Varia UT800 Smart Headlight: Getting Started

[@Mazeboxx]

Sorry, but the battery just gets hammered once it's connected via Bluetooth to my Garmin 830. Both are brand new, and if I'm lucky I'll get an hour and a half of life out of the Varia. For something with a price tag as it comes with, that's just downright embarrassing...

[@MrLuigi-oi7gm]

Hi Tamborean, Is that an hour and a half at the maximum brightness setting-800 lumens? If so, that is normal and not out of the ordinary compared to similar-sized lights with 800 lumens of light output. Maximum brightness is REALLY bright on my UT800. So, I don't usually have it on maximum. I get about 3 hours at medium and 6 hours at low and night flash. 25 hours for day flash. Sounds like if you need 800 lumens of light AND want the battery to last longer than an hour and a half you would need to get a larger unit with a bigger battery.

[@Mazeboxx]

@@MrLuigi-oi7gm Nope, not on the highest setting, not even close. You assume quite a bit, and are missing my point. It has nothing to do with the battery performance of the light itself, but with the fact that once it is connected via BLUETOOTH to my Garmin 830 the battery just drains itself at an incredible speed.

[@MrLuigi-oi7gm]

@@Mazeboxx There was no intent to upset you beyond being disappointed in the performance of the Varia UT800. More or less , I get the hours of battery life I mentioned. But I don't use my Garmen Edge to control anything but on/off and light levels. I don't use the ambient light level and bike speed feature to dynamically control the light output. I don't know if you use that feature, but if you do, that could be causing the excessive battery drain. This unfortunate limitation of the UT800 has been mentioned in reviews of the product and it's too bad Garmin couldn't fix it through a firmware update. I don't understand your accusation that I assume a lot. In fact, my original comment began with a question because I did not know how you were using the UT800. I still don't as you didn't include any use specifics in both comments. You have left me to guess at things because of that. BTW, are you sure the UT800 communicates to the Edge via Bluetooth? I may be wrong, but I thought the light communicates via Ant+.

[@imola8]

@@Mazeboxx I´ve heard of another reviewer that when he uses the "smart" function on the lamp to control the brightness automatically with his edge that it`s drains the battery way more than by just setting it on a specific brightness. This behaviour makes the smart function which is actually a great idea to save battery power kind of useless. HOpefully garmin will listen and bring an update of this lamp. I would buy it if it would work like you would expect it.