Garmin has a handy new safety gadget for cyclists in its Varia Vue headlight, which features a built-in 4K camera that can automatically detect and record incidents on the road.
The US$550 gadget gets a 600-lumen headlight, with five adjustable modes including flashing suitable for day and night, and the beam minimizes light intensity above the cutoff line to avoid blinding oncoming traffic and pedestrians. It can also adjust its brightness depending on your speed and light conditions in your surroundings with the help of a Garmin Edge cycling computer.
The camera shoots in 4K or 1080p, with the latter allowing for longer recording on a single charge. It can either shoot continuously, or start automatically when a paired Garmin bicycle radar gives it the signal. You'll need to bring your own microSD card, up to 512 GB. There's also a concealed mic on board, and image stabilization on board for a clearer picture. And since it's meant for dashcam duty, it'll save footage before, during, and after an event.
The 7-oz (200-g) device is rated IP67, so it should happily withstand a bit of rain. It charges via a Type-C cable, and gets an out-front mount. You can start recording by simply hitting a button on the Vue, but you'll need a bike computer or phone to get into all of its settings. The battery should last you about 7 hours with the camera recording, and that can go up to 9 hours if the headlight is off.
Through the mobile app, you can add GPS, time and date, and speed data overlays to your videos. You can download content to your phone over Wi-Fi, and there's also Garmin's Vault storage that costs $10 a month or $100 a year to upload your selected footage to the cloud.
The Vue sounds like a nice piece of kit for avid riders, but it is pretty pricey – especially when you consider that Cycliq offers the Fly12 Sport with a similar front-facing design and feature set at $319. It seems like the benefits you get with Garmin's offering is its integration with the company's rear-facing camera and bike computer, the slightly brighter headlight (600 lumens vs. Cycliq's 400 lumens), plus cloud storage.
If you're considering adding this to your kit, check out DC Rainmaker's comprehensive review on YouTube, which goes into detail about the video quality and image stabilization. Spoiler: the Vue is serviceable, but isn't as good at camera duties as a recent GoPro.
Find the Varia Vue on sale over on Garmin's site.
Source: Garmin
