3 ms·

With many (non-police) cars now having radar for collision avoidance, are radar detectors still useful?

by dpifke 2y ago

hunter2_ 2y ago
I only happen to know because I bought a slightly used car in which the first owner had an Escort Max Ci professionally installed. Sensor in the bumper cover, display and controls mounted to the dash with hidden hard-wiring, quite nice. There were a ton of false positives from non-police sources at first, especially Cadillacs if I recall correctly. Then I learned how to disable alerts on all the bands except those known to be used in the places I do most of my driving (2 states) based on websites that specialize in such information. I think I reduced it from like 30 slices of the K band down to about 6 or 7. Problem solved! Granted, it introduces the possibility of encountering police who use bands I've disabled, but I prefer that over a bad SNR. Now I see a cop for about 1/4 of the alerts which is pretty nice. Visible line of sight is often not until the alert has been going for sufficient time to acknowledge.
- OptionOfT 2y ago
  I'd go and double check whether the sensors in your bumpers aren't laser jammers. The Escort Max Ci 360 (not sure if there is a non-360 version) has laser jammers, and that is what those modules are in the front and rear bumper. Radar is easy to detect, but illegal to jam. Laser is very hard to detect (unless you go faster than speed of light), but legal to jam.
  - hunter2_ 2y ago
    The laser shifters are plainly visible on the grill near the intercooler/radiator, while the radar receiver is behind a solid part of the bumper cover. Radar works great despite the low elevation compared to a high windshield mount. Laser shifters died years ago (bulging like bad capacitors, white crust seeping out). I only have front mounted stuff, although the main controller does have unused ports to add rear stuff, so yes you could say my particular setup is non-360. I don't really mind losing the laser shifters. Jam detection is a ubiquitous feature of police units as I understand it, and I'd rather not poke that bear even if it's totally legal. The technique, though, is to cancel the jamming after just a few seconds during which you reduce your speed, such that ultimately you allow a good reading to overcome any suspicion of jamming. Some people like to automate the delayed cancellation, while others prefer to manually cancel. Interesting, but not for me.
mbrameld 2y ago
I haven't dug into it, but coming from an RF background I'd bet the signals differ enough (frequency, pulse width, pulse duration, scan type, etc) that a filter could be applied.
- hunter2_ 2y ago
  Grocery store motion sensors for automatic doors seem to blast constantly like police sources so those are tough (but primarily X band, which is getting rare for police depending on the area, so ignoring X is an option). But car safety systems are bursty (maybe to reduce power consumption / heat dissipation?), so good detectors are able to filter based on such pulse signatures, basically just delaying the determination to alert by about half a second to see how constant the source is.
anonymousiam 2y ago
The collision avoidance, adaptive cruse, and blind spot sensors caused a lot of false alerts with the old (analog) V1 design. The new V1 (Gen 2) design has resolved the false alert issue. I got my V1-Gen2 in 2020 and it has been a big improvement over the Gen1.

With many (non-police) cars now having radar for collision avoidance, are radar detectors still useful?

by dpifke 2y ago

With many (non-police) cars now having radar for collision avoidance, are radar detectors still useful?

I only happen to know because I bought a slightly used car in which the first owner had an Escort Max Ci professionally installed. Sensor in the bumper cover, display and controls mounted to the dash with hidden hard-wiring, quite nice. There were a ton of false positives from non-police sources at first, especially Cadillacs if I recall correctly. Then I learned how to disable alerts on all the bands except those known to be used in the places I do most of my driving (2 states) based on websites that specialize in such information. I think I reduced it from like 30 slices of the K band down to about 6 or 7. Problem solved! Granted, it introduces the possibility of encountering police who use bands I've disabled, but I prefer that over a bad SNR. Now I see a cop for about 1/4 of the alerts which is pretty nice. Visible line of sight is often not until the alert has been going for sufficient time to acknowledge.

OptionOfT 2y ago
I'd go and double check whether the sensors in your bumpers aren't laser jammers. The Escort Max Ci 360 (not sure if there is a non-360 version) has laser jammers, and that is what those modules are in the front and rear bumper. Radar is easy to detect, but illegal to jam. Laser is very hard to detect (unless you go faster than speed of light), but legal to jam.
- hunter2_ 2y ago
  The laser shifters are plainly visible on the grill near the intercooler/radiator, while the radar receiver is behind a solid part of the bumper cover. Radar works great despite the low elevation compared to a high windshield mount. Laser shifters died years ago (bulging like bad capacitors, white crust seeping out). I only have front mounted stuff, although the main controller does have unused ports to add rear stuff, so yes you could say my particular setup is non-360. I don't really mind losing the laser shifters. Jam detection is a ubiquitous feature of police units as I understand it, and I'd rather not poke that bear even if it's totally legal. The technique, though, is to cancel the jamming after just a few seconds during which you reduce your speed, such that ultimately you allow a good reading to overcome any suspicion of jamming. Some people like to automate the delayed cancellation, while others prefer to manually cancel. Interesting, but not for me.

mbrameld 2y ago

I haven't dug into it, but coming from an RF background I'd bet the signals differ enough (frequency, pulse width, pulse duration, scan type, etc) that a filter could be applied.

hunter2_ 2y ago
Grocery store motion sensors for automatic doors seem to blast constantly like police sources so those are tough (but primarily X band, which is getting rare for police depending on the area, so ignoring X is an option). But car safety systems are bursty (maybe to reduce power consumption / heat dissipation?), so good detectors are able to filter based on such pulse signatures, basically just delaying the determination to alert by about half a second to see how constant the source is.

anonymousiam 2y ago

The collision avoidance, adaptive cruse, and blind spot sensors caused a lot of false alerts with the old (analog) V1 design. The new V1 (Gen 2) design has resolved the false alert issue. I got my V1-Gen2 in 2020 and it has been a big improvement over the Gen1.