one that is.

Sounds like a typical con to get you to upgrade. I've just remembered my mate got it (the RTL-C 715) when it first came out before the X40 series of Edge's existed, he uses an 820 or 830 I think.

 

[Sea of vapours]

As I said upthread, the user manual states it's only compatible with the 1040, 840 and 540.
link to user manual

I know you did. That's why I posted the above.

The user manual doesn't say that it is *not* compatible. What it appears to do is list the *current* models in each range with which it *is* compatible. It's rather poorly worded, given that their product sales page explicitly says that the two devices you have (or had) are compatible. I think that's why they are directing you there. i.e. since they don't want to put all their old models, with which it's compatible, in the manual. Hardly a novelty for Garmin, that sort of thing. (By which I mean both both lack-lustre documentation and encouraging pointless 'upgrades'.)

 

[Mike_P]

My Varia works with my Bolt v1 and Garmin 530. The one benefit of it on the 530 its clear that there is an approaching vehicle as on the Wahoo when following route directions exactly the same alert comes up for a missed turn.

 

[mjr]

Given that, when driving, you should be looking in mirrors every 6-7 seconds,

That's not what the national standard for driving requires, is it? Nor should it be, as if you have to look in the mirrors that often when you're on a quiet fenland road with visibility (and often the distance to the next corner) measured in miles, then you're a farking goldfish and shouldn't be driving a car anyway. Whereas when moving a motor vehicle around in a busy urban street, you probably should be slowing down and checking mirrors more often even than that.

to replicate that standard / reasonable level of rearward situational awareness on a bike, you'd have to be shoulder checking similarly frequently. Quite possibly, to do that safely would require remarkably low speed, which might itself be hazardous.

Now I'm wondering how you look rearward if you think it's easier at remarkably low speed. And you can look backwards on most bikes, not merely shoulder check: most don't have a headrest or restrictive helmet limiting that view. Indeed, the national standard for cycling says we should be able to look behind, although the Bikeability Trust do make allowances if it is "hard for you to turn your body or head to look behind. In that case, you can use aids like cycle mirrors to help you" and I think that's where these radars fit in, as another aid for people who can't look back.

They are suited to alerting when you might not be making a manoeuvre but where knowing that a vehicle has appeared would be worth knowing (always!). Quiet, rural roads are key example of that. I don't imagine you look behind you every few seconds in that scenario, and in some wind conditions it's not easy to hear approaching vehicles either.

Is it always worth knowing? Most drivers around here where we have to share the roads are cool, so beep-beep-beep would be mostly an irrelevant worry any time I wouldn't otherwise look. The few drivers who are a problem that you might be able to react to... well, you tend to hear them coming a long way off, as they're all revs, rage and thundering tyres. And what can you do anyway? It's been pretty obvious most times I've had to hit the hedge.

How often I look behind tends to be based on how many seconds of road behind me were clear when I last looked, and I don't find it difficult to hear approaching large vehicles in most wind conditions because I don't deafen myself with headphones or straps that catch the wind over my ears. Rain thumping on my hood does make it more difficult but even then, it's do-able, as the rain is a far higher pitch than the tyres. I suspect rain would make it more difficult to hear the beeper than it does the cars.