Garmin’s new cycling headlight includes a 4K incident camera

Garmin has announced a new addition to its Varia line of safety and visibility accessories for cyclists. The Varia Vue is the first to pair a bright headlight with a front-facing 4K camera designed to automatically record incidents and save the footage locally or send it to the cloud through a smartphone. It’s available now through the company’s online store for $549.99 and is also available through Amazon.

The Varia Vue can capture 4K video for up to six hours on a full charge, but battery life is reduced to as little as 1.25 hours with the headlight set to its brightest setting. Dropping the camera’s resolution to 1080P at 30fps can boost recording times to up to nine hours, or up to 1.5 hours with the headlight at full brightness.

Electronic image stabilization helps to reduce shakiness in footage captured on rough terrain, while continuous recording allows the events leading up to an incident (detected by the Vue’s accelerometer) to be stored alongside the aftermath. With the camera paired to devices like Garmin’s smartwatches, cycling computers, or even its mobile app, video is recorded with GPS speed and location info.

To further maximize battery life, the Vue can be connected to Garmin’s camera-equipped radar taillight. Not only does that unlock an additional recording mode where the Vue only starts to capture footage when a vehicle approaches from behind, it also allows incidents to be captured from two different angles.

Footage is recorded locally to an SD card, but when connected to Wi-Fi, videos can be automatically uploaded to the online Garmin Vault for added security. However, that feature requires either a $9.99 monthly subscription or a $99.99 annual one.

Garmin says the Vue’s headlight has a maximum brightness of 600 lumens, but that’s only available in a flashing mode designed for daytime use. At full brightness, the Vue outputs 550 lumens, and can be dimmed to as low as 140 lumens. The headlight is also designed with a cutoff beam that angles the illumination down onto the road so it doesn’t shine in the eyes of oncoming drivers.

One additional feature that will almost certainly appeal to existing Garmin fans is that the company, which has long stuck with Micro USB ports on its products, has opted for a USB-C port on the Vue for charging.