Garmin Varia or Edge units failing to fully charge?

wwclick
1 month ago

For a number of weeks my 1 1/2 year old Varia Rear radar camera light was taking forever to fully charge, and eventually would show less than 1/2 charged after significant charging.

At first I thought it was the Unit itself, but did a number of tests before reaching out to Garmin for a replacement battery or unit.

I swapped out my USB power adapter with a new one… still the same problem.

I used the same cable to connect my Varia to my MacBook Pro computer and although it would start to show it was changing, the Mac would keep showing the Varia hard drive was incorrectly disconnecting from my Mac!  Significant clue? Yup!

It turned out to be the original USB-A to USB-C black cable that came with the unit. Further testing? Yes. For when I used that cable with my Garmin Edge to charge it, the Edge also wouldn’t fully charge either.

So if you’re having the same trouble with any Garmin units failing to charge, it may be your original Garmin cables may be the reason for falling to charge your unit.

I hope this is helpful for those of you with a similar issue.

  • 0 26 days ago

    Amazing - similarly aged Varia (~2 years old) and it would appear I have the same issue.  

    I had assumed simply that either the USB power adapter or the 715 unit itself was failing - both are unlikely (electronic units - eg Varia - fail early if they're going to fail)

    Thanks for this.

  • 0 26 days ago in reply to cdshort

    You're welcome.  I hope you had the same issue (failed Garmin USB Cable) and the problem is now resolved.

    I also found that I always start the device, and then press the power button 3 times to go into the flash mode to save power, but lately after doing that, and hopping on the bike, it would randomly switch back to the standard initial mode of increasing the flashing as vehicles would approach, which uses more energy.  So if you are setting the device as I have been doing, give it a moment to make sure it stays in the 3rd mode of 'flash only', this should still give you about 5+ hours of run time overall.