ARadar

I cannot speak highly enough of Roberto's dedication and expertise. Initially, I reached out to him seeking clarification on how the app integrates with Garmin Varia 315. Roberto not only promptly addressed my inquiries but also went above and beyond to accommodate my specific needs. As someone with hearing difficulties, I expressed the importance of having a haptic feedback option for car proximity alerts. Without hesitation, Roberto sprang into action. Over the following weeks, he diligently crafted a solution that surpassed my expectations. Not only did he introduce vibrations to the Apple Watch interface, but he also integrated a visual alert on my iPhone. Now, with a subtle tap on my wrist, I can effortlessly glance at my iPhone for confirmation – a truly ingenious enhancement. I must commend Roberto's patience and willingness to iterate, not to mention deal with me as his “test dummy”. His commitment to perfecting the app was unwavering. Thank you, Roberto, for your exceptional work and unwavering dedication. You've truly transformed my experience with the app, and I couldn't be more grateful.

This app is fantastic and even better than the native app for the Varia Radar Taillight. (That app will only work on your phone.) I had a special use case in that I wanted to mount my Apple Watch on my handlebars so I could always see the screen without taking my hands off the handlebars. However, once removed from the wrist, the display would time out and go dark after 70 seconds. Over email the developer helped me figure out the problem and how to disable wrist detection on the Apple Watch. Now the display stays on throughout the entire ride so I can always see how many cars are back. Roberto, the developer, provides the best support going way above and beyond what most other developers provide. Milione di grazie Roberto!

Bike radars are essential gear if you ride on roads with cars. But they assume you have a bike computer or handlebar-mounted phone to see and hear the alerts. They’re pretty useless on an iPhone in your pocket, where you cannot see the alerts and likely can’t hear them well. ARadar fixes that by sending radar details to your Apple Watch, where you can easily see it when desired while riding—and better hear (and feel) alerts than you do from that phone in your pocket. I rely on ARadar on every ride, and I am so glad it exists — and that it is so good. I love it. The user interface is clean and clear. Really smart. I love the new Always On Demand setting in version 2.5, which focuses on the essentials — how many cars are coming up behind you — so it takes just a second to understand the situation when you hear the alert. (The standard setting shows much more data about your ride, but it’s too hard for me to focus with all that data when I glance at the Watch.) The integration with Health and Workout means using ARadar doesn’t interfere with your workout tracking—that’s an issue with many Watch apps as they compete with Workout or provide too little tracking passthrough to Workout via the Health app. (Ride with GPS, for example, gets this wrong.) The developer understood that cyclists track more than one thing a time and so ensured full Health passthrough onto Workout. The Apple Watch makes for a great cycling computer, and is less distracting or accident-prone than a handlebar-mounted computer. It’s also much cheaper and can do tons more. I’m surprised it’s not more common among cyclists. Apps like ARadar may help change that. The new version 2.5 adds support for the Trek CarBack radar (I was a beta-tester for that integration), so more people can now benefit. (Garmin Varia and Bryton Gardia are also supported.)