Unfortunately, the final product birthed from those two ideas doesn’t quite seem to be what we were hoping for. Or perhaps, our collective expectations and assumptions were too high. To spoil much of this review, at best, it’s a frustrating and confusing experience for a $400 product – filed with endless caveats. While the radar continues to be excellent, and the core camera recording bits also seem dependable – it’s everything after that point that becomes a mess. From a myriad of confusing and overlapping options, to gotchyas on which bike computers are compatible, to an app that’s impossibly slow to use
Hm…I’ll wait, I think. 
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I don’t remember if I posted this video before or not, but this was a fantastic product / concept. Was probably just too far ahead of it’s time. This was from 2011.
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I would love them to re-release the virb but that is just me so I can record on my bike and show my cadences, speed, etc. This while seems good for some people even after reading the review I will wait for V2. I am still using V1 of Varia and best thing I have ever purchased for my bike.
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Can’t you still use the Virb software and put that stuff on GoPro footage?
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I’m excited to see this release. In other topics I am critical of Garmin. But I’ll be the first to say the radars before this one are an incredibly great product. Initially in watching dcrainmaker video I felt he was being a little too critical as I felt many of his complaints were fairly simple software fixes. But then I remembered how frustrating my garmin products have been and I can understand his points. Also I fully understand because of past experiences with garmin that what is simple software fixes, are not simple because garmins software team is a dumpster fire. What concerns me the most, and it’s the same line garmin gives over and over, is that the issues he is having don’t exist because garmin doesn’t experience them. When are these companies gonna learn that from a customer service standpoint, we don’t want to hear that shit? So basically we are going to be playing the same games with garmin. We are just beta testers and they’ll never get anything right. Just about pushing another product. I’m more and more happy with my K2.
Plus, we should expect that @dcrainmaker has had extensive discussions with the folks at Garmin about these issues, and they haven’t fixed them.
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And that’s the thing. How stupid do they have to be to treat @dcrainmaker like a regular customer. You would think they would do everything they could to fix his concerns because of his top quality reviews and following. And I agree that he’s most likely been working with them for months on this. The least they could say is that they acknowledge these concerns and will be fixed in a future software release. But, it’s typical garmin 
.
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Yes, I do it for all my videos
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I just added Shane’s review to the OP at the top.
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This is my whole thing with Garmin products, I think they make some cool hardware but I find their software atrocious. I have an inReach and I shudder at the thought that someday my life may depend on that awful Earthmate app, which seems to have been made by people who have never used or seen an iPhone app before. Thankfully I can use my Varia with my Wahoo bike computer without having to use any Garmin apps.
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Thanks! That review took way way way WAY too much time. All for a relatively terrible product that could have been so much better.
RE: The issues.
Garmin have asked to perform a number of tests with BLE on/off and at different locations away from WiFi. As mentioned in my review, this is a process that takes pace SIX MONTHS BEFORE RELEASE. Not two days out. Smaller companies pull releases and delay launches when things are usually that messy prior to release. Garmin are big enough to roll with it… I hope they’re quick enough to address the problems before the general public who don’t follow online bike tech nerds get them and have the same issues.
Anyhow. Here we are. The echos are very loud from those who’ve actually used the device.
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So get a previous gen varia, and get an Akaso v50x cam for $100 and call it a day?
Man, quite the shit show there. Garmin amping up their poor initial product release to a new level apparently.
I think I speak for plenty of us, that we appreciate the significant time & effort you and Ray put into reviews like this. Great when the products actually meet expectations, but I would imagine it’s massively frustrating to hit something as poorly implemented as this.
It is so beneficial to those of us who might consider items like this, so we can make good choices based upon real info and not some fluffed up product marketing & release sheets (like seen elsewhere). Thanks x 1000!
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When I found out about the Radar+Camera I was so keen to get a hold of it. I’m a crazy mad Radar user/fan. It’s the ONE thing I’ll tell people to go and buy if they don’t have one. This on the other hand… argh… it was like unboxing the DUO-Shi and accidentally poking my eye out on the wide spindle. 
*Edits. Shit. It’s been a long day.
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Did you at least win a stage of the Giro just before the unboxing?
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Oh… lol. 
That was so unfortunate.
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YouTube is the go to
I was excited by something I could buy to replace the Cycliq that broke a while back. Guess I will keep waiting?
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