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Varia RTL510 Size

Paolo B.V
over 4 years ago

Hello to all,

I love to use the Varia Radar RTL510.

I wonder why nobody complained about the size of the unit. It would be awesome to have the same features in a form faktor like a Bontrager Flare R.

It would be fine for me to have a reduced battery size therefore reduced housing size wit a charging intervall like my edge 830. I wonder if the Size of the unit is dictated by the radar antenna. Hope they will improve it soon. Knowing Garmin they will probably increase the price 30% but i would pay that for a nicer form factor.

To have a proper mount without the need for rubber bands i bought this mount.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    What I forgot to mention is that I hacked the standard holder to screw it on to my trek Madone but i still doesn't look right. Hope it looks nice with the Bontrager bracket and the 3D printed half turn adapter.

    As soon as I get it I will update the post. 

    https://www.shapeways.com/product/Q4GJKJRJ4/trek-madone-slr-varia-adapter?optionId=67789056&li=marketplace

  • +1 over 4 years ago in reply to Paolo B.V

    I'm surprised that you think the 510 is too large. It is very compact for what it does. It's only slightly larger than the majority of taillights which seems reasonable since it has radar. I doubt Garmin will further reduce its size in future models. The photo of your Varia installation looks very good.

  • +1 over 4 years ago in reply to cheracogoff

    I concur ... the unit itself is quite comparable to other lights. The only thing is that the light only takes up about a quarter of the units size. The rest of the unit holds the radar mechanism and battery.

    It's much better than the RTL-500, IMO.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Well I see it this way the 510 has the size for the components at the development time of the 510.

    What I want to see from Garmin from the next generation an improvement. I believe improving the radar part will be hard due to physics (seeing cars around corners on mountain passes for example) therefore the other thins to improve are the size and battery live. Battery live is good enough so I would say the size reducing is the logic thing to do.

    Of course, software wise there is also room for improvement I find it ridicules that you can not control the light mode through the head unit.

    But as I said in my first post, I love to have the radar on my road bike because it is the best safety feature you can get.

     

    Finally, I received my 3D printed quarter turn adapter for the original Bontrager mounting braced.

    Looks much better than my boged original holder.

    What do you think?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Paolo B.V
    Paolo B.V said:
    seeing cars around corners on mountain passes for example)

    I wonder how that could be made to work without breaking laws of physics.

    Paolo B.V said:
    other thins to improve are the size and battery live

    Those two are contradictory. Want better battery life? Need a bigger battery.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Paolo B.V

    You certainly can control the light through the head unit. With my 1030 and other current Edge models, the light can be set to flash, solid or off.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to cheracogoff

    Well it works only if you search the radar as a light and not as a radar and the battery status doesn't show... therefore it kind of works but looks like a program with software bug...

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to tmk2

    Well as I said above the only parts of improvement is the battery live and size. Battery size and capacity are not correlated for ever...

    As technology improves sizes of components are getting smaller. So I'm quite sure the future batteries will be smaller with the same and even bigger capacity.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to tmk2

    I thought you guys might find it interesting that I've actually had it that RTL510 picked up cars around bends before. They were completely out of view. It's happened to me in places where the outer road barrier is quite big, so it seems like that reflects the radar signals around the corner and allows the radar to see where I can't.