Bontrager Flare RT battery bug

Hello

I made a datafield to show status of both Bontrager light. Flare RT in the back and Ion in the front.

I notticed that when I discharge the battery of rear light to the point that it turns off after charing the battery it still reports empty battery. 

It reports empty battery through ANT+ and also the red led lights up. When I reset the lamp (15 s to turn off ANT+ and again 15s to turn it on) battery status is correct.

Does anyone have this light and can confirm it? Maybe my unit is faulty however it seems like a firmware bug.

You have to drain the battery and the connect it to charger. When the green light shows up, disconnect the power.

After that when turning the light on you should see blue and then red led (instead of green)

I tried to contact Bontrager/Trek but after initial response I didn't get any answer.

  • Hi,

    Same issue for me. You have to reset the light to get back to the green status. Have a look to: forums.garmin.com/.../bontrager-flare-rt-battery-level-indicator

  • A bit of a workaround on this. While the lights are plugged in to power (and fully charged), power them on while your head unit is on, this seems to kick the status into shape as the lights LED status turns blue, checks in with the head unit and the battery status reverts back to full.

    Hope this is helpful. 

  • Hello. From what I understand so far, if the light is set to turn on at the beginning of the activity it does not read the battery correctly. If the light is set to turn on when Garmin turns on, the light indicates the correct charge, but I will still test better. However, the first light I had drained the battery even when turned off.

  • My first Flare 200 RT started to shows irregularities on the Garmin while decreasing the battery..5 led 4 led then jump to 2 led then Low or 5 4 3 the Low...so after a year I sent it back to Trek and send me a new one...

    The new one works ok but the full charge is 4 lead instead of 5!

    I tested both light with original Garmin light network, bontrager and other IQ connect apps..all with the same problems so I decided to give up!

    Until I found a great app with a lot of configurable features and a great developer that helped me with the app and solved the battery problem..

    here the app

    https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/0d9fd828-c932-4470-9c37-fd2828881888

    and here the solution (already mentioned elsewhere)

    full charge the light and leave it connected to the charger

    turn on the Garmin

    turn on the light

    keep the button on the light pressed for more than 15 sec..like 20 to be sure

    go to the garmin and check the light battery status again, there could be a light disconnection or some error like battery low, but after changing screen or turning off/om the Garmin, the light battery will work perfectly!

  • Tip : look very cautiously : it could the 5 blocks are a Little bit shifted to the right of the battery pictures shape. The consequence is driving you mis reading the actual status because of the left block partially hidden. 
    this being said I have also connecting issues with my new Flare RT unit. 

  • It’s work, thanks

  • but this does a factory reset to lights. after which you need to pair them again with the EDGE device. 
    What I do is pair them again. 

  • that's an interesting observation. I need to test it out. But I still prefer to have the lights being turned on when activating an activity. 

  • The work around is to turn the BT/ANT on off and then the battery level comes back to normal. You have to push and wait 15s twice. Once to turn it off and then again to turn it on. With my 530 I don't have to re-pair. 

  • sorry, yes you're right. 

    Factory reset is with light ON.

    Wireless ON/OFF is with light OFF. 

    Thnx.