So today we finally see the release of the firmware for... "car back"
And clear
So today we see the release of a firmware for the Elemnt, Elemnt Bolt and Elemnt Roam with ANT+ radar support.
one of the most requested features
That people wanted in their wahoo, head unit. It's here. I've been out here riding it for a few weeks. It has been brilliant and
I can see a peacock up the road. What the hell?
Hang on I'll get back to the video in a moment.
Okay, we're a few kilometers down the road and the peacock is safely off the road
So back on topic the radar support for Wahoo head units.
First of all will cover the Varia Radar now if you're not familiar with that, and then we'll look at the wahoo
implementation of the support
One of my previous videos covered the RTL 510 Varia Radar in depth
I will link below to that video. But as a recap in case you're just new to what these are
well
First of all it sits on the back of your bike and will detect objects coming at you faster than 10 kilometers per hour
The specified distance is 140 meters
but I think with a clear line-of-sight this thing will pick up things a little further than that too.
This unit can distinguish up to eight objects approaching from behind and it will then start
Flash mode too - so the way I use this is solid light on and if it detects a vehicle or an object
Coming at you. It will then start the flash mode to alert them that you're there. It can also distinguish vehicles at higher speed
So normally a vehicle coming at standard speed (I guess) will cause an orange alert on the head unit and
Something coming at a higher speed will detect as a red alert on screen and for those playing at home it operates in the
24 Gigahertz range.
That's the quick recap of what the radar does. Let's have a look at the implementation on the Wahoo head units
Onto our hands-on look with the Elemnt Bolt, the original Elemnt and
the newer Elemnt Roam
Now as they boot up
The Varia radar has a test mode we can put this in so we can see how it operates
Across all three without actually going out on the road. So we put this in the test mode by press and hold
It will start flashing
And that's now in test mode. I'm gonna put that aside so we know that's beeping and pretending to pick up cars.
So I'll go over to the side and
We'll see how these three units. I've already prepared them all and you can see it already picking up on the bolt
That won't be too far off on sister initializes and this initializes
Across all three, and I have paid just the one Varia radar to all three over ANT+
that's happy you can see it happening on there and voila we have it on here on the Roam too.
The demonstration mode with the Varia radar is only one single vehicle (or car)
Coming at standard speed not fast speed so but only turns orange not red. You can see the differences between the models here
So we have the monochrome screens on these two
With the gray side bar and the color side bar on this one here on the roam
Now the side bar will remain active with the radar connected. So we disconnect the radar
You know, we've turned that off and you'll see the side bar is disconnected
So the radar is flat falling off your bike not turned on
If that is the case and you expect it to be there that will also happen. It'll say radar disconnected
So if it does fall off the back your bike, you'll get a warning on that. Okay radar disconnected
We turn it back on to normal mode. I
Always have mine standard solid when it detects an object. It will start flashing and you can see that bar, bar and bar
Indicating the radar turned on paired and it's got your back.
Back into test mode here and if there are multiple cars, you will see multiple cars on the screen here up to eight cars
But once very handy if you're coming into a roundabout or intersection to see multiple cars back
So if you're going to claim the lane, you know, there's more than one car behind you
the radar support is identical on these two units the original element and the roam did the same screen size and have the same at
Lead configuration down the side across the top on the bolt. There's only the top LEDs there
So there's no configuration options for side LEDs.
So that's the default support for the radar across all three units
You can see the differences there between them. I'm gonna turn these ones off now
And we'll focus on just the Roam and the configuration options, which is the same as the element as well
Okay loading the element companion app here to configure the Elemnt Roam
And we are connected with 23 percent battery, it's due for a charge in just a few moments
So the configuration we can go to LEDs and sound if we scroll down we can go to radar alert settings
We have options for alerts on or off. So if we turn the alerts off, you can see there things switch off straight away
Back On
We can turn off the sounds if you like
So the sounds are disappeared, but the visuals are all still there
We can show radar status in top LEDs so we can turn the top LEDs off and just have the on-screen display
plus the sounds back on if we like and
Alternatively we can have the left LEDs shown with nothing else on the screen
You can see there. The left LEDs are now used to indicate the cars approaching and
going clear
Flash for detect moving forward and
Clear and we can turn the sounds back on for those as well if we like
So for me alerts on on-screen display status along the top LEDs and sounds on is what I use for the rides that I do
For the rest of this demonstration though. I'll turn the sounds off
okay, so we can go back we can also get to the configuration option and
Sensors so setup sensors and bike radar after it is paired there
we can see their alert settings which takes us to the same screen we can get to
A few other things to cover off is the on head unit configuration of this device. So we go to the device options
Here we click more and we only have options for alert modes that being on
Muted or off. So if you are riding along in heavy traffic
Or that just happens to be a lot more traffic than normal
You can change the alert configuration on the head unit
as you ride mines typically left to on and finally the radar, the Varia radar is a dual light and
radar device
They're two different things and they require two different ANT+ support profiles
Now on garmin head units their head units have both profiles at this point in time the wahoo
Implementation of support for this device is only for the radar not for the light
So you're willing to manually turn this on and turn this off which is pretty much been my preference anyway
Because the light profile support for ANT+ is a little flaky
That's about it for the configuration of all of that and do note if the unit does go flat under 10 percent battery you will
Get this warning here indicating that you need to charge your radar device
So there we have it all the details about the wahoos support for the radar
Now, it's not just the Varia radar. Radar is an open standard
So the Varia is are the only ones in the market at the moment. That could change at any time
before I wrap this one up a few things to note about the radar and how it operates a few people will say that it
Doesn't operate as it should it won't detect vehicles coming slow or vehicles moving at the same speed that's not its job
That's how it operates
False-positives and false-negatives are always asked about with radar device.
For me, my experience is false positives every now and then
Typically, I'll turn around and see a big tree swaying in the wind that this thing will pick up
I think it's the tree or it's something else
That's a car that's coming at me and it turned off in the cars no longer there usually explained
So the false positives aren't too bad false negatives the dangerous ones where it doesn't pick a car up hasn't occurred
This thing is pretty good at what it does and look I'll be honest
This unit is not for everyone if you're riding on a very very busy road. It's just a beep factory
That's all it's going to do is flash all the time
Of course, there's cars back
but for the riding I do it's a complete game changer and
Easily the best piece of tech that I've added to my bike in the last few years
And my final more general disclaimer about radar usage is it's not another set of eyes
It's not another set of ears and it doesn't replace having to do a head check just to be sure
It's like having a rider on your wheel yelling "car back" all the time that there's a car there as mentioned earlier
I'll put links below to my video on this device and how it was a game changer in the very first few kilometers of use
Last year, it's absolutely brilliant. If you're a user of one of these let me know below
But if you're a why who use it as well there yet. You've got support today links below to the firmware details
Thanks for watching and remember hit subscribe to support this channel
Offf!
I was going to do that as a bit of a joke.
[A bit of an out-take]
I can see just a single dot in front of me now
Didn't make the baby cry. [No] I can just see... You're like a dot it's like HAL
[Hello Dave]
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