Garmin Varia RTL515, Cycling Rearview Radar with Tail Light, Visual and Audible Alerts for Vehicles Up to 153 Yards Away - 010-02376-00

It's the single best bike accessory you can buy. Works like a charm on roads. Picks up cars everytime. I usually ride about two hours at a time and recharge every third ride. I feel safer riding on roads with this unit. STRONGLY RECOMMEND!! I suggest purchasing a Garmin compatible mount for mounting under your seat. The under seat mount allows you to keep a spare flashing light on the seat post.

If you ride your bicycle on the open road, this is a really useful bit of gear. At least it has been for me. In my experience, it does a good job of identifying vehicles approaching from behind about a city block away. The vehicle, or vehicles, are represented by a dot or dots on the side of the cycling computer screen. They move up as the vehicle approaches. With this, one can get an idea about the speed the vehicle is moving... fast or slow. I have found it to be accurate and reliable. It will also pick up other cyclists, but this is not as consistent as with larger vehicles. The radar works off of movement. If a vehicle remains at a consistent speed and distance behind you it may disappear off the radar until it changes its speed. One needs to be aware of this. Battery life is okay. Major issue is being able to monitor battery life. Not really a good way to do so with the device itself. I recommend getting the Varia app. It has an icon indicating battery life. It can also be used in lieu of a cycling computer if one doesn't have one. It does not appear to power off once disconnected from the computer, so be sure and power it down after the ride or it may be drained by the time you plan to use it again. This is my second Varia. I purchased the first one in June, 2020. It started having problems and the on/off button became worn this year so I replaced it in June 2025. Not sure if 5 years is a reasonable lifespan. Would have like to have gotten a few more. I did buy a silicone cover to help protect the button. I also like it well enough to replace it.

After about 6 rides of more than 20+ miles each, I feel comfortable writing a review about the Garmin Varia RTL515. First, let me say that this Radar with Taillight works exactly as advertised and I can easily recommend it to any bike rider. That said, here are what I hope may be some helpful notes: - I use the radar with my iPhone 14 Pro and the associated Varia app - It took me less than 10 minutes to unpackage, mount, install the app and pair to my phone (note that for my rides my iPhone is attached to a mount on the handlebars) - Some have reported issues with the mounting hardware that comes with the device. I encountered no issues at all (installing or while riding) - Be sure to use the audible sounds and not just the visual (in other words, keep the volume on and up) - The radar detected approaching vehicles 100% of the time and about 85% sooner than my hearing did - I found the biggest benefit comes when I have to merge from the shoulder of the road out into traffic to make left hand turns or move out from a right only lane. As I have aged (now 65 years old) I don’t have the flexibility to turn around and look like I once had and this device helps in indicating if there is oncoming traffic and if there is, I can adjust my speed to slow down (or speed up) until it is clear. But make no mistake, DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON THE RADAR. Always use your eyes and ears! - I can say, from my limited experience, that the battery life seems solid and unless you’re doing 6+ hour rides (just my estimate), you will be fine and won’t run out of juice - Speaking of battery life, using the Varia app while using the Strava app to log my ride, I used up approximately 15% of my iPhone’s battery on a 2 hour ride My only gripe is that there is no integration with my Apple Watch. It would be very beneficial to have haptic alerts. I did find a third party app that supposedly does this but have not purchased it ($5.99). This device may not be for everyone but if you are looking for some added, reliable safety when you ride, it is worth it and, in my opinion, at a reasonable price.

I absolutely love this thing. It gives me such a feeling of confidence riding on the roads, which I have to do. It alerts me to cars approaching well before I can even see them in my mirror. So there are no "surprise cars" like there can be with my mirrors. It also tells me if there are several cars coming, so one car cannot hide behind the other and fool you. If I would lose this detector I would buy another immediately. Most people say this device is good at letting them know when there is a car approaching, but I think they have it backwards. The most useful feature of this device is it tells you when there ISN'T a car. Need to go around a pothole, dodge a stick, or change lanes for a left turn? You know with a glance that there is no car behind you. Priceless. Although the detector can be used with other Garmin devices, I just use it with the Android App on my smartphone. There is no need to buy any other devices. I have used this for about six months and in all that time I had one false negative when I first mounted it on my bike - it said there was no car when there was. But I think that was because I had it mounted in a place where my cargo carrier interfered with it. I moved it to the rear of the carrier and it has been 100% accurate since. No false positives and no false negatives in literally hundreds of car interactions. If you listen to music through earbuds, the app dings on top of the song to let you know it has detected a car approaching. Very handy. This thing is brilliant. I love it. It really gives me confidence in my commute.

For me this is a must for road cycling. It works well with my Garmin Edge 830 showing the approaching vehicles on the screen. I like the configuration options (i.e. audio beeps or silent for large group rides, flashing modes, etc.), and it has been very accurate for detecting approaching vehicles.

After several uses, I kept asking myself... Why didn't I get this radar much earlier? Cynics saying a mirror would do the job that the Varia does isn't completely wrong Except Varia does much more than a mirror. Firstly the Audible beeps to warn me of approaching car more than 150meters back, without taking my eyes off the road. Trying spotting a car on a small bicycle mirror that far back while keeping 100% focus on road ahead. Secondly, mirror users are partly replying on sound. The unit picks up another cyclist riding overtaking at higher relative speed to avoid collision or wheel touch. I discovered that the unit can be mounted both ways, lights at top or bottom. Doesn't appear to impact radar signal. It does send out conservative and overly cautious signal when u r on a bike path with passing cars on main part of road. Overall a great defence tool to minimize probability of being hit from the rear. Great investment.

Gostei do produto, ele funciona conforme o prometido, aumenta bastante a segurança durante as pedaladas; apenas, é um equipamento caro.

Un accesorio imprescindible para tu vida en el ciclismo. No dudes de adquirirlo. No olvides que necesitas un ciclocomputador

The potted review: In certain circumstances this gadget could be a true life saver. I won't ride on roads shared with motor vehicles without it but I don't rely solely on it for my safety, either. Think of it rather as a particularly valuable addition to the suite of hardware and strategies that you use to keep yourself safe on the roads. I'm very pleased to have it and recommend it highly but I'm not about to get rid of my mirror. The full Monty: This is my second Garmin radar. So far, it's great in most respects but it has a quirk or two common to these devices that any new user should be aware of. Yesterday, for example, it apparently failed to detect a car no more than 50 metres behind me that I could clearly see in my handlebar mirror. I worried that it had malfunctioned until I remembered (it's been a while since I last used my old one) that these devices only report cars *approaching* the rider, that is, moving faster than him or her. As soon as one matches speeds or goes slower it literally drops off the radar and is seen no more. I've often yelled "car back!" to my group when one appears on my screen only for it to clear and the car seemingly disappear - and then pop out of nowhere a little while later, blowing by at speed on the next open stretch of road. It had merely been lurking behind the bunch waiting for its moment to pounce. A slightly more worrying issue is that at one point it seemed to have been blocked by a single rider behind me, although chances are it was merely another case of the phenomenon just described. As to how it works from the rider's point of view, it overlays a narrow semi-transparent stripe down each side of whatever screen is active on the head unit. Their colours reflect the relative speed of approaching vehicles, which are shown as dots moving up the right hand edge of the screen, and range from a gentle amber to a dangerous deep red. It can detect and show a number of vehicles and their closing speeds but it's not totally reliable in that respect and should be treated with due caution. As Garmin points out, two cars travelling close together, such as one tailgating another, or a very large truck might appear as a single dot. It does takes some time to learn to translate the graphics into a sense of where vehicles physically are relative to you but it improves with practice. I still use my mirror as a double check before moving out into the lane, though. It's not necessary to be looking at the screen to be alerted; it can be set to beep, or rather squeak, whenever it detects an oncoming car or to vibrate, if it happens to be connected to the phone in your back pocket. The squeak might be irritating to others in your bunch until they realize what it's telling them. Certain data fields for Garmin head units downloaded from Connect IQ will record all the cars the radar detects along with their relative and absolute speeds, and that information can be displayed in the Connect record of the ride, as shown in the picture. The fields do not have to be actively on screen or even added to any page; simply being installed on the head unit is enough. It can be interesting, and sometimes alarming, to see just how fast that maniac was going when he just missed your handlebars. The integrated light would be welcome, even if it only meant one less gadget to be dismounted, charged, and then remounted on my bike. However, it is more than just another light. It can sense ambient light and adjust its brightness accordingly, and it has at least four different modes for various situations. But what is particularly clever is that when paired with a suitable Garmin head unit or the Garmin Connect app on a phone it is enrolled in a network that allows the user to control it from either device, which is handy when you're riding and the light is beneath your saddle bag. Any other Varia lights on the bike will be included and can be managed likewise. It can be really bright. When I was futzing with it when it had just arrived I accidentally turned it on to its brightest setting just a foot or so from eyes and they literally hurt. It took quite a while for my vision to return to normal. Let that be a lesson to you. The claimed battery life in day flash mode is 16 hours, which is far longer than I'm ever likely to need but it is comforting that I need never worry about it dying mid-ride, or at least not until it is much older and its battery is ailing.

I saw a video of a rider not doing a lifesaver and then being run over by a truck. I thought to myself, 'What product would have prevented this incident'? and my research led me to this as a solution. This is not a replacement to a lifesaver, but this is additional information which dramatically increases rider's awareness of their surroundings. My friends use a camera instead of this, but I feel a camera vs a radar are quite different products for different problems. I, personally, much rather have information to avoid an incident vs a record to take follow-up action (If one is able). An ideal product would be a radar, brake light and camera in the same form factor, weight and reliability.