Originally Posted by
Hypno Toad
I've been using the original Varia (RTL500) since roughly 2016, it was getting close to end of life with limited battery life. But the reason I replaced it was that it was dropping connection with my Edge 1040s, and it always chimes when it drops connection and when it reconnects, and that was getting so annoyingly frequent. The thing that has me scratching my head, my other sensors were disconnecting and reconnecting too, like heart rate monitor, power meter, and SRAM eTap. During a training ride, I'd lose my power sensor and my training block power numbers would be impacted, that was getting old fast! Last week I took my March Madness office pool winnings (that was blind luck) to get a new Varia RTL515, and on my first few rides, I'm not seeing any sensors dropping; I've yet to hit the very densely populated areas, like Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis ... that was always the worst place for connection issues, while riding in rural areas was rarely an issue.
The question to any electronic wizards: can one sensor disconnecting/reconnecting cause other sensors to lose connection? This seems like it shouldn't happen, but my experience is making it seem like this was the issue. When my schedule allows, I'll share an update after I ride into the city and test that these high signal areas aren't causing any issues.
Follow up questions, does an ANT+ communications 'chip' (?) degrade with age, I'd guess it does, but I have older sensors, like a speed sensor, that are still working fine.
For reference, my old RTL500 on the left and new RTL515 on the right:
I have both of these (pictured). My wife rides with the older one now, and I use the newer one. I have noticed, reproducibly, that when we get separated on the road and then she or I catches up to get within range, this kind of disconnection happens. Also, when her Edge 130+ starts up, it often will prompt her to add my radar. In addition, I occasionally will get passed by someone else with a radar, and that often causes a (temporary) disconnection of mine.