Is this beginning of the end of radar detector era?

[jerr]

I have been dedicated user of the radar detectors for almost 2 decades and for last 4 years I have been fun of Valentine 1.
I live in Europe and must say that V1 device had never let me down… until l upgraded my vehicle to the new one.
By default I got this vehicle with new perks what means:

• Line assistant,
• Blind spot assistant,
• Dynamic cruise control,
• City safety system (collision prevention),
• Parking assistant.

A lot of assistance there, either you want or you don’t.
Nevertheless you can imagine how big was my surprise when I installed my Valentine for first time in the car. The detector got activated immediately after powering up and kept on running detecting K Band! Well, I thought, one or some of car’s assistants interferes with my detector. I switched off all of them but it did not help. It looks like the city safety or dynamic cruise control are all the time active even though they are switched off.

I was not happy but I decided to give up some of the detector’s coverage and deactivated the K Band. And here I was surprised for third time – even though K Band was shut down my Valentine still kept picking the K Band and was on alert all the time. I then switched off Ka Band, Ku Band and POP and none of those helped. Once Valentine encountered a source of the K type radar it got activated and stayed alerting for good.
I run Euro mode and thought that it might be just my unit that was faulty. No way – my friend’s Valentine reacts exactly the same in my car and in his new Volvo XC60 with similar perks.
We both run on software #3864 and we both wonder if there is a cure to our issue.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

[lordhawhaw]

Yes

[GTdriver]

With all these new vehicles and their "features" it's going to be a lot harder to discern real threats. THIS may be an extreme example, and most likely will never be implemented...but it is very telling how vehicle technology is really starting to make use of IR and radar, to our disadvantage. It sucks...but, we'll just have to see how the manufacturers respond to the burgeoning sources of falses.

[Solidjake]

Black Forest, Poland

Siema

[Bridge Cables]

To the OP

With all the security goodies on your new vehicle it pretty well took you out of RD ownership, sorry to see .

As the mid and econo vehicle models get their “extras in security”, whether radar or laser, the pollution for RD’s is going to increase. The vehicle manufacturers, hungry in poor economies are definitely going to be selling these new profit accessories as fast as they can.

BC

[GTO_04]

It depends on how many buyers are willing to shell out extra money for these features. Given the state of the economy, maybe not many. K band lane assist, cruise control etc. are available on several models, ranging from Buick to Mercedes, yet I've only run into a few of these on the road. Unfortunately, one of them lives in my neighborhood. And the guy with the lane assist (MB) drives like a jerk, cutting everyone off.

When I'm shopping for a new car, my V1 goes with me on every test drive. That way there are no surprises!

GTO_04

[Vette6893]

This is a good point and something that I have been wondering for a long time. I guess my V1 will sound alarms when I'm behind you on the highway. The RD's will need to be better at picking out false alarms or all RD will go off continuously. Tough spot but than again they will need to rise to the challenge.

[lordhawhaw]

Those laser cruise controls on the Infiniti's are so annoying.

[Whizzpass]

I look at this issue on a different perspective...
Instead of dunking out my RD sooner, I might as well use it as an early warning system to alert me of other vehicles trying to overtake whenever I can't see them (eg: at my blindspot). I works fine for me since my car has no such extra safety sensors operating.

The other day my RD alerted to K or Ka (can't exactly recall which bandwith? and its happens sooo fast) ramping up as a Mercedes zoomed past my vehicle's blind side. Sincerely I wouldn't have known that he was overtaking me with such an extreme speed and surprise if not for the RD. The signal fades as fast as the Merc. zoomed away from my vision and range. (Feels like being intercepted by a jet fighter )

We might as well make use of whatever benefit the RD can offer us while the majority of vehicles are still not fitted with those extra features. When that day comes, then perhaps I can add my trusty RD on my bookshelf as a memoir of its better days.

[jerr]

Such point of view might be subject to new advertisement campaign of RDs unless you sit in one of those vehicles that make your RD useless...

jerr