Garmin Varia Vue Front Camera/Light
 

Anyone (other than DC Rainmaker) have one yet?

This looks promising, apart from the price tag (which apparently is in part a consequence of the new tariffs).

I've been using a $100 Garmin dash cam in my car for the last few years with no issues.

I only saw he had a video about it, and didn't feel like spending the time. Does it have a shaped beam?

It appears that it has a shaped beam. I assume everybody gets the same optics. There is a version for Germany that has to have a shaped beam.
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/04/...mGkIkIxiYmPyyw

In the video (which I have since partially watched), he mainly reviews the camera. It was fairly negative. TL;DW: It is not an action cam, the image stabilization is quite poor, the 4K resolution is optimistic, the dynamic range of the detector is quite limited, and the price is extreme for what you get.

I skipped around a bit, but I personally would worry about having a camera drain the battery that is shared with a headlight.

The Varia 715 has a camera sharing a battery with the light. It uses power quicker and you end up charging more frequently, but if hooked up to a Garmin Edge, you get notified when battery power is low and that you need to charge. Same thing world happen in the front.

For me, I would want a camera whose resolution is good enough to grab license plate numbers. If it’s can’t do that it’s not worth what they are charging. Odd as inexpensive dash cams for cars have sufficient resolution to read license plates. Maybe yeh new Garmin can, not sure,

Anyone know of a camera that can grab a license plate number? I played around with this before covid and I couldn't find one, including car models and a GoPro.

This might work, but a little pricey. https://hoverair.com/?irclickid=18eV..._source=impact

Post 5 shows a photo from the Garmin being discussed that show a license plate number

License plates will be seen by most any camera. The distance away that you can read the plate will depend on resolution. If you are recording at low resolution to maximize the amount of recording that will fit on the camera's storage, then license plates will be a issue.

The main complaint that DC had about license plates is that it won't capture the number straight ahead if the light is on. It does work fine if the light isn't shining directly on the plate. You can see that in the screen grab in post 5. I guess you could swerve into the oncoming lane or something.

:eek:

Swerving isn't as crazy as it sounds. You can wiggle your handlebars such that you're not really changing course. I do this when I want to see the edges of the trail I'm on but my headlight beam is narrow.

I don't see the value proposition of this product when you can get a far better light and a far better camera for far cheaper. The only advantage here is that the two are combined. But then again, is that really an advantage? It's like buying a bike with a permanently attach wheelset, you can't replace or upgrade the frame and wheels separately. It would not be a very appealing bike.

I've used my GoPro Hero8 Black for this several times. Bigger issue is battery life for a ride longer than half an hour at the resolution needed to capture readable license image. I got 'round this by using an external battery pack powering Hero8 via USB cable.

Oh, and for decent high-res video you need to buy and use a LARGE capacity SD card.

It links to DC Rainmaker's page. I was distracted and didn't add any info. Sorry.

The problem he managed to capture in the photo is what happens under low lighting conditions. The plate on the car right in front of him is illegible, due to the headlight in the combo unit, but off to the side, you can see the number on one of the parked cars quite easily. I think his conclusion is that the dynamic range of the detector chip is quite limited.

Looking at the photo above, I disagree that it is a dynamic range limitation, and I would challenge him to find another camera that can make letters legible in similar circumstances.

The problem is the camera/light combo.

More a software issue than an imaging chip limitation.

Any digital camera that allows access to RAW image data leaves a vastly larger data file available for interpretation in post-processing before viewing.

Digital imaging isn't like traditional film imaging in that manner; over-exposed film doesn't leave much if anything for recovery when highlight values saturate the imaging medium's capability.

With digital, and appropriate software for saving captured image data, overexposed highlight portion of the data file may still allow image details to be made visible. When a particular camera's software 'clips' image data to render 'lossy' file formats (PNG, JPG, etc.) for practical storage space constraints, what get's clipped off isn't recoverable later on.

A typical user usually won't miss this information. Add to that the fact that license plate manufacturing tech incorporating 'ScotchBrite' type reflective media makes headlight-illuminated license plate capture difficult by unsophisticated imaging practices, I wouldn't expect the Varia to do any better.

It clearly can capture plate images under more even illumination levels, as can my Hero8:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8a73b939d3.png

(This from screen-captures of QuickTime viewer .MOV files displayed on my MacBook Pro's high-resolution screen display.)