Bryton Gardia R300L review: radar flaws mean I can't recommend this compact light

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The Gardia 300L is one of the cheapest radar lights available. It’s compact, lightweight and the light is good-quality.

Furthermore, the app is easy to use and there are plenty of useful features.

However, middling performance and lots of disappearing detections make it impossible to recommended on any grounds other than the low price of £99.99 / $130 / €129.95. 

Bryton Gardia R300L setup 

Because the Bryton uses the ANT+ radar protocol, setting up with a bike computer is simple, and it paired instantly with Garmin, Bryton and Hammerhead units. 

If you want to run it in conjunction with a phone, you’ll need to download the Bryton Gardia app. This provides a graphic depiction of the road behind, and shows the remaining battery life and current light mode (and enables you to switch between modes), along with volume control. It also enables firmware updates for the Gardia.  

Bryton Gardia R300L fitting 

The compact unit has a solid quarter-turn bracket, and the light lens wraps around the edge, giving some side visibility. The slim unit and compact mounting bracket work well on smaller frames, too. 

Bryton Gardia R300L performance 

Despite its relatively low price, the Gardia R300L has plenty of features. The different light modes are complemented with a G-sensor that ramps up the light power on braking.

When the radar detects oncoming vehicles, it also ups the brightness to alert drivers. Plus, the wrap-around 220-degree lens pumps out plenty of side-on visibility. 

The radar functions work much like its rivals designed to meet the ANT+ Radar standard, although it suffers from too many glitches. 

The Gardia didn’t get close to its claimed 190m detection distance. With the clever ‘My Bike Radar traffic’ app from the Connect IQ store on my Garmin 840, the maximum detection I found was 195ft (59.5 metres) during a 38-mile ride on rural roads  

The issues don’t stop there. Many radars suffer when approaching traffic is moving at the same speed and disappears suddenly from detection. Aside from the smart new Garmin 820 RearVue, all the radars in this test suffered from this glitch to a lesser or greater extent.  

Sadly for the Bryton, it happened frequently – even vehicles in the far distance would glitch out of the detection, reappear, then disappear again once they got close and slowed before overtaking.  

On rural roads with little traffic, it can be forgiven, because there’s less traffic. If you see a vehicle on the radar and it disappears from view without you passing any junctions, you can assume it’s still there.  

In urban environs, however, it is an issue, because cars/trucks/buses can be exiting and entering your ride space, and on numerous occasions I was surprised to find a vehicle hovering on my shoulder that hadn’t been picked up at all. 

Also worrying was the inability for the Gardia to consistently detect motorbikes. On one 30-mile commute, I was passed by a dozen motorcycle/moped commuters – of these, the unit detected only one larger motorbike. I only knew they were approaching due to their noise – they’re not exactly quiet machines. 

A firmware update issued part way through testing hasn’t addressed any of these issues in any meaningful way. 

Bryton Gardia R300L bottom line 

As a smart bike light, the Gardia R300L is great, especially with its brake-light function and decent run times. I’ve run the light in solid mode consistently and got around nine hours’ run time with the radar function, too. 

As a radar, its rural performance is average, but on busier suburban streets, it’s too inconsistent. In cities, where almost all radars struggle due to the sheer volume of moving targets, it’s poor. 

As much as I like the light performance, the easy-to-use app and the compact design, I can’t recommend the Bryton because the radar performance is too inconsistent. Perhaps further firmware updates will rectify this, but for now I’d suggest looking elsewhere. 

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