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Attention Car-Guys! Fed up with those annoying false alarms in town from your radar detector? Want to detect those controversial red-light and speed cameras that your radar detector misses? Arizona-based Cheetah USA LLC (www.speedcheetah.com) has released a dedicated red-light and speed camera detector called the GPSmirror which, thanks to a breakthrough Cheetah invention called “Radar Datalinking,” it is able to filter out low speed alerts on your existing radar detector too.
GPS-based driver safety systems are used widely all over Europe but Cheetah’s new GPSmirror is the first to have been specifically designed for the US market. It has the unique ability to interface with high-end US radar detectors and kill false alarms. Cheetah’s $299 GPSmirror represents a major step forward for the sector and in comparison with the two other solutions for red-light reminders and false alarm filtering on the US market today (the Escort 9500i and the Cobra XRS R9G) the Cheetah unit looks to offer a very attractive proposition.
Unlike the Escort 9500i where you have to store camera locations yourself, the GPSmirror comes pre-loaded with camera locations in the USA and Canada. Drivers have free access to the Trinity Database for regular memory updates through the internet. Don Norton, Director of Cheetah USA, confirms, “Marking locations is fine as far as it goes, and our product offers that feature too, but storing a personal location doesn’t help you much when you’re driving on any road that’s outside your regular commute. The database approach means the work of marking locations has already been done.”
The Cobra R9G also uses a database approach but only comes with the Cobra radar detector head whereas the GPSmirror’s optional $110 Radar Detector Interface can plug into high-end US detectors from Escort, Beltronics, Valentine Research and even laser products like Blinder, so you get to keep your own detector whose performance you already know, trust and (dare we say it?) even love!
“We prefer this modular approach because we believe drivers want to choose their favorite radar detector or their favorite laser countermeasure.” Norton smiles, “Our way, all the products work seamlessly together as an integrated system, even though they come from different manufacturers.”
The company say the method it uses for false alarm suppression is 100% reliable, easy to understand and easy to use. “It’s so simple, people love it. You set a speed limit on the mirror and your detector is automatically muted at lower speeds below this threshold. Drive faster and you’ll get the alerts. Most people tend to keep the threshold about 35mph so you filter out all those annoying alerts in town or in mall car parks, when you don’t need the detector anyway.”