Garmin Adds Camera to the Varia RCT715

May 18, 2022

Garmin’s new Varia RCT715 is jumping into a growing market segment of people who want cameras on their bikes to record activities and incidents. There are few camera products designed specifically for bicycles, though more riders are using them. I have often seen riders with a compact camera and a separate taillight on a bulky makeshift mount. Some bike cameras can display real-time to a screen or mobile phone app, but most just record for viewing after the ride. The Varia RCT715 is a three-in-one device that combines the camera with a light and radar for all your rear-mounted device needs. Before jumping into the camera features, it is worth a quick overview of the radar features…

Varia Radar

The Varia radar has been around since 2015 in two versions (with and without light) and three generations. It is one of those products that polarizes people into two camps: Camp A) It is a ridiculous waste of money with value, or Camp B) It is the second most important piece of safety equipment next to the helmet. I am in B Camp. I will not ride open roads without a Varia radar. When I figure out a good way to mount it to my triathlon bike, I will use it in races because of the open roads. The radar dramatically improves your situational awareness and makes you a safer and more comfortable rider.

A radar tells you that a car is behind you and how fast it is closing without having to look back. When I know that a car is approaching, I can simply concentrate on staying in my lane. In group rides, it will often see cars before any of the riders, so I am usually the first one to yell “car back.” Most riders drift a little when they look back, and this can be dangerous if a car is almost upon you. With the radar, I check first and will not look back if the radar sees a car. If I need to change lanes or turn, I will simply stop and wait without looking back. The radar rarely misses a car, and its false alerts are usually only fast-approaching cyclists.

The radar also enhances the effectiveness of the light by changing the light’s behavior from solid on to flashing when it sees a car and then fast flashing as the car nears. The idea is that the flashing light gets a driver’s attention by changing so the driver is not lulled and is more aware of the cyclist. This has a side benefit in group rides. If one rider has a radar with a light, the other riders will see when the light changes from solid to flashing and also know a car is approaching before anyone looks back or yells.

All the mainstream bike computers support the Varia radar profile and the links at the bottom highlight some of the reviews and comparisons.

Varia Camera

The camera is not just a camera; it is smarter because of the radar, Garmin’s incident detection, and head unit integration. By default, the camera is set to continuous recording and will capture everything until the memory is full and then overwrite the oldest video. The camera can also permanently save pictures and video clips manually or automatically for incidents. The camera comes with a 16GB microSD card to store videos and pictures. This is good for about 90 minutes of video storage before it will start overwriting. This is probably fine for most rides, but when you go out on longer rides, keep in mind that the camera will only preserve the last 90 minutes. The RCT715 supports up to 128GB, so I recommend a quick upgrade to a 64GB microSD card. That is cheap and will handle most people’s longest rides.

You can set the camera to be radar-driven like the light. The “During Radar Activity” setting will only record video when a vehicle is detected and will continue for one minute after the vehicle passes. This conserves memory and battery and makes it easier to look back after a ride to find a video clip of a passing vehicle. However, it would not make much difference in an urban or similar environment in steady traffic.

Video and Photo Capture

By default, the Varia RCT715 acts like any other camera, which is great. It simply records continuous video in short clips. You can adjust the clip lengths in 30 second increments from 90 seconds to 5 minutes. The default is 90 seconds. The short clips make it a little easier to scan through the folder to find a particular clip you may want after a ride. And I suspect it is a technology enabler that makes it easier for the device to overwrite the oldest video.

You can manually force the camera to permanently save a picture or video clip by pressing the camera button on the side of the unit, clicking the camera control widget on a compatible Edge device, or clicking the camera controls on the Varia mobile app. This will tell the RCT715 to save a 90-second video clip of the prior 30 seconds plus the next minute.

When something happens and you click save, it will automatically go back to a little bit of the preceding history. The video or picture will be saved to one of the protected folders on the microSD memory card and not overwritten by newer footage.

100EVENT – Videos saved automatically when the device detects an incident
101PHOTO – Manually saved photos
102SAVED – Manually saved videos
103UNSVD – Unsaved video footage that is overwritten when the unsaved storage space fills up

Additionally, the camera will automatically save video clips surrounding an incident. If the Varia RCT715 is connected to a compatible Edge bike computer, the Varia RCT715 will default to using the Edge’s incident detection algorithm. In the absence of Garmin display connection, it will default to using its onboard accelerometer-only incident algorithm. So, if you crash and do not manually capture the surrounding video, the device will do it for you.

Installation and Setup

The first installation thing you will notice about the RCT715 is that it does not have a Garmin Quarter-turn Bike Mount. Instead, it has a much sturdier mount with a cam lock and a metal post in the center of the camera attach point. I suspect that Garmin did this for two reasons. First, the unit is a little heaver and a little bigger than typical seat post devices, so the new mount is more secure. Second, when you manually push the camera button, you could inadvertently twist the camera out of a Quarter-turn mount.

The unit comes with a USB-C charging cable (yay!), the seat post mount, two different sized rubber attachment straps, and three cleverly designed reversable seat post inserts. These inserts adapt to fit round, aero, and square-back seat post shapes. And they are reversible to accommodate different seat post angles. This should work for most bikes and get the camera at or close to 90°.

You can do setup from the Varia mobile app or your Edge device. The options are below, and I rode with all the defaults:

Camera Recording: Continuously, Only During Radar Activity, Off
Video Quality: 1080p, 720p
Microphone: On, Off
Video Clip Length: 90 seconds – 450 seconds
Incident Recording: On, Off
Data Overlay: GPS Overlay, Speed Overlay, Date & Time Overlay

The RCT715 is compatible (with an asterisk) with every bike computer and watch that supports the existing RTL515 radar units. This means you can use it with your Hammerhead, Stages, Wahoo, and other units just like before. It will perform all the same radar functions. But full compatibility with camera control and configuration is only the current set of Garmin products, including Edge 530, Edge 830, Edge 1030, Edge 1030 Plus, fēnix 6 series, fēnix 7 series, epix and Venu 2 series. All you do is pair it like any other ANT+ device, and if you have a device with full compatibility, it recognizes it and adds the additional control widgets.

Use and Performance

I took the camera out on a casual 65-mile ride to exercise its features. The ride was over 4 hours, so I knew that I would overwrite most of the early content. I prioritized quality, so I kept the continuous recording and 1080p, 30 fps quality. I did several photo and video captures along the ride, and one caught a real-life example of why this product exists. A pickup truck pulling a rented trailer passed us too close and scared the crap out of my riding partner. I hit the save button and it captured the prior 90 seconds to see the approaching car, exactly as designed. If something serious had happened, we could have used that to help identify the driver.

I tried to simulate an incident to see how that behaved with the camera, but I had no luck. Ironically, in many rides I have triggered false alarms by stopping fast, stepping off and bouncing my rear wheel, loading the bike in the car with the Edge on, riding over a curb, etc. But this time, when I really wanted a false alarm, I rode over a curb, shook my bike, bounced the wheels, hopped it, and no joy. I am sure that if I threw my bike on the ground in frustration, that would have done it. But that was probably what the bike wanted.

The video and photo quality are good. The resolution of both is 1920×1080, which is higher than we post on the Slowtwitch site, so these photos and videos give you a sense of the full quality. This photo gives a look back at another rider as a car is approaching. What is subtle here is that he is looking back. Do you know who never looked back? Me, because the radar told me the car was back there and I clicked the photo button to save the picture for this review.

Garmin gives you multiple ways to access the video content: USB-C cable connect to a computer, insert the microSD card directly into a card reader, or the Varia mobile app. For me, the easiest is a traditional folder view from either the cable direct connect or card reader. It is just a little more efficient to look through all the files and find the one you want. But the mobile app gives you the power to review, save, and share your video from anywhere. And Garmin does a little trick to speed it up – instead of trying to copy media over Bluetooth, you connect to the RCT715 over its local Wi-Fi for way more speed.

As I was using it on the ride, I thought of the killer feature I would love to see. When the radar detects a car, I would love a live feed video pop-up on the head unit. It would not have to be big, but enough that I could glance at the approaching car and get a sense of how close it might be in my lane. The camera can do a live feed to the mobile app, but it is just for camera setup and the camera is not recording in that mode. So, it has the basic capability, but it would take a much beefier 1030 to show video. So maybe a future generation bike computer could add this someday…

Final Considerations

The RCT715 looks like a RTL515 that took a puff from an air compressor. It is bigger and heavier as the pictures show. All the size and weight are probably battery, because cameras are not that big (and neither are microSD cards).

Despite its larger battery, it consumes its power fast. Camera, radar, and lights will do that. It is rated for 4 hours of use with continuous 1080p and the taillight on solidly. You can get 6 hours with the taillight in flash mode. I did my long ride with it in flash mode and continuous recording and had plenty of battery at the end. For most uses, 4 hours is plenty, and for those longer rides, it is easy to change the light to flash mode. And if it is an area with less frequent cars, recording only during radar activity will save more power.

MSRP is $399 USD. For reference, a Cycliq Fly6 is $229, and a basic GoPro like the HERO8 is $350. These are both comparable premium products, but the Fly6 lacks radar, and the GoPro is only a camera. The standard Varia RTL515 is $199. In context of these other related products, the RCT715 bundles everything into one package.

If you are shopping for a rear facing camera and you have or desire a radar, then this product makes a lot of sense. There is no question it is a safety device with the ability to get back to important video. This is a quality product that performs all of its functions very well, and several of its features are unique to this device.