Valentine One Radar Detector
H.A.R.D. Wireless System
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Goal – Install a radar
detector that would really work. I did the research…in
every review of radar detectors, one unit stood out and that is the Valentine
One (http://www.valentineone.com/)
– problem was that this unit is $399 which is a lot more than I was really
willing to pay for a solution. So, I
purchased a $200 Bel 940 instead…and within days of the purchase, I returned
it. OK…so then I thought of going to
the Passport 8500, but it was $300 and not rated as well as the Valentine
One. I decided to turn to old
faithful – eBay! I made a rule that I
would only bid up to $300 for the Valentine and after about 5 attempts, I
finally won an auction and obtained the new unit. I ran the Valentine in
my truck for a while and the results were almost comical… This is one remarkable radar
detector. It would bogie CHP cars with
pinpoint accuracy and in PLENTY of time for me to react. I knew I had my radar detector. Next point of business
was to mount it on the bike. Since I
had a nice shelf and an already installed accessory fuse box, installation
onto the bike was a snap. Note 1 – If you want to
mount this to your bike, don’t mess around – buy the hardwire kit from
Valentine. Yes, you can jury-rig the
power input by using a standard telephone cord, but you’ll be sorry. Using the kit results in a very clean
installation. Note 2 – DO NOT use
super-Velcro to mount this unit to the shelf. For those of you who do not know what super-Velcro is, it is a
much stronger version of the standard hook & loop Velcro you are used to. I did my first installation using
super-Velcro and found it to be serious overkill – and it made it a huge
hassle to remove the unit when you were not using it. Stick with the standard Velcro – it works
just fine for this application. Two
1-inch strips were fine and held the radar detector solidly. Note 3 – The Valentine
One is NOT waterproof – and if you hit rain, water does come up from the
air-dam on the front of the bike. I
suggest you keep a few of the Glad “Handy Covers” in your fairing pocket –
these slip over my GPS and Radar Detector and do a fair job of weather
protection. |
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The H.A.R.D. System |
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The issue: In some cases, especially at ST nominal
speeds, the Valentine boggy alert is hard to hear and thus, you may miss an
alert. This is especially true if you
wear earplugs like I do. The H.A.R.D.
system is offered by LegalSpeeding.Com
at the cost of $160. H.A.R.D. is the acronym
for Helmet Assisted Radar Detection - H.A.R.D. is based on 'Line of Sight' theory:
placing critical information within your field of vision. Instead of a blaring speaker or a faint
light, H.A.R.D. provides an immediate visual alert: a flashing LED light,
inside the helmet that is illuminated within your field of vision allowing
immediate recognition of radar.
H.A.R.D. consists of two miniature devices. A transmitter that
broadcasts to a receiver within the helmet. The H.A.R.D. transmitter simply plugs into your radar detector
and the receiver inserts between the helmet pads. Note 1 – I installed
the transmitter using super-Velcro (since I would not be removing it from the
bike very often, if at all) underneath the accessory shelf. This kept the transmitter out of site and
out of the weather. Note 2 – Make sure that
when you are mounting the receiver on the helmet, you do so in such a way and
to make it easily accessible – reasons?
Two of them…the first is that this thing eats batteries. I get about 24 hours of riding use out of
each set. Keep spare batteries and a
jewlers screwdriver handy since there is really no indication that the
batteries are dieing or dead – it just stops working. I acually mounted it outside my helmet
(see photos). Secondly, the receiver
does have an ON/OFF switch, so mounting it externally allows you to easily
get to that switch (to save batteries). Rider Comments – The
H.A.R.D. system works as advertised.
When the Valentine One detects a souce, the light in the helmet
flashes causing me to look at the radar detector. If properly located, the LED is not obtrusive and when
activated, doesn’t starttle you or cause distraction. It does take some getting used to. My only complaint is that in extreme sunny
conditions with the sun in your eyes, you might not see the LED. I am still playing with LED location to
see if I can deal with that issue. |
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