Garmin Varia Radar - I have mirrors, do I need a Radar?
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- Опубликовано: 7 ноя 2023
- I'm testing Garmin Varia RTL515 bicycle radar on my velomobile. Let's find out do I really need a radar when I have good mirrors on my velomobile.
This video is not sponsored. I bought the Varia unit by myself. If you want to support my channel, click the super thanks button below the video or buy something from my shop: www.saukki.com/shop
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I've been using the Garmin radar rear light for more than 3 years (RTL500). It was essential on my diamond framed bikes. But now I'm nearly 100% recumbent and use mirrors. To be honest, the mirrors are so good I rarely get caught out by a car coming up unexpectedly. I do like that the flashing increases are the car closes. It's really not worth using this in town though - it detects car all the time. Great for country lanes though.
I use the Garmin Radar with the camera here in Japan. I love it. Even if I can see the cars with mirrors it helps alot. The lights that change when the car gets closer helps the driver to see us. Plus with the camera I have proof what the driver is doing. I was hit last year and the driver was trying to tell the cops I was the cause of the accident. Lucky for me I had my camera record it so I was able to prove what really happen. I would recommend it for anyone that rides.
if someone doesn't see these velomobiles u r either DUI or blind, night or day... the quatrevelo is a gigantic beacon at night especially from behind....
I have use RTL515 radar two years with my Strada. Its super reliable. I also listen to the radio while driving through headphones. A warning sound is also heard through the application. Cant drive without it!
I thought this radar rear light was a joke..... then I got one and I love it
What do you love about it?
@@iknowyouwanttofly I was hit from behind, by a car doing 60 mph in 2018. I knew nothing about it until I woke up on the floor in pieces. With this I know when a car approaches from behind. In the uk it may just be constant but I live in france now and cars are much more rare. Uts nice to know when a car is approaching
I can only say, use more flashing lights than you think you need. There are plenty of cheap bontrager, blackburn, etc that you can velcro to the back that will blink for hours and you can turn down the intensity of the light.
I've always thought that the radar feature is very strange, I'm not sure I want to know I'm about to die. I'd rather it just happen. I do like the idea of the light getting brighter as it detects a vehicle though.
Hei, joskus kauan sitten ajelin maantietä autolla ja tien reunassa oli joku epämääräisen näköinen valkoinen möykky, jonka ajattelin olevan roskapussi tai joku vastaava. Vasta ihan kohdalla tajusin, että se oli velomobiili (en sillon vielä tiennyt että tällaisia pyöriä on olemassa) ja siellä oli joku ihminen sisällä ja se oli liikkeessä.
Tämän virhearvion tajuaminen oli minulle aika järkyttävä kokemus, kun oikeasti en tajunnut sen olevan jonkunlainen kulkuväline, vaan matala profiili ja suoraan takaa katsottuna näytti minulle siinä valaistuksessa ja tilanteessa joltain ihan muulta.
Siinä ei ollut valoja eikä heijastimia, niinkuin näissä moderneissa versioissa on.
Kannattaa ehdottomasti panostaa kaikenlaisiin valoihin ja heijastimiin ja jos vaan pysyy, niin vaikka lippuun tms, joka auttaa autoilijoita tajuamaan, että kyseessä on kulkuväline.
Since I live in a city with lots of traffic, I think the radar part would be pretty annoying. What I did instead was to get a Feniex T3 flasher. It is super bright and has all types of different flash patterns. Flashing lights are legal here in United States. So far the light works really good to get the attention of drivers. But I also watch my mirrors a lot too, especially since a driver in the spring drove through a stop sign and hit me in the front. I was lucky that I was ok. I’m very sorry to hear the velomobile rider near you was killed.
there's even a btter version.
the rct715.
it has all the same features as the rtl515, but also has a camera.
I also have the RTL515 model because of the flashing modes.
2:46 Because flashing bike lights are illegal in Germany. Which is good because they are annoying, distracting, disorienting, can cause seizires and make the roads less safe overall. No amount of being annoying and dangerous to everyone else on the road will save you from someone who is drunk, driving distracted or hates cyclists.
So its okay for cars and trucks to have hazard lights in Germany to stop people driving into them, but pushbikes can't have blinking lights because they annoy car and truck drivers? Sounds like a law from the movie Idiocracy.
That's why you have crippled version called 516, which is probably comparable to a candle with its 15 lumens. All the rest of the world use blinking rear lights and everybody or almost everybody are happy.
If one can be provoked by a blinking light how can we be sure that they won't be provoked by anything else? Better think how to remove short tempered people (especially drunk or unstable) from the traffic instead of blaming cyclists, because they want to be visible.
@@rossbrumby1957 hazard lights are different from permanently blinking running lights. but you know that and just want to be annoying i guess.
What's up brother, long tome no video. U good?
Yeah, what happened?
RTL-515 is the best accessory I bought to my bicycle.
Since I'm riding upright bike, I don't need a mirror, because I can turn my head if I need to check the situation behind me (which with Varia is rarely needed). But in velo I would keep mirrors. At least velo has pretty decent mirrors, in typical bike mirror usually you can see something. Probably something is behind us or it isn't :D And or a road bike sometimes you see anything in the mirror, sometimes not, and sometimes you don't even see a mirror, depends on your position :D
If I'm not mistaken, Garmin computer should allow you to change modes on the fly, Wahoo, unfortunately doesn't.
BTW. While it can run up to 8 hours on single battery, you can still connect it to power bank and charge it and use it simultaneously.
PS. This is one of the best rear lights, in daily blinking mode visible from more than one kilometer. But despite its visibility and behavior when it detects a car behind us, drivers still tend to ignore bikers. :(
I guessing life sometimes happens to explain why no new videos in four months.🙁
I've been thinking of getting the Varia radar without the light (because I already have an annoying rear light Alve style). My question is - can the Varia detect approaching cars through the carbon fibre if it is mounted on the back wall INSIDE the trunk? It would be fantastic if you would be able to test this! 🧡
It depends on the frequency the radar is using and how that interacts with the composite. Some RADAR systems intentionally use frequencies which actually reflect off of carbon fiber. The easiest way to find out is to just ask it in the Garmin Forums-if there isn't somebody in the community whom knows then Garmin may pipe up with an answer.
As a cyclist I hate flashing lights, thanks was going to ask how mount as wanted to know same as garmin head unit, I'm tempted to go no mirrors (yes may sound bad) but install like a camera system and radar (camera so get rear and maybe a bit from sides while looking ahead)
Is flashing light legal in Finland? GER/SWE does it right , flashing is dangerous but you do you.
Hi mate,
Can you please advise a good set of power meter pedal to purchase.
I have a Millan SL on order and looking for good power meter thanks.
Saukki, I haven't seen any videos from you for a while. I hope you are OK
Dinotte Daytime Red. Brightness trumps gimmicks.
I fear this. I have a flag with a red led ligtht on my quattrovelo, but it is never enough I am affraid for dangerous drivers. I am thinking of replacing this with a blinking red light. Better have a fine than being dead.
how did you mount the mount on the velomobile? Is it easy to mount on a strada without removing the top?
It’s just adhesive mount. Easy to mount anywhere with good surface.
I found my QV rear tail light inadequate to be seen in day light! Also with just rear lights on my battery go’s dead after 8 hours. I ride for a living many days 12 hours , so I use A Cygolite Hotshot, about $40. US dollars, can be seen for 1 mile change last about 30 hours. For my QV I have a mount on left mirror bought with QV, it’s a camera, rear light and front faceing headlight, headlight has 5 modes, charge last for 30 hours, save my QV battery for turn signals and brake light! Very important here in U.S. I use my mirrors, can’t be looking down at devices, not smart! Phone for emergency’s. Offen I ride with group’s of a 1,000 cyclists the hotshot light has been on the marketplace for years. By the way to walk into a store for a cool one, just to find your 250 dollar device gone! For me it’s all about have a charged battery and keeping my simple as possible.
I found the ebay-part. Can you tell me, where I can get the other assembly-part from to detach the radar to the velomobil? Thank you!
Search for ”gopro adhesive mount” and ”gopro buckle mount”
Thanks! :)@@TheVelomobileChannel
have you more infos about the tragic accident?
Not much more than what I said in the video.
Japanese 3d fish flag is the go as well
Miten menee? Oletko vielä ajellut talvella? :)
Any video???? update???? Insta????
Sorry to hear about the reason for this video. Not just that someone died but as if that was not enough being run over from behind is perhaps the kind of colision where you have the least chances to do something about it even if you see it coming. Unless you can force yourself to crash off the road on purpose before the car catches you and do it in a tiny time window...
However I have to disagree with you about your choice of light. In my opinion you need 3 things from a light:
1. They have to see you, notice there is something there.
2. They should identify you as a cyclist - so not confuse you with a parked car or a stationary object or anything like that - the driver should subconciously expect a moving vehicle probably towards the side of the road probably slower than him.
3. Finally they need to recognize the speed and trajectory you are moving on - see if you are moving into their path or not, what is your speed to know when they will catch you up and such.
If your country allows flashing lights for cyclists then having the light flashing helps with 1 and 2 but not 3. Point 3 would be best served with a constant light. And if a driver gets confused on point 3 they can still crash into you even if they saw you in time. So personally I think the best compromise is reasonably fast regular flashing. The pauses need to be long enough to allow the flashes to have very high contrast. But the flash itself can be relatively low percentage of the total time to save batteries. I often make my own lights (mainly some pretty big on my helmet) and in my experience the best combination seems to be about 2 Hz 30% duty cycle. So it flashes twice per second and the light is 30% of the time on, 70% off. If the flash has 2W of power (for rear red light) it is very nicely visible on a sunny day. Even 0.5W is too much to be flashing during complete darkness - it will be annoying even you in your mirrors - so I switch to low power constand in total darkness.
Every time I see someone using the irregular flashing patern I always think they are not helping themselves much. The way it suddenly flashes few times quickly and then it sort of dies down again makes me think that if a driver was looking elsewhere at the wrong second then the moment they need to see the cyclist they only get the weak portion of the flashing. This radar thing mitigates this problem somewhat by intensifying the pattern when it senses a car approaching so it is not as bad as some other rear lights I sometimes see.
Some people tell me that my helmet with 3W of white LEDs on the front and 2W of red LEDs on the rear is a big overkill. But it is designed to never blind anyone (breaklights on a car are about the same intensity) and I would rather do this than risk not being seen. And it seems to push cars further away from me when they overtake me on my recumbent. So thats a nice bonus.
BTW I have not yet seen a single velomobile where I would consider factory standard rear lights and side signals to be adequate. Maybe I missed some brand/model but they all seam crazy weak to me. Most of them are not even visible on sunny summer day. And as this tragedy shows we unfortunately need increased visual presence all the time, not just at night.
Good points!
I have to add that in my case the flashing Garmin rear light is addition to the velomobile standard lights, which are not flashing. So I have steady tail lights combined with a flashing one. I failed to point this out in the video, but in my opinion this is the best approach to this rear light issue. Having only flashing light has indeed some issues, as you pointed out.
Cars have much more than 3 watts tail lights- led or incandescent. What's more important is surface area of tail light- bike tailblights are tiny, a virtual pinprick of light in the worst case. I have a $15 chinese 6 led 12v strip light on the back of my recumbent trike, about 17 flash options of which I chose the double flash every 2 seconds. At night I barely notice it in the mirrors though its nice and bright behind. I still think I should get 2 or 3 more and stack them for a decent size tail light especially for the daytime. You don't see cars with tiny tail lights for good reason- brightness matters less than size.
@@TheVelomobileChannel Yes, combining both can be the best and I have not pointed that out.
I use Smart Superflash (or it used to be called that years ago) in flashing mode on the rear of my recumbent. It lasts forever on 2 AAA batteries despite the flash from the 1W LED being quite strong. There is clever tricks in it to do this: they made two very short pules after each other instead of one longer one and there is collimation optics on the big LED so it is more concentrated in rear direction than the two smaller LEDs under it that shine to the sides too.
This I combine with DIY lights on my helmet. The latest iteration has 18 red 5050 LEDs embedded in 3D printed cover over the batteries and electronics on the rear of the helmet and 18 white ones on the front of the helmet. They can be flashing or constant and in both cases you can have all 18 running or just 6 of them. Additionally there is one 3W big LED with 10° optics on the front too to use in full sunlight in flashing mode and as a headmounted reflector in terrain at night.
So when going home from work I turn on the rear Superflash on the bike, turn on 3W front hubdynamo light and leave those on. Then as long as sun is up the front narrow beam and all 18 red rear ones on the helmet are flashing. As sun goes down and the narrow beam might blind someone i switch the front to the large surface 18 white diodes flashing. As it gets darker I switch both ends of the helmet to just 6 and 6 LEDs. When it gets so dark the flashing is annoying I swith it to constant. The whole time the front bike light is constant and the rear light on the bike is flashing.
This way I always get enough attention from drivers in every weather conditions or time of day. I have not had a driver obviously not seeing me since I implemented this system years ago. And also the only people who ever complain about my lights being blinding or too annoying are the idiots who go on a cyclepath in the dark without propper front lights of their own. Their eyes accomodate to the darkens and then when they meet me they feel blinded. Car drivers don"t flash their high beams at me or anything.
@@rossbrumby1957 You are right, the total area the light flux is coming from is important.
However I would hesitate to use car lights as benchmark for anything. They refused to start using LEDs until they could develop ones that fail often enough for their liking. They typically rung them pretty hot and inneficient and they don't bother with only sending the light where they need it. So comparing input wattage of this to another light cannot tell you the whole story about what will seem brighter from what distance. I have compared my helmet to car breaklights side by side and with an old car with light bulbs the helmet with just 2.2W of input power on the rear LEDs is almost as bright as single breaklight. And it is similar size to the break light on my Opel Agila. It surprised me quite a bit how strong it looks.
The size of the light stops being important once you are far away from it for its size to be bellow your angular resolution. You can have two lights one tiny one big but if you are 200m away and they both shine the exact same amount of flux into your eye you will not be able to tell which is the big one.
But once you get close it becomes very difficult (more like impossible) to have the small light not blinding if it is strong enough to seem strong from 200m away. If the shining surface is large enough then wherever your eye moves no part of your retina will be receiving flux so high it is painful. The power of the light is spread out over more of your light sensitive cells. If you concentrate the same light output into small light source then the image of that source on your retina will be all on a small part of it and that part will be overwhelmed and take long to recover after your eye points elsewhere. So this is another reason to make car lights larger: if you want them to be bright from long distance and yet not incredibly annoying in a traffic jam you have to distribute their power over larger surface.
So back to bike lights: you can have wery power efficitent small light that sends lets say just 1W of power in a narrow cone behind you. That will be visible from a kilometer away at night and 50-100m during the day for anyone who sticks their head in that cone. But as soon as it is not a bright day and someones head is just 10m from it they are now getting small point of their vision blasted with a lot of light. If overdone this can be even dangerously disorienting. But for car drivers there is an easy escape: just don't close pass the cyclist - the more space you give them the further away from the source your head leaves that cone of strong light. Which is why I think that to a degree such bike light can be good. Most drivers will not even conciously recognize they gave this cyclist more space. Obviously it must not be overdone with lights too strong.
I like your approach with the light bar, trikes are a bit easier for this as they are wide already. Personally I would go for faster flashing than once per 2 seconds but if it seems to be working well for you who am I to tell you otherwise.
ln my opinion until velomobiles are more widely spread its always going to be more dangerous to ride on the same road as cars because they dont expect something so low to the ground and dont even know what a velomobile is. They might think from a far its just an orange cone. Until there are separate bike paths and safe crossings everywhere, society is not ready for velomobiles :(
Irregular flashing backlights are not allowed in Germany 😞 not even regularly flashing lights.
Sad to hear about the loss of life of the velonaut.
Yeah, I know. That's too bad. But at least in Germany the law is clear. Here in Finland flashing rear lights are not forbidden, but not allowed either. So it's kind of a gray area.
Not a great light in terms of legal compliance… but…
I think that depend greatly on where you are. I know for sure in Czech Republic you can use this rear light on a bicycle (only, not on motor vehicles) without breaking any law. The law here literary says "bicycle in decreased visibility must be equipped with rear light of red color either constant or itermittent", nothing about being regular or not. I still think regular pattern is way better for reasons I explained in another comment but irregular is not illegal here.
If you are from Germany, there is "castrated" version RTL-516.
cry harder. I prefer staying alive even if it is illegal in your country witch it shouldn't
cry harder. I prefer staying alive even if it is illegal in your country witch it shouldn't
Mr. Saukki, I hope that you are away and spending time with your wife and children, and not run over by a vehicle. If you are alive and well, you should put out a community update; RUclips will kick you out of the partner program if you don't upload or make a community post for 6 months or longer.
I’m still alive 😄
Thanks for the heads up about the yt partner program. Maybe I should now make the post I’ve been planning for quite a long time, but never got around to 🤔
@@TheVelomobileChannel I'm glad to hear that! Definitely put out a community post!
*YES, yes, yes...* if you are _driving_ a circus vehicle on public roads or streets (illegally as always) *_please_* use mirrors, radar, a massive light set up, a pole with a flag, loudspeakers announcing your parade float, and even the occasional road flare to help people know your circus act is in motion. The good thing is that I suspect you only use the thing to beg online, and it usually sits in the corner of your garage collecting dust. Good luck on the money hunt, kid... you're going to need it.
Why so obnoxiuos comment? Are you from Massachusetts by acting like a m....hole? By the way, in europe (where Saukki lives) your bbshd clown motorcycle is illegal, not this velomobile.
You must be insecure yourself if you feel the need to pull others down. Let people enjoy things, maybe you will get a bit happier too.
I was thinking more along the lines of having a set of small, rearward-facing, heat-seeking missiles that use the radar for initial targeting.
@@Poef I'm content, Pumpkin. I ride every day... it centers me. However, I'm absolutely serious about recumbent riders making themselves easily visible in every way possible. If you had to ride about them much you'd agree. Lowriders can be dangerous on pedestrian infrastructure that's not designed for them.
oh roadrage Brian... u poor soul ... take ur meds and leave the good velomobile people in peace here coz on the roads ur kind is obnoxious enough...
btw like any bycicles, velomobiles are ROAD LEGAL 😂😂😂