I agree with pulling the presta stem to seat tires. The brass adapter works fine to inflate a tire and it doesn’t really matter if it leaks. I actually have some really cheap plastic adapters that work the same as the brass. But I’ve never been able to seat a tire with the presta valve core in (except for Reserve valve cores, which work great but expensive). With the core pulled my Schraeder inflator head seats well enough against the presta stem, no adapter needed.

I have the light and radar unit (no camera) and its killer feature is that it flashes when it detects a car approaching. There is a huge difference in how people pass me (here in the US) when I use the Varia compares to when I don’t. I think the flash really gets driver’s attention.

The notification by the radar on my head unit is very nice as well, but the pros and cons if that are summarized in the review. But for some reason no one ever mentions the flashing of the radar. Note that I use it in steady mode most of the time, I’m not sure what the radar does when it detects a car and is already in blink mode.

As far as head unit vs. phone goes, I’ve never used the Varia with my phone but with an Edge 530 head unit it works exactly as described in the review.