Garmin Varia 715 Radar Dash Cam: First Look Before My Cross-Country Ride

Gear · Published 8/3/2023 ·

I never planned to go this far at first. All I wanted was to ride the cross-country route.

The cross-country route involves more public roads than you’d think.

It’s not all dedicated bike paths — there are plenty of stretches where you have to take detours along public roads, the regular streets. Since I’m always dead serious about safety, I’d had my eye on a dash cam. But as it turns out, the radar feature is the real selling point. So here it is — a radar dash cam, bought with my own money.

This is the mount bracket. It only comes with the part for attaching to the seatpost, so you have to buy the saddle-mount part separately. For now, I’m taking my time looking into it.

Here’s the main unit. It’s thicker and heavier than I expected. Funnily enough, it’s way bigger than the Edge, my Garmin trip computer.

The lens is on the left, the tail light is on the bottom. And the radar component sits over on the far right.

My hands aren’t exactly small for an adult, but it’s still a pretty hefty thing.

It’s got a fair bit of thickness to it, too. I figured it’d be small and precious, but it’s the complete opposite.

Pairing in progress. It connects to the Garmin device right away. For the camera settings, though, you have to download a separate Varia app. I don’t get why they don’t just fold it all into Garmin Connect instead of running separate apps. I set it to 720p through the app — every little bit of extra battery life helps.

Hefty…

Cycling means keeping things charged…

As you build up your collection of cycling accessories, you’ll notice a lot of products on the market still use micro 5-pin charging. Avoid them, seriously. Micro 5-pin has compatibility issues, but worse, it charges painfully slowly. On a cross-country ride you’re in the saddle at least 10 hours a day, and of course there’s no headlight or tail light that lasts 10 hours. You have to plan on charging during meal or rest stops, and with micro 5-pin the charging speed just doesn’t cut it.

The Garmin Edge Solar claims 20 hours of use at a 90% charge. If you ride during daylight, the solar feature tops it up a little as you go, but the headlight and tail light still need charging.

Most basic tail lights with no extra features will last 7–8 hours on flash mode, but products loaded with this kind of combined functionality only get 4–6 hours even on a low-power setting. Devices with a USB-C charging port charge comparatively fast, so be sure to check the charging connector spec.

My cross-country prep is coming together. I tried hard to get by without a front bag, but there was no way around it — I need somewhere to stash the clothes I’ll wear while my bib shorts and jersey are washing and drying at the lodging, plus the charging adapter and other bits and pieces.

With a front bag and stem bag combo, I’ve secured over 10 liters of space. During rest stops I’ll charge my devices off a power bank, and at night at the lodging I’ll fully charge everything including the power bank before setting off.

I’ll put the Varia 715 through its paces a bit and post a review later.

Thanks for reading.

#Garmin #Varia715 #BikeRearCamera #RearRadar #BikeDashCam #BikeRadar #BikeTailLight #GarminEdgeIntegration #BromptonTuning

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