Error 0:9 and Error 0:5 using a Varia RTL-515 (v3.36) with Edge 1050 (v12.18)

hoyhoy thanks for your post.

0:9 is a "Radar Interference" error message and does not indicate a sensor signal disconnect. It occurs when external radar noise is present (vehicle lane assist, other radar signals, feedback from large metal structures), causing artifacts on the radar signal that could make vehicle detection unreliable.

We display this message to make the rider aware that their radar experienced an error and is not currently able to provide approaching vehicle alerts.
I appreciate that you routinely and frequently receive this error, and that it may be cumbersome to dismiss. I have escalated this concern to see if some form of "timeout" or other solution is possible.

It's been a problem for over four years now.  Why not just make a small warning like the road hazard pop-up when the radar is disconnected?  It's an incredibly dangerous UI pattern forcing riders to have to manually clear this error by taking their hands off the bars while motorists are passing.  Your car approaching sensor is literally being disabled by passing cars. It's basically the normal use case now, but yet it's being flagged as an error -- over and over again.

Probably just don't display any error because the disconnect/reconnect is less than a second.  I'm sure the timing loop for detecting disconnection is about 1000% too aggressive.

I also notice a "0:5" error in one of your screenshots, and I am not certain what this means.

If this is "the normal use case" in the environment you ride in and we do not display an error when the radar cannot provide alerts, how would you distinguish between radar interference and no/missed vehicle detection?
This 0:9 error does not indicate a "disconnect," simply interference. We can't change the popularity of vehicles equipped with radar systems, but I have escalated your report.

When I have more details I'll let you know, but due to the 0:5 error I may suggest reaching out to your local support team to see what service options are available: https://support.garmin.com

With the latest firmwares (v3.36/v12.18) Error 0:FC seems to have gone away.  So there's that.  Also, I notice that sometimes, now the RTL-515 reconnects without erroring occasionally.  It seems maybe ~10% better than it was with Varia RTL-515 v3.34.

Yeah, I didn't notice this new 0:5 error.  I screenshotted a couple of more Varia error yesterday when I was out.  I collect them all like Pokemons.

I remember ten years ago, your firmware engineers had me ride with my Edge in debug mode when problems like this arose. 

I emailed support about this for the tenth time about this and they told me I'm getting radar saturation errors because I'm using a Buplabs mount with a rubber band.   

The problem with that theory is -- I wasn't getting these errors with the same mount before 2021.

Also, a good few other people are having the same problem...

https://the5krunner.com/2024/01/23/garmin-varia-firmware-and-location-specific-sensor-dropouts/

If I'm riding around a lot of high-end SUVs, the Error 0:9s are still CRAZY excessive.  After reading more about it, it's maybe something to do with radar saturation according to the Varia manual.  Maybe 0:FC was saturation and 0:9 is something else?  Apparently nobody knows what Error 0:5 is...

These errors are completely irrelevant to the end user since the Varia is reconnected and working less than a second after the error.  But yet I still have to manually clear them, over and over and over again.

I've been posting to forums and emailing Garmin Support since 2021 pleading with them to fix this, but they adamantly refuse to admit it's an issue and continue to dump engineering resources into new features that I have to disable (traffic alerts, sharp bend notifications, road hazards, group ride notifications, incident detection and on and on)...

From Monday's ride...  Please help.

Hey BeneGi thanks for your feedback, I think that changing the messaging is a good suggestion!

I see your point regarding the 0:9 error not being overly informative. In general we'd expect a majority of users either do not experience this error, or would contact Garmin support for details. My personal experience seems similar to yours, I receive false positives on occasion rather than specific radar errors (environmental).

0:5 is some form of calibration error, but I don't have any other reports to align it with, and I am not certain when hoyhoy experienced this error. When I have more details I will share them here.

This makes sense to me, as 0:9 indicates radar interference. You are correct to describe this as a modal error, we make the rider aware that the radar experienced interference and have them acknowledge the alert.

I would expect that once interference is cleared, the Varia resumes normal operation and you continue to receive approaching vehicle alerts regardless of whether or not you have dismissed the warning. If you could confirm or can share here that may help other users.

Our engineers request no further debugging info regarding the 0:9 error at this time, as we know the source of this error (environmental interference). If you can provide any more details about 0:5 or can reproduce this error, please let me know.