If you’re an iPhone user running a Valentine 1 Gen2, Radenso DS1, Uniden R4, or Uniden R8, there’s two options for apps to connect to your detector and add more useful features: V1Driver and the different Radar Companion apps. Both are excellent and help extend the capabilities of your radar detector.
V1Driver (left) and R8 Companion (right) alerting to Ka and K band signals
Both of these apps originally started as V1 apps and then later added support for the bluetooth capable Radenso and Uniden detectors. Let’s look at the key benefits of the different apps, as well as the advantages of each to help you decide which one is better for you.
Escort’s Drive Smarter app recent received an update that adds support for Apple CarPlay. With this latest update, you can now use your vehicle’s display for not only turn-by-turn navigation, but also to display your radar detector’s radar and laser alerts, cloud alerts shared with other drivers, and red light camera & speed camera alerts.
Other than Waze, this is now the first countermeasure app that properly supports Apple CarPlay (beyond simply outputting app audio through your car stereo). Currently the Android version of Drive Smarter doesn’t support Android Auto (yet?), but I’d imagine one will be coming soon to match.
I took it for a spin this morning and while the initial release is pretty buggy, here’s a look at what the new features are like.
Prime Big Deals Days 2023 runs Oct 10-11. It’s like early Black Friday with some of the best discounts of the year.
This year we’ve got deals on radar detectors, dashcams, and more.
New deals will keep popping up and old deals will expire. Some deals go live Tuesday, some Wednesday. Lightning Deals will only be live for a few hours before selling out. (Pricing is accurate at the time of posting, but subject to change.) During Prime Big Deals Day, I’ll be regularly updating this page with the very best discounts on countermeasures.
Follow me on Facebook and Twitter to get notified of updates, especially Lightning Deals.
The Uniden R9 is Uniden’s first custom installed radar detector and laser jammer. The radar detector is based off the popular R8 and their laser jammer is all new. I and several others have been beta testing the R9 for the past 3 years while it was under development, and now that it’s available for order, here’s a hands-on look at the R9’s features, design, performance, and capabilities.
Today and I went out to the red barn test course to see how the upcoming Uniden R9 fares against other custom installed (CI) detectors. I was mainly just wanting to confirm that it can perform on par with other high end detectors since even there’s a lot of important things to compare between them, obviously the range has to be good too. I gotta say that overall, I was pleasantly surprised with how well the R9 did.
It’s just one test on one course with one set of detectors, but it’s good to start getting some data points.
Uniden has released new firmware versions for three different radar detectors to improve their audio quality. The new detectors and firmware versions include:
This week Escort is rolling out a comprehensive firmware update for a wide range of their radar detectors. These updates bring about some significant enhancements including improved performance, reduced false alerts, and some important bug fixes, creating a more trustworthy user experience.
Here are the detectors being updated and their new firmware versions:
All of these detectors are getting essentially the same updates so we’ll cover them all together.
Note: The Redline Ci 360c had many of these improvements in its previous firmware and so this new update only adds the remaining changes. For more information about any specific detector, check out the full release notes / discussions linked above.
Escort has just released the successor to the original Max 360 ($499) and it’s called the Max 360 Mk II ($599). It’s essentially a Max 360c Mk II ($699), just without the WiFi, and it improves upon the original Max 360 by offering longer range, better blind spot monitoring (BSM) filtering, improved photo radar detection, and a refreshed case design.
It costs $100 more than the outgoing Max 360 it replaces, but it’s a mostly welcome upgrade over the original thanks to the performance improvements stemming from its updated Blackfin digital signal processing (DSP) architecture.
Great news for Uniden R4 and Uniden R8 radar detector owners! Bluetooth capability has finally been activated on these detectors thanks to new firmware updates, adding more convenience and functionality.
Let’s discuss how the Bluetooth functionality works, the features it adds, the current Android-only compatibility, and the only compatible app, Highway Radar. We’ll also touch on the additional features added in this firmware update. Lastly, you’ll find links for grabbing the firmware, purchasing the detectors, downloading Highway Radar, and joining the Radar Detector Forum (RDF) community for more information and discussion.
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I currently own 2 Max 360, 1 Max 360c and lastly my favorite,... Uniden R3. By far, the R3 out performs all the Escort product and is a very reliable product when it comes down to picking up the accurate threat.read more
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Uniden R9
