[Emoto]

Originally Posted by Orangeman13

Waze

Truly an excellent arrow to have in the quiver. I run it most of the time in addition to my detector. The more tools the better!

As good as Waze is, in the Boston area it is flaky and the network is not always available for all features. I don't know if it is overloaded or what, but it is far from reliable here.

[Warrior102]

As mentioned Uniden R3, R7 Escort 360, Valentine all are top shelf. Whatever you get get one of these to mount it, not cheap but a nice piece of gear and is made for the car. https://blendmount.com/aluminum-rada...y-2027-series/

[warren3537]

Cobra Rad 450 works for me, it picks up the PO PO with no problems.

[chevybill]

How many years of service can you expect from a detector before it becomes obsolete?
I understand the Valentine can be upgraded, but what about others.

A friend had the escort back in the late 1980's and was very effective in Mississippi and Tennessee at that time.

[chevybill]

Back to the top.

[dray]

Another vote for Valentine One. I use that and WAZE and my eyeballs on the tail lights up ahead. The detector has definitely saved my butt a few times over the last year.

[Artryan]

I have the 360. It works, but for the money I was honestly expecting a little more. Also, it worked much better in my truck than in my ZL1. I get constant K band warnings from the rear. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the blind spot monitoring or not, but it's so constant that I don't even think I could tell if it were a cop of false reading. That kind of defeats the purpose.

[Emoto]

Originally Posted by chevybill

How many years of service can you expect from a detector before it becomes obsolete?
I understand the Valentine can be upgraded, but what about others.

A friend had the escort back in the late 1980's and was very effective in Mississippi and Tennessee at that time.

FWIW, Mike Valentine (owner of the company that makes the Valentine 1) was an engineer (chief engineer? not sure) at Escort, then he left and started his own company. Escort kind of didn't do much of anything new or innovative for a long time after he left. Maybe they do now, not sure.

Your question is hard to answer because the technology evolves at irregular intervals, and radar detectors seem to only evolve in response to new threats or conditions. I have had and used radar detectors since 1986 so have only been paying attention since a few years before then (Fuzz buster days). At one time, there was only X band. Then, K band came out, then Ka and "instant on", then pop radar and at some point laser (lidar). The detectors have evolved to detect all of these things. Some are tougher to alert in time to save us, but any help is better than none. That's why I try to stay as hyper-vigilant watching for threats (or indications of threats, like brake lights ahead) as if I had no detector. I also use Waze as an additional tool, although it varies in effectiveness about warning about cops.

I thought laser would be the end of detectors, because unless they use it on someone in front of you and you pick that up, you may not be able to slow down in time if you pick up a laser alert. The good news is that the laser guns are expensive, so have not spread to everywhere like radar guns have. Also, and I think this is key, laser is a lot harder to operate. It takes real effort and concentration when compared to radar, so the cops don't want to bother. You have to get out of the car and really aim it accurately, etc., whereas with radar you can just sit in the car and still nab speeders, so even if they have a laser gun, a lot of the time they don't bother with it. So, radar still remains our greatest threat.

I don't think there is a lot of pressure on states and towns to find or implement new technologies for catching speeders, because the tools they have right now are very effective. So, I could be wrong, but I don't see anything worrisome on the horizon.

Having said that, I like what Mike Valentine has done over the years and think his solutions are well thought out and useful, even if he is not the first to provide a solution sometimes. I have only upgraded my V-1 once. They added pop and some other things, but I didn't really see the need to upgrade (it is almost as expensive as a new unit, but not quite). I finally upgraded to get the "Junk K Fighter" to handle all of the car blind spot detectors and whatnot that spew short range radar all over the place. Well worth it. The good news is that when you upgrade, you get everything they have improved since you bought your unit.

[AmazinglySmooth]

V1 has worked for me.

[Lantzyt]

Originally Posted by Emoto

http://www.valentine1.com/

You can send a V-1 in to be upgraded if and when new features come out. Not cheap, but better than buying a new unit every x number of years.

The V-1 has a feature called "junk K fighter" that gets rid of almost all of the false alarm alerts from lane changing assist radar (LCA) or the blind spot radar. Works really well - I had mine upgraded for that feature and am glad I did. Any radar detector that can't filter that out is going to be going off all the time on the highway, making it useless.

The V-1 has directional arrows AND a bogey counter. These, IMHO, are critically important features. The arrows let you know front, back, or sides, and the bogey counter is how many. Many a speeder has been caught when they go past a cop and then speed up, only to find there is another one right down the road. With the arrows and the bogey counter this can never happen to you.

Where can you order the valentine detector? Everywhere I see it’s out of stock or not available

[DaveC113]

Originally Posted by Emoto

It takes real effort and concentration when compared to radar, so the cops don't want to bother.

Exactly, very few police are motivated enough to use laser.

I also appreciate the fact that very few are motivated enough to even turn their radar systems on and off so we get plenty of warning before being clocked.

[chevybill]

Emoto, thank you for that detailed answer.

[Petrol Head]

I'm going to buy a new detector as well so I'm following this thread. Looking to replace my 2008 Escort Passport 9500ix. Before that I had the Passport 7500 from 1998. The 9500 still works great as a detector but my Lord are the false alarms killing me with all the blind spot and radar guided cruise controls out there now.

I just went to the V1 website. I know website presentation isn't always an indicator of product quality, but Valentine's website still looks the same after 20 years. Still has that same picture of him in his lab coat from like 1995. He should be retired by now he's probably that old.

[AmazinglySmooth]

I will sell my V1 for $10k.