I have also noted that when the car is approaching fast but is in the further lane from the right most lane (ie 1 lane over in a passing lane or across the center lane) the display is orange and not red. This is some level of indication that it is not as hazardous as a fast approaching right lane pass.
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The Nitecore looks nice for $60. I dunno the answer to your questions, I bought the 18650s and case to fix a solar powered patio umbrella.
Was done 10 years ago by a company called Cerevellum. He was probably ahead of his time and the vision outstripped the technology available.
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Yeah, I had to believe it had already been done.
At the right price and with the right battery length that starts to sound Premier League instead of non-league.
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I disable the Variaâs light to save power, and use a separate rear light instead. Sometimes the Variaâs light re-enables (connected to a Hammerhead), so I have to occasionally check that it is still off.
Yeah thatâs what I do too (with a Bontrager Flare actually) and also what happens to my Varia. Using mine with a Garmin 530, which is also starting to lose a bit of battery capacity, I think. Itâs been excellent though.
172grams
Iâve got 2 of these $5 batteries: Buy Molicel P28A 18650 Battery 2800mAh 35A | Best Price Online
at 5600mAh (2 x 2800mAh) but could upgrade to 7000mAh (2x3500mAh) for $10.
The Nitecore NB10000 is 150g / 10,000mAh so with my $10 upgrade its still almost 50% more but not sure I would need that much juice for another double century or long day from the valley to South Lake Tahoe.
But the electronic device decides what voltage is âemptyâ. Garmin only needs to set that turn off voltage to a higher value. It would result in a small decrease in as-new battery life yet be a big improvement to years-old battery life.
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Anyone considering the CarBack should really watch that video. Based on the range being nothing special, the side detection not being wide enough, and the speed differential being set too high (could be fixed by SW I think), I donât see it even being on par with a Varia.
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Since there was discussion about poor Varia battery life in this thread, I posted what I think might be the cause over here.
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Llama mentioned that the light pattern doesnât change when a car approaches. Honestly, with the Varia that gives me the most security that it flashes more to get the drivers attention.
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Hard to know for sure, but the pattern used by Trek was tested and developed with lots of research to be one that gets attention even if it doesnât âchangeâ actively.
That was a very good review. What a lot of work. The only thing I didnât see (and maybe I missed it) was whether the Car Back changes the alert if a car is approaching at a high speed. Varia does this.
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Wow, that was thorough! One thing I might have missed was the battery life comparison, or are they basically lineball? Iâve got a 515 already, but if the Trek is $70 cheaper (Au RRP), works virtually the same (with no false positives) as the Garmin but lasts slightly longer itâd have to be considered.
In addition to the display indicator turning red, the Varia also changes the tone of the audible alert to a sharper sounding warning. I pick up on the audible tone of a fast car right away. This is very helpful and not overdone.
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I just saw on Insta that you bricked one!
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I simply donât understand how products get tested. Is there no QA QC team that is not biased? If Trek claimed to have done testing over thousands of miles, how have these issues not been uncovered? Or they were flagged and simply ignored.
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This was my career across several high tech sectors and I can confirm that this is very often the case, assuming Trek did have a decent set of use cases. More and more there is a reliance on automation and simulation to test products versus hands-on and very much depends on the design of the tests. Very few QA teams are true arbiters of the decision to go/no-go on a product release and it is mostly based on (sketchy) risk assessments vs market pressures. Youâd probably be surprised at how much stuff gets released as âgood enoughâ
The dev triangle is Fast - High Quality - Cost. In most cases you can have two, at the expense of the third.
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