Its been a while since I looked into detectors / jammers, Valentine One was the best at the time, how does that compare to Vortex and others?
Vortex is a review site, so they don’t actually make a product. He is like the Doug Demuro of radars. Your top choices is the Uniden R7, Valentine 1 Gen 2, Escort Max 360c, or wait for Theia.
I speak to quite a few industry people on this site.
Just sharing what I found interesting on youtube few months ago. On real world police channel. they posted a few videos of people getting caught speeding excess of 100 mph+ in Las Vegas. They investigated, turns out "As long as you actually show up or even phone the Justice Court, you, too, can get just about any Nevada Highway Patrol speeding ticket amended to a non-moving violation. "
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OP not sure where you live, I am in San Diego, I’ve used Mr. Ticket, they charge $100 for tickets local in San Diego, a friend referred me and I paid $50 only! they charge travel but they are not expensive, my buddy got a ticket with the court in San Bernardino and they quoted him like $200.
You can try them.
Uniden R7 is $420.50 at Amazon right now (thanks, Camelcamelcamel!).
Best Buy price matched via chat**
$499.99 – suggested retail price
(79.49) – discount
(22.08) – 5.25% back on B of A Cash Rewards Visa
(10.51) – 2.5% Best Buy Elite Plus rewards
$388.86 net cost
I left out sales tax for simplicity.
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**I saw this item for as low as $419 on Amazon recently, but only through third-party sellers (which BB will not price match)
You’ll have to give us a breakdown in a few weeks. I’m debating whether it’s worth getting.
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It appears from reading real life human reviews (and not “radar detector enthusiast” reviews) that it’s more hassle than it’s worth and only worth it if you’re a serious speeder.
From what I’ve gathered it takes some configuration to optimize it for one’s personal preferences, and most people just want something that works right out of the box.
I’m married to a scientist (radar/sonar/signal processing) with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. By the time it goes into my car, it’ll be plug and play.
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I do and it is the best radar detector in terms of performance that I have ever owned. The Max360 was more user friendly and had GPS lockout (I did not use that too much), but the R7 is not hard to configure (it is just buttons) and people post their setting on forums that are easy to follow. I have had it pick up state troopers 3+ miles away. I found mine on sale for about $410 and they pop up around the $400-$425 mark often, so $388 price is a steal. Check out Votrex Radar’s youtube channel or website. Tons of info and reviews on there plus RDforum.com
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I just took my R7 out of the box and spent 25 minutes trying to convince my Windows 10 laptop to recognize the device so I could update the firmware.
I downloaded drivers, installed software, uninstalled software and tried again.
Nothing worked.
So far, this thing is a zero.
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Vortex has a good video on how to update it. Have you seen it?
Not until you just posted it, but all the video does is walk through the steps I followed on the same Uniden support page I linked above.
At about 5:40 the video shows success connecting the computer to the radar detector. All I get is this staring back at me.
You can’t say you weren’t warned.
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I had a similar problem on my MacBook Pro. Funny enough it worked without a hitch on my wife’s MacBook Air. I also have a cheap Chuwi laptop I use for Windows only programs and it works on there too.
Thank you.
I ended up uninstalling/deleting everything I’d done previously, rebooting, and then starting over.
I was able to get the Uniden app to recognize the R7 that was attached to the laptop via USB cable, but the R7_v133.141.113_db200710.bin file is nowhere to be found.
At this point I need to decide if I’m going to just return it, or try this all over again when I have access to my iMac this weekend.
FWIW, I bought my R7 during the Summer of 2019 and it has never been updated. You don’t need to update it for it to work.
I get that, but I’m sitting here with a brand new $500 device that’s supposed to be capable of firmware updates.
I’m not trying to trick it into making toast.
You get some additional features but it’s not a deal breaker for me. The updates just give more features like improved BSM filtering, improved laser detection (not useful - laser = instant ticket), and updated red light cam database.
I did update my Uniden 950 (older detector) using a Dell XPS though following Vortex’s instruction. Based on the issues you are seeing, I would check the drivers and ensure that they are correct/updated.
Check RDforums on update tips too. How to Update the Uniden R7 Firmware | Radar Detector & Countermeasure Forum