First off, I LOVE my new Varia/Edge 520 combo -- kudos to both the Garmin team and the original iKubu team!! I was really impressed -- the unit does a phenomenal job picking up cars at a distance — much, much farther away than would be possible to hear. Two suggestions:
1. It was very helpful to understand the “algorithm” as it has been described in various places (Varia detects large objects closing in above a speed threshold), but it led me to wonder whether a tweak to the algorithm would make it even better: when there’s oncoming traffic or blind turns, cars behind you tend to slow down to your pace while waiting for the opportunity to pass, and thus disappear off the radar (it’s no longer closing in). At least when it’s paired with an Edge device, it ought to be possible to determine whether or not the bike is moving, and thus, if the unit picks up a car and then it stops closing in, so long as that “stationary object” is there while the bike is moving, the head unit could at least signal that there’s the possibility of a car still being there as opposed to giving the green “all clear”. It seems to me that a false positive is strongly preferable to a false negative in this application.
2. The other suggestion would be to include some level of the fly6-type functionality: either record still photos at set intervals or record video (may consume too much battery power for now) of each car that is detected. That way if there's an accident, there's at least a chance that the vehicle/driver could be found (e.g., in a hit and run scenario).
Anyway, as I said at the outset, really useful device, well executed. Thanks!!
