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Varia Front Light - How About Some Instructions??

Hey Garmin, any chance of actually giving us some meaningful instructions for the Varia Front Light?

The current ones are 90% about fixing it to a bike and pairing it, there's hardly anything on how to actually use the light - what there is is confusing (i.e. calling the button a "key") and also now partly wrong (I think) following the last FW update.

I've had my light since shortly after launch and use it 4-5 times a week, but to this day I've still not got a clue if it's doing what it's meant to do or whether I'm just using it as an expensive "dumb" light as nothing I see it doing seems to correspond to any of the functions it's meant to have. In fact I'm even now confused as to what it's meant to do, or how. I mean, for starters it would be good to understand why I can start a ride in daylight with the light set to "low" but then after an hour get a low battery level warning only to find that the light has switched itself to "overdrive" at some point for reasons I'm unable to fathom out.

Compared to the Varia RL, I really don't understand why my experience for the FL has to be so frustrating.

Of course, if anyone else on here has gone through the pain of working out the FL, it would be good to hear what you've learned.

Thanks,

Neil

0 jweedon68 over 9 years ago

I agree. Especially when updates add new features that aren't in the manual!

My light works well with my 520 and I love the beam distance speed adjustment, but I am finding I am getting flashed by cars and pedestrians are complaining they are getting blinded, so I've been trying to find out about whether the unit can be dipped. It looks like this is possible with the varia remote, but I dont have that as I use mine with the radar and my 520. I would have thought the same dip funciton should be available from the 520 via software, but the info on this is about as clear as mud...

0 jweedon68 over 9 years ago

In the absence of any info from an official source I bought the remote to see if that adds dipped beam control to my Varia front light. It does and works very well. The remote is a good size and fits very snuggly on the handlebars. However, since I paired it with my varia headlight the headlight keeps disconnecting from the 520 - not something I've seen before. I will delete and re-pair it and see if that helps. It did with the radar which also got did little backflips when I added the headlight. It's like the units dont like it when the config changes.

Hoping that works as I really want my varia headlight to auto adjust with speed from the 520 and to have a manual override to dip it from the varia remote - feels like ti should work that way, but as per the OP some decent instructions would not go amiss. Particularly in terms of what to swicth on first when you have multiple devices. My 520 has to find GPD, a heart rate monitor, a cadence sensor, a wheel speed sensor, a radar rear light, a varia headlight and my phone all in the first 30 seconds of being turned on. That whole process seems a bit flaky and it totally undocumented.

A simple set of instructions saying what to turn on in what order would really help!