I'm not sure if the battery life is truly 16 hours, but it should be reasonably close to that. Running it in night flash mode will significantly cut into battery life. Unfortunately, my Bryton 750 GPS head unit cannot show battery life for the Varia, so I have to estimate how much life is left (and today it ran out on me because I hadn't charged it recently enough, so I'll need to be more careful in the future). Never had any issues with it picking up oncoming cars, nor have I ever had it disconnect even briefly from my Bryton head unit.