What are False Alerts on a Radar Detector?

Radar detectors, while excellent at what they do, are not perfect. One of the biggest differences between the lower end and the best radar detectors is the number of false alerts given by the device. For example, a common police radar gun shares the same K band frequency as a lot of other common devices such as automatic door openers and the blind spot detectors of many vehicles. Thus, false alerts may be a story of boy cry wolf for real threats and fake threats. To learn more about the differences between the radar bands that radar detectors can detect, see our Differences Between X band, K Band and Ka Band article.

Luckily, premium radar detectors such as the ones from Escort and Radenso are set up right to filter out false alerts, so that only real law enforcement and their LIDAR radar guns are detected.

Stationary False Alerts

Moving false alerts are, again, what they sound like. These false alarms come from moving vehicles with advanced safety systems. Some examples of these systems include auto-pilot, radar cruise control, adaptive cruise control and blind spot monitoring systems. These systems emit K band radar signals which will confuse the radar detector. Moving false alerts are problematic because it’s difficult to know if the source of the radar is from a real police officer following you with his radar gun or just from another vehicle’s safety systems.

With the technology advancement in new cars, more and more vehicles have these systems come as standard. To combat this trend, radar detector manufacturers have had to come out with better radar signal analysis and filtering features, which are more advanced in premium radar detectors such as the ones from Escort and Radenso.

Solution 1: GPS Lockouts

GPS enabled radar detectors is one of the best ways to filter out false alerts by offering two features: lockouts and speed-based muting. GPS lockouts work by creating an alert-free zone based on GPS coordinates. For example, if you’re in an area with a lot of known false alarms (IE. an area with lots of shops that have automatic door openers) then you can tell the radar detector to ignore this area every time you pass by it. Radenso radar detectors have this premium feature.

Solution 2: Auto-City Mode

Radenso radar detectors that have GPS features allow the radar detector to control sensitivity and filter false alerts based on the vehicle's speed of travel. You can select a low speed setting of 30 mph or high speed setting of 60mph. When the vehicle is traveling under 30 mph, the radar detector will automatically filter X and K band radar signals as they are much more likely to be false alerts, and because you’d be traveling at a speed that’s under most city speed limits. Ka bands are not affected as these are much more likely to be real law enforcement radar guns. While traveling between 30 mph and 60 mph, the radar detector will automatically change the sensitivity and alert filtering to provide an optimal mix of performance and false alert filtering. Over 60 mph, the radar detector will automatically enter maximum sensitivity as these are high speeds of travel.

Solution 3: Signal Analysis

The biggest difference between older, cheaper radar detector models and newer, premium radar detectors is the ability to actually analyze and filter any radar signals that are detected. This feature has become very important because of the reasons discussed before, that so many other devices in the modern world utilize the same or similar radar signals and radar bands.

For example, even two radar waves that are on the same frequency may be completely different if analyzed with radar detector signal analysis hardware and software. The radar detector is able to detect which radar signal is legitimate from law enforcement and which is not, so that the latter will not give out any false alerts by the radar detector. Only the top radar detectors have this feature, ensuring that you have a quiet yet protected drive.

What are False Alerts on a Radar Detector?