Garmin
Garmin – camera, lights, radar, data!
Garmin, it’s probably the biggest name when it comes to cycling high-tech goodies. Whether it’s a wearable, a head unit, power-meters or lights, Garmin has it covered. In this case it’s a trio of products that cover lighting, awareness and data. They are the Varia Vue, Edge 1050 and Varia RCT715.
I picked these up after riding the recent Garmin RideOut. This popular road sportive takes place in the New Forest, a beautiful part of the UK that is home to wild ponies and rolling roads. As well as a chance to enjoy a great day’s riding, the RideOut raises money for Action Medical Research. The charity’s mission is to “save and change children’s lives through medical research, developing treatments, vaccinations and cures.” As well as a chance to help raise funds, the RideOut has a mini-festival feel to it, with a central village where you can listen to Garmin sponsored athletes, win prizes in a raffle, or just soak up the atmosphere. Judging by the number of riders with jerseys witnessing previous rides, many riders make this a regular event.
Garmin Varia Vue
The Varia Vue is a front light with a difference. Alongside its 600-Lumen light is a 4K, image-stabilised camera. This records ride footage onto a memory card (not included) as you ride. Recordings can be made with the light on or off. Claimed battery run times are seven hours in day flash mode, with the camera recording. Switch the light off and you’ll get up to nine hours. For those that need more, you can keep the light on and continue recording while charging.
Store and save video
Other features include a cut off beam, this is designed to prevent oncoming road-users being dazzled at night. There’s also a microphone hidden out of the wind to record audio as well. If you have an ‘incident’ on your ride, the camera will automatically save and store video from before, during and after the event. And if the Varia Vue is connected via Wi-Fi, any saved footage can be automatically uploaded to Garmin Vault for secure storage; as long as you have an active subscription. At the end of a ride, you can use the Varia app to review and edit video clips.
The Varia Vue tips my kitchen scales at 197g, not inconsiderable, but that’s a lot of tech on the front of your bike. The Varia Vue comes with an out-front mount and bolts underneath for a clean look. I’m glad to say that Garmin have included a leash, just in case the mount should fail! Once you’ve paired it with a compatible head-unit, you can control it from there. This will let you switch it on and off, take photos, record and save footage.
Garmin Varia RCT715
The Varia RCT715 is an evolution of the original Garmin rear-facing radar tail-light. Now as well as informing you of approaching traffic, it can record that traffic. If you also have the Varia Vue, then you will get a two-point view of any incident, which can be a lot more useful.
1080p/30fps camera
While the Varia Vue boasts a 4K camera, the Varia RCT715 has to make do with 1080p/30fps. So you won’t be filming any epics, but that’s not what this unit is intended for. There are four light modes; solid, peloton, night flash and day flash. The amount of Lumens put out varies depending on the mode, they are; 20L solid, 8L peloton, 21L night flash and 65L day flash. Garmin says that battery life is four hours with solid or night flash, five hours in peloton mode and six hours with day flash (all with 1080p recording).
The rear-facing radar has a 40 degree detection range, allowing to to pick up vehicles on curves. Range is claimed to be 140 metres and depending on your head-unit, multiple vehicles can be detected and displayed. Putting it on the scales and the Varia RCT715 comes in at 148g.
Garmin Edge 1050
Garmin launched the Edge 1050 claiming it to be their “brightest, smartest and most connected cycling computer ever.” And opening up the box initial impressions are very good. It’s a sleek, black bit of kit that looks the part. A big part of that is the 480×800 pixel LCD screen, which is 88.9mm wide on the diagonal, which is 45x76mm. Weight is 161g on my scales of truth!
Hidden under that screen are a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, 64GB of memory, a Barometric altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer, ambient light sensor, multi-band GNSS and a magnetometer. What that gives you is a feature packed head-unit that has so many features that should cover pretty much every cycling scenario you could think of.
How many features?
The list of features that the Edge 1015 is mind boggling and it’s not just the cycling metrics like speed and distance. You can control the Varia lights featured above from the Edge 1015 without fiddling with buttons. That’s a lot better than trying to find small buttons while riding fast. You can also send and receive messages (if you want!), let people know where you are and pay for your mid-ride coffee.
Of course there are also plenty of navigation options that will allow you to ride a set route, or make one up on the fly. Alternatively you can select a place or feature and have the Edge 1050 take you there. If you need to get a training session in then that is covered as well. You can either send the workout direct to your Edge 1050 and ride it outdoors. Alternatively, take your session indoors and the Edge 1050 will take control of your smart trainer.
Frankly the things you can do with the Edge 1050 are just amazing. I’ll be taking it on a recce ride to Portugal, searching out potential gravel routes and am looking forward to putting it through its navigational paces. Look out for reviews of these three in the future. If you want to see more of Garmin’s products take a look at our review of the Instinct Solar smartwatch.
Pricing
The Garmin Varia Vue is available now, priced at £459.99. The Varia Vue requires a Garmin Vault subscription at £9.99 per month (or £99.99 per year). The Varia RCT715 is priced at £299.99. The Edge has a suggested retail price of £649.99.
