A Real Game Changer
A majority of my bike rides, in rural southeast Georgia, are on 2-lane winding country roads. Many vehicles exceed the speed limit and drivers are not accustomed to encountering cyclists.
I was always on high alert while riding being vigilant to vehicular traffic. I purchased a Garmin Varia radar and am thrilled with the technology. Additionally, my anxiety level about vehicular traffic has diminished
considerably thanks to the Varia radar.
As a cyclist, I won’t leave home without it.
I was always on high alert while riding being vigilant to vehicular traffic. I purchased a Garmin Varia radar and am thrilled with the technology. Additionally, my anxiety level about vehicular traffic has diminished
considerably thanks to the Varia radar.
As a cyclist, I won’t leave home without it.
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Pleased
Have one for my bike and my wife’s bike. The Varia gives us both mor confidence when riding and it brings our safety to the forefront. The app works well and the unit does as well. It holds a good charge and I love how it begins flashing when a car is approaching. It gives great visibility to the approaching cars.
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Want to like it. Reminds me why I ditched Garmin
I’ve only had it for one day- the 715. According to everything I can read I have it all set up normally- my Wahoo Bolt connects to it just fine, but doesn’t show the radar LEDs anywhere. The radar alerts are ‘on’ in the settings. Something to figure out.
Setting up this app, however, seems even worse. The connection to the thing’s wifi to view videos is horrible, even when the phone is touching the device. I couldn’t get anything to play, just loads until it crashes. Not convinced it actually recorded anything because I have 50 2-second videos from a 1 hr ride (and I can’t view any of them). Keeps making an alert noise on my phone when it’s disconnected or connected, which wouldn’t be annoying if it were going on/off incessantly. Fix your software.
Setting up this app, however, seems even worse. The connection to the thing’s wifi to view videos is horrible, even when the phone is touching the device. I couldn’t get anything to play, just loads until it crashes. Not convinced it actually recorded anything because I have 50 2-second videos from a 1 hr ride (and I can’t view any of them). Keeps making an alert noise on my phone when it’s disconnected or connected, which wouldn’t be annoying if it were going on/off incessantly. Fix your software.
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Varia app
Never had a problem… it works great!
I guess it kinda works?
The app is quite… barebones. You can’t get a live look at the camera from what I can tell. At least the radar seems to work.
There’s quite a lot of bad here though. Clips take forever to view on the phone, to the point it’s faster to just take the SD card out of the radar and put it into a computer instead.
I can’t get to the camera settings at all, with the app saying the iPhone can’t join the Varia WiFi network. That really makes the mounting cumbersome because you have no idea whether the video it takes will be useful prior to it actually recording an incident.
All around I expected this to be way better for a Garmin product, and especially one that costs so much.
There’s quite a lot of bad here though. Clips take forever to view on the phone, to the point it’s faster to just take the SD card out of the radar and put it into a computer instead.
I can’t get to the camera settings at all, with the app saying the iPhone can’t join the Varia WiFi network. That really makes the mounting cumbersome because you have no idea whether the video it takes will be useful prior to it actually recording an incident.
All around I expected this to be way better for a Garmin product, and especially one that costs so much.
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An essential part of road safety
It was hard to check behind specially when riding in a group. I used this with the phone for a few days before I paired this to my Garmin computer. Helpful and I consider this as an essential tool for a safe road ride.
Merveilleux pour la protection
Très efficace le varia.j’aimerais tout simplement avoir des sons différents plusieurs choix. Et pourquoi pas une application pour Apple Watch quand on va faire que des commissions. Merci !
Love it but needs improvements
I love this app and my Varia since I got post move to Washington state. It picks up cars very well and allows me to ride more freely. However when it comes to accessing videos it leaves much to be desired
1- forces you to download videos on your cellular network which could be subject to a lawsuit since I can be charged more money due to bandwidth and the connection is much slower. My house is in a bad AT&T cell service and cannot stream or download data well when I’m off WiFi and connected to the Varia
2- allow for desktop connectivity for better viewing and manipulation of Harmon Varia stored data. Why don’t you provide more transparent and lean access to this cloud of data? It shouldn’t only be stored on tbe device.
Anyways thank you garmin for creating a device that makes me feel a lot safer but please please improve the UI and connectivity so I can access and download all videos more easily if needed
Thank you
Abe
1- forces you to download videos on your cellular network which could be subject to a lawsuit since I can be charged more money due to bandwidth and the connection is much slower. My house is in a bad AT&T cell service and cannot stream or download data well when I’m off WiFi and connected to the Varia
2- allow for desktop connectivity for better viewing and manipulation of Harmon Varia stored data. Why don’t you provide more transparent and lean access to this cloud of data? It shouldn’t only be stored on tbe device.
Anyways thank you garmin for creating a device that makes me feel a lot safer but please please improve the UI and connectivity so I can access and download all videos more easily if needed
Thank you
Abe
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Good app
The only feature I’m missing is having the notification of a car be a vibration on my Apple Watch instead of a beep.
There are a couple situations I’ve been where I just can’t hear the beeps - the watch would be such an easy fix.
There are a couple situations I’ve been where I just can’t hear the beeps - the watch would be such an easy fix.
Great safety app hobbled by lack of split-view support
I bought a couple of Garmin Varia units for my and my wife’s bike and have been happy with the accuracy of it and the sound alerts are nice (though I can’t make use of that in combination with the direct-connect capability of the Sena Pi headsets my wife and I use). But recently I decided it would be cool to use an older iPad mini I had lying around to mount to my handlebar and use the Varia app simultaneously with Google Maps, but no luck, because the Varia app doesn’t support split view. Come on! Garmin, please fix this ASAP.
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