Varia‪™‬ 4+

App is very good for detecting vehicles, but the alerts could use improvement. Phone vibration alerts aren’t useful when the phone is mounted to my bike. Even the sound alert doesn’t work great in louder areas or in higher winds. It would be better if my watch vibrated or if the sound alert would go through earbuds to better hear it.

I got this for Father’s Day but I downloaded the app a long time ago waiting for someone to get the hint. It works exactly as advertised. I can put it in my under seat pouch and still hear it easily and I can’t hear very well. Only a couple of things could be improved. One of them is the distance it picks up a car which is 153 yards. Sounds pretty far but when that car is coming 75 or 80 mph it’s just a few seconds before he is on top of you. Another 50 yards would be perfect. The other thing is when the alarm goes off there could be 3 or 4 cars coming with only one signal, which is fine but you better look at your monitor before you dart back in traffic lane. Anyway the fact is I love it. Wish I had one a year ago. I’m 75 years old and do all my riding on highways and my neck won’t turn enough to see behind me. I stare into my mirror constantly which makes my neck worse. Now I just check my mirror when the alert goes off.

My hearing is poor and trying to monitor oncoming traffic is hit or miss. I've found that the radar picks up vehicles before I would have seen them because you can't ride staring at your mirror. I use the Varia w the phone app and with Trekz bone conduction headphones.
With my poor hearing I might not pick up on the phone signal otherwise. The Trekz 'phones do not block my ear canal. Yes I sometimes listen to media while riding, but the audio ring overrides and there on my Wahoo head unit is a graphic showing the relative position(s) of oncoming vehicles. Seeing that there is more than one car approaching is huge.