Garmin Varia RTL510 Marketing gimmick or really works?

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thirdsun
Posts: 402
Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:20 pm

by thirdsun

Meh...love that radar and light, use it on every ride, but have no need for the camera. Plus, it seems the battery life is significantly decreased. Not a useful upgrade to me.
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pmprego
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Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 3:16 pm

by pmprego

thirdsun wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 1:34 pm
Meh...love that radar and light, use it on every ride, but have no need for the camera. Plus, it seems the battery life is significantly decreased. Not a useful upgrade to me.
To compete with go pro of this life :)

djel
Posts: 181
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2016 12:29 am
Location: Montreal, CA

by djel

DC Rainmaker reviewed it already and it doesn't look like it's worth it.
But that’s really the least of the issues. The core of my problems with the RCT715 is the app. It’s impossible to find the clips you want. Garmin’s assumption here seems to be that the app is only going to ever be used in a crash/incident, where incident detection triggers, or you where you manually tag a flagrant driver on your bike computer as your ride. And I can see how they came to that assumption. After all, certainly they tried using the app and realized it’s impossible to find anything when it splits your ride into 30-second pieces. So a 3hr ride is 360 pieces to sift through. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the enumeration and display of those segments is so painfully slow that you’ll give up long before you get to the downloading portion. But assuming you do get that far with your patience, it’ll take 3-4 minutes to download a 30-second clip.
Perhaps Garmin will update the app and firmware, but it doesn't look user friendly at all.

EvilEuro
Posts: 333
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2009 10:03 am

by EvilEuro

You would think that with all of the complaints / highlighting of issues that folks have had with the Cycliq Fly 6, and the suggestions for improvements on the Fly 6, that this should have been a slam dunk for Garmin to execute. Everything was laid out for them already as to what folks were expecting.

Instead we get a product with a half-baked software solution that has so much promise... and leaves so much to be desired. Garmin looked at every negative stereotype that exists about them (high price, poor software, piss poor execution of something that should've been obvious) and decided that those were the benchmarks they would nail. Just head-shakingly poor of them.

I expect this product to get better with time and for me to eventually own it to replace my Fly 6CE. I'm just annoyed that they botched the release of this so badly, yet not surprised at the same time.

Hopefully they won't screw up the launch of Edge 840, whenever that happens.

Last thing -- I'm glad Ray was so blunt, brutal, and honest with his review of the RCT715. He is definitely an outsized voice whom Garmin pays attention to and here's to hoping that this poor of a review causes a massive revamp on the underlying software sooner rather than later. I guess he's not on the Garmin payroll after all. :)

Butcher
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Posts: 1925
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 4:58 am

by Butcher

The only reason that I see a camera worth carrying around is for my relatives to find out why I'm dead. This camera would be perfect for that. Mine is on order.

Ray reviewed this camera poorly. He reviewed it as a social media camera. That does not seem what Garmins purpose was, it's a bit unfair review. It's like Ray reviewing a security camera and says it can't make movies. Well, duh! I like Ray, but he is so far off base and this one is should not be considered a review. It's more like he is upset that they did not make a camera to fit his needs. I'm certain Garmin will get right on that.

I will let the Police and Lawyers figure out how to use it when it becomes that time.

TobinHatesYou
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Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:02 pm

by TobinHatesYou

Cameras are useful in proving liability in less-than-fatal collisions or road rage incidents. It's a fine product concept, but the Varia suffers from the same problems as the Fly6 CE...the camera isn't good enough. We're better off with a Hero 9/10 + aftermarket extended battery-pack.

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ms6073
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Location: Houston, Texas

by ms6073

I have posted on a couple of occasions about Garmin updating the Varia with a camera but I had always assumed that this would include that the ability to live-stream the video via a Widget a Garmin computer so that the rider could see the traffic as it approached. While I will not debate the utility of the new model, I am very disapponted that we are yet to have a means of live streaming the video from a rear mounted camera to help riders assess whether avoidance manuevers are required so as to savoid a collision!
- Michael
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jlok
Posts: 2400
Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2015 3:30 am

by jlok

TobinHatesYou wrote:
Thu May 19, 2022 6:11 pm
Cameras are useful in proving liability in less-than-fatal collisions or road rage incidents. It's a fine product concept, but the Varia suffers from the same problems as the Fly6 CE...the camera isn't good enough. We're better off with a Hero 9/10 + aftermarket extended battery-pack.
Any solution suitable for mounting at the saddle?
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TobinHatesYou
Posts: 12456
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:02 pm

by TobinHatesYou

jlok wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 3:58 am
TobinHatesYou wrote:
Thu May 19, 2022 6:11 pm
Cameras are useful in proving liability in less-than-fatal collisions or road rage incidents. It's a fine product concept, but the Varia suffers from the same problems as the Fly6 CE...the camera isn't good enough. We're better off with a Hero 9/10 + aftermarket extended battery-pack.
Any solution suitable for mounting at the saddle?

https://digipower.com/products/9hr-acti ... ll-weather

Stuff like this would just mount to a plain old GoPro adapter, of which there are many saddle-based options.

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guyc
Posts: 1742
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by guyc

EvilEuro wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 7:17 pm
You would think that with all of the complaints / highlighting of issues that folks have had with the Cycliq Fly 6, and the suggestions for improvements on the Fly 6, that this should have been a slam dunk for Garmin to execute. Everything was laid out for them already as to what folks were expecting.

Instead we get a product with a half-baked software solution that has so much promise... and leaves so much to be desired. Garmin looked at every negative stereotype that exists about them (high price, poor software, piss poor execution of something that should've been obvious) and decided that those were the benchmarks they would nail. Just head-shakingly poor of them.

I expect this product to get better with time and for me to eventually own it to replace my Fly 6CE. I'm just annoyed that they botched the release of this so badly, yet not surprised at the same time.

Hopefully they won't screw up the launch of Edge 840, whenever that happens.

Last thing -- I'm glad Ray was so blunt, brutal, and honest with his review of the RCT715. He is definitely an outsized voice whom Garmin pays attention to and here's to hoping that this poor of a review causes a massive revamp on the underlying software sooner rather than later. I guess he's not on the Garmin payroll after all. :)
Can't argue with any of that.

Butcher
Shop Owner
Posts: 1925
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 4:58 am

by Butcher

I just picked mine up today. Went on a ride and looked at the videos. The radar works like my retired RTL510. I'm still trying to figure out the new toy. I like the setting where the light flashes more as objects approach. I thought I could set that using my 830, but I did not spend a lot of time reading the manual. I suspect most of us are that way. I was able to install the factory mount to keep the unit high so my legs will not hit the light. The RTL510 stock mount was ditched because of that.

All I want with a camera is some recorded information before I'm dead. If I'm lucky, the information will be recorded before I get hit. This works well for that. I used the Garmin app and was able to view my video clips within seconds of pressing play. As you would expect, if the camera is pointing back, it's not going to record anything other than the bad.

My rides are typcially 2 hours or less. I suspect the most I would ride is not much more than 6 hours. The battery life should be ok for me. I ride in the city a lot so I suspect I would keep the video on continuous. If I rode in the country and wanted maxium battery life, I would have it on the auto mode [records when object are approaching].

If you are looking for a camera to brag about your ride, this is probably not it. If you are looking for proof of some jack wagon hitting you from behind, it works as advertised. I highly doubt I will look at any videos in the future. I suspect that the video's will be recorded over and over each other. None will be posted for other to gawk at. I can only hope the lawyer and insurance companies will make good use of the information when I'm no longer posting.

It's not nearly as bad as what DC Rainmaker makes it out to be. If you are looking for a GoPro with a tail light, I guess you would be upset. Since it's not sold that way, I do not think Garmin is misleading anyone.

I stopped by my friends work to show him and he says it looks hideous. It's a pregnant RTL510/515.

req110
Posts: 867
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2018 10:23 am

by req110

I have RTL515, and unlike RTL510, i am getting outrageous amount of false positives (alarms) from riders behind me while road cycling.

I wouldn't have problem with getting one alarm from rider who shows up and chasing me. That's would be normal.

Problem is that if i go riding with my partner, and she is behind me all the time, there are sometimes situations, where i get like 7 false positivies while she is 1-2m behind me and for example moving from my left to ride side. ALARM/CLEAR/ALARM/CLEAR/ALARM/CLEAR/ALARM/CLEAR/ALARM/CLEAR/ALARM/CLEAR/ALARM/CLEAR like this during one maneuver. This sometimes happen even if she is stable 1m behind me. Drives crazy. This is happening multiple times during our rides and making the device completely useless.

This was not happening on RTL510.

- Happens on MTB, road or gravel bike
- Happens with original mount provided by garmin
- Happens in multiple heights on seatpost
- Tested with Garmin Edge 830 + Wahoo Bolt v1, v2, all same.
- Tested with Varia app on my iphone, happens as well.
- Serial number 6EZ159607.
- Unpaired, paired, same results
- Latest firmware 3.32, garmin express says it's up to date
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stermyx
Posts: 107
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2022 4:31 pm

by stermyx

I have used for more than 4 years the Garmin Varia and im totally in love with this gadget. Now im searching the lightest mount for Varia. Do you know what is??

Thanks.

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lukaszzsch
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Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2021 1:31 pm

by lukaszzsch

Check shapeways

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