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Basttery life

Today my Varia gave me a low battery warning and then switched off completely after about 5 1/4 hours.

There was quite a lot of traffic activity – I suppose that this has an effect on battery life because apart from anything else, the lights are doing a lot more than if it was a quiet day. However, I was a bit disappointed as I had expected that the battery life would go to 7 hours or so.

Maybe my expectations are unreasonably high but anyway I'm just letting people know about the kind of battery life they might expect in real life because I'm not sure that this has been spoken about much on this forum.

By the way, I think that the Varia is great. It would be nice if one could introduce a power saving measure such as only having two flashing lights when there's no traffic round instead of four. This would reduce battery consumption. If the Varia doesn't detect traffic then I don't really understand why it needs four lights. It seems a bit unnecessary to me.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

First long ride with the Varia RTL and rather dissapointed to have it die after just 4 hours 35 minutes in flashing mode on quiet country roads average temperature on the ride 6C. It was fully charged at the start of the ride. That's rather a long way from 8 hours, but of course it still falls into "up to 8 hours"!

0 Cagger30 over 9 years ago

I doubt if anyone gets eight hours on it.

Is like all of these things – broadband speeds are an example. "Up to…" Is just a marketing puff and it means nothing.

I suppose there aren't any cheap devices – but I expect their finding of "up to 8 hours…" was tested in some ideal laboratory conditions. Treat it all as you would do if you are reading emissions claims for diesel cars. You know what I mean.

I found that the single big reduction in battery life was made by disabling the light so that only the radar worked. That's face it, I bought it for the radar and although it would be nice to have lights doing something extra when traffic drew near, I now rely on another rear light with a very much better battery life. It's a real shame.

I think that the varia is fantastic and I'm very pleased I bought it. It would be very nice if Garmin were a little more straight dealing with the figures – and a bit more customer-facing generally

0 KPSOUMA over 9 years ago

I doubt if anyone gets eight hours on it.

I do.. Well I get very, very, very close to 8 hours in flashing mode.. Most of my rides are in medium to heavy traffic so the flashing portion is almost always in high flash mode..

No clue why some are getting such bad battery life but I am not one of them..

0 Cagger30 over 9 years ago

Well - I stand corrected.

0 runnerXXX over 9 years ago

Radar battery life depends on temperature it used at too. My experiences are, that when I was riding at 10 degrees C, battery life was about 5.5hours before I got to 4 litting leds while switching radar on (which teoreticaly means 50%, but practicaly battery is on zero and needs to be charged - this should be fixed, but Garmin has not release any update more than 3 month!), now when is about 20 degrees C, I got to 8 hours, before 3-4 litting leds while swithching radar on, indicating that battery needs to be charded. I dont ride in very busy traffic, that affects battery life too. But I did not change my cycling routes, so that improvement from 5,5 to 8 hours was done only by warmer weather.

0 bloom34 over 9 years ago

If I start a ride with 4 led's I will most likely have a dead unit by the time I return.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Not just radar battery life...

But I have found it really eats into my edge battery life ...just kills the edge communicating to it, full charge edge gone on a 4 hr bike ride, without radar It would go easily 6 or 7 hrs

0 PetrosK73 over 9 years ago

But I have found it really eats into my edge battery life ...just kills the edge communicating to it, full charge edge gone on a 4 hr bike ride, without radar It would go easily 6 or 7 hrs

I had exactly the same problem. It seems that the only solution is to reduce the back-light setting of the edge.

0 runnerXXX over 9 years ago

4 dots = dead battery

It was nice warm weather yesterday - so I tried to do short ride with 4 remaing dots on radar, thinking that with 25dg C. it may last 1,5 hour ride, but I got battery warning after 30 minutes and in next 15 minutes I was disconnected. I will no try more, because can see, that even in sunny warm day 4 dots are deadline for charging.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Bad to Worse Varia Doesn't Support Charge + Ride

So I had my radar die on me after starting with 4 bars after about 15 mins with my Edge 520

I then hardwired USB power cable to a small extra USB power battery that charges my phone, Edge 520, and I hoped my Varia Radar. I was SUPER disappointed that the Varia Radar turns off when being charged.

Bummer :(