Varia™ RCT715, Bicycle Radar with Camera and Tail Light, Continuous Recording, Vehicle Detection

After using the Garmin Varia RCT715 for a while, I can confidently say it is one of the best safety investments I have made for cycling. It reliably detects vehicles approaching from behind and gives you clear, early warnings, which is invaluable whether you ride on open roads or in mixed traffic. The alerts are timely and accurate, allowing you to stay focused on the road ahead instead of constantly looking back. The built-in camera is a serious bonus. Video quality is more than sufficient to clearly capture incidents, license plates, and road situations. The fact that it automatically saves footage when an event is detected gives real peace of mind. You hope you never need it, but when you do, it is there. The tail light is bright, highly visible, and well integrated with the radar system. Battery life is solid, even when using radar, camera, and light together on longer rides. Setup is straightforward, and integration with Garmin head units and the Varia app is seamless. Once installed, it simply works in the background without any distraction. it is a serious safety tool. For anyone who rides regularly on the road and values awareness, protection, and accountability, the Garmin Varia RCT715 is absolutely worth it.

Great product, this is a lifesaver when biking on the road. Bright light and long lasting battery. The video recording capability is great especially if you should find yourself in a ditch after being hit by mobile phone surfing drivers

This is an expensive and valuable safety device. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the money, but I'm glad I did. It works exactly as advertised, pairing seamlessly with my Garmin 1030+. Picture and video quality are excellent. It is very easy to read license numbers of cars that pass. In an actual emergency, I am confident a full description of the vehicle including the license number would be readily available. The rear light is bright, so you don't need to double up. This unit has only two shortcomings. Both are the result of the high power consumption required to run a light and radar and video camera continuously. Because the unit has a big battery, it is heavy and has a relatively short battery life: about 8 hours in my experience. So I can't recommend it for people who count every gram or who would be put off by having to recharge daily. I recommend it highly for those who put safety first, those who would enjoy the rear facing videos and pictures you can take any time, and those who would like to know how fast was that car going when it passed me? I'll point out one feature that I think is excellent, that does not get enough attention in Garmin's own advertising for this device. When you trigger a manual video, the resulting 90 second video that is saved actually begins about 45 seconds before you pushed the trigger. That means you can record bad behavior AFTER it has already happened!

I really like this light/radar/camera light. Knowing what’s coming up behind you without having to look over your shoulder till you need to. It picks up anything, cars trucks, motor cycles and even other bicycle riders as they come up behind you. Great product and it works really well.

The parts of this product that work, do so well enough to carry it up to a 4 star rating despite parts being so bad that one star would be too much of a compliment. The good: The light is very visible The radar is a nice to have, mostly it just becomes a constant reminder that we are surrounded by cars. The battery life is excellent - I turn it on when I start my ride and never bother to turn it off at coffee shops or other stops. At first because I wanted to get a sense of how long it would run, and now because I just don't worry about it. The Bad: It's a light. It's a Garmin light. IT WON'T pair with a Garmin headset and join the light network. That's right, you have to turn it on manually. You have to turn it off manually. You don't get any of the light tricks from the head unit. It's big and heavy. Not really a fault, there's just a lot in the package and the battery to run it so well needs to be big as well. But this isn't for the weight wienies out there. The UGLY: You cannot configure this from your Garmin head unit. You cannot configure this from Garmin Connect website or App. You MUST down load yet another NEW app from Garmin only for the varia. And only for the Varia. Describing the varia app would require the use of words that would cause Amazon to ban my account, so I will refrain from describing it. There are notable functions that are laughably bad. I would never show them as a proof of concept, much less a selling product. Some of the lowlights are: The app can serve as a display for the radar, so if you wanted to ride your bike with your phone mounted as a head unit you could do that. But at that point why doesn't it support being a head unit? Who wants a full phone screen showing a 1D view of potential traffic behind you but not Heart rate, power, speed, distance, etc? It's a singularly stupid app that fits the "If someone were to spend $400 on a light but not want to buy a head unit, but do have a phone mount... then they want this app". I can't imagine that the use case exceeds the single digits - if you're spending this level on bike bits you already have a head unit, or will very quickly add one. But that's not the worse of it. I have a head unit, and if that was my only complaint about the software, it would be silly, I don't get offended because some useless extra sits on the side unused. No the problem is that this app is required to set up your device. Not only is the UI unintuitive, it makes my iPhone 14 run like a 3GS. Tap on anything you have to then wait. In some cases you have to wait MINUTES. The adjust camera option takes several minutes to SOMETIMES succeed. Which is to say, just as often you wait minutes and then it lets you know that it couldn't connect. To be cleat, I was able to apply a firmware update in the middle of my poking at this app - it had no problem connecting. But the camera adjust was repeatedly random on if it would connect after several minutes of waiting with 0 feedback on screen that anything is going on... good luck not rage spiking your phone (it's not the phone's fault!) Also, go into the video/photo view. Tap on edit. Now you can select items to delete. But only a maximum of 10. WTaF?! Ok, I'll go through this 10 at a time BS. Tap on the 8 that are in view. Nothing happens. Tap them again. And again. Eventually some get a check mark. That's when you realize that you have to tap the item(s) you want and then you wait for minutes with NO FEED BACK that something may (or may not) be happening. Eventually, again minutes, you figure that the ones that will get selected have been selected and you hit delete. You wait for the delete to happen. Congrats you have deleted a random selection of the 8 that you for sure wanted to delete. Now you hit edit again, and you try to get another 8 or so selections in, and wait your minutes before deciding that you got what you're going to get and you hit delete. Repeat. Garmin should be embarrassed to have this app in the store. Instead of being ashamed, they make it a required download to use the varia. This is not a case of "they need better programmers", it is a case of they need to undergo a structural change to how their management views software, and once they have a professional team in charge of the software vision, then they can start looking into how to clean this mess up. Good hardware. Nearly got a 3 star, but I only plan to use the software if I get hit by a car and need to recover the video - I just will hope that it is indeed working because I can't imagine ever going back just to check in.

I am so impressed with this. I even had to upgrade from my Garmin Edge 800 to a compatible model of cycling computer (I went with the 1040 solar), so the price point of BOTH was just incredibly painful, even on sale. But I'm coming back to cycling after having taken significant time off due to health struggles and I've seen friends seriously hurt from getting hit out of the road. And I feel like in the area I live, driving manners and common sense just went to heck during the pandemic and haven't improved much. And as I am back out there, I think of those friends, and I realize I'm much older now and can't hear the cars coming up behind me as well as I used to. Or maybe I never heard them well and just benefitted from someone with great hearing in the back yelling "car!", but now I'm riding alone while I build up fitness again. And for everything I've been through with my health surprises, this is a form a self-care to invest in my safety. I don't think after getting clipped or hit from behind, I would think, gee I'm so glad I didn't spend that "x" hundred dollars! This is less than my surgical co-pay by a lot. The radar detects cars well out of my hearing range and I'd say even farther than I can turn to look behind me easily right now. I can get a sense if someone is hauling toosh as they approach me or if they're being gentle, safe and sane in their approach. If they slow down, they'll probably take care in passing too. An over the shoulder check is still appropriate but that's one point in time. This lets you see their whole approach. The tail light is very large and bright as well and has different setting for how it shines or blinks and it coordinates with your computer as well. So if you don't want to completely unclip and walk to the back of your bike to push the button to change it for different lighting conditions (coming home a bit late from a ride), you can do it on your Garmin Edge with just one foot down. (I suppose you could do it while cycling, but I can't and have strong opinions on distracted driving that make me not even want to try). In summary, this is totally worth the investment.

Bought this after a truck hit me on my bike and sent me to the emergency room when I came to. Three things stand out about this radar device. First: I can now ride with greater confidence knowing that a vehicle, or several, are approaching from the rear. I like that it will let me know how many vehicles are approaching. I have always ridden with a rear-view mirror and would not ride without one, but this allows me to concentrate on my ride and not the approaching traffic. My mirror is now for verification of presence or absence of vehicular traffic. Second: Because the radar will light up on my bike computer when there is a vehicle 150 yards (or something like that), I now ride nearer the middle of my lane where the traffic has smoothed out the chip seal we have here in Texas. The ride is so much more comfortable and my elbows and butt appreciate it. What?, you say...how about the cars? Well, 150 yards is plenty of time to move on back to my shoulder or "bike" lane to give the vehicles more room and communicate that I'm doing my part to avoid a collision. Third: By riding less on the shoulder, I'm less likely to get a flat from all the crap that ends up there. So there, three wins! I know it's spendy, but I believe it to be one of the best bike "stuff" purchases I have ever made. I also ride with Specialized's ANGi on my helmet which will alert my emergency contact if I'm in a wreck.

Typical Garmin quality. I was worried it would be very chunky but is not overly so. Functionality is excellent. Radar is a must have for safety