Uniden R3 Extreme Long Range Radar Laser Detector GPS, 360 Degree, DSP, Voice Alert

I have been running the Escort Redline since 2013, on my recent trip to Oregon from California I was tagged by CHP right at the border of Cali and Oregon. I was wondering why my Escort didn't warn me. The officer asked me if my radar detector went off and I said no. I asked if he used Ka and he said that's all they use in Northern Cali. Luckily, the officer was kind enough and let me off with a warning (going 51 mph in a 45 zone). A day later my Redline "Service Required" showed up. I sent in my Redline to Escort and got the 139.99 service but in the mean time I needed a reliable detector so I purchased the R3. I heard good reviews about it and a lot of YouTube videos from Vortex Radar showed me how to set it up properly for my area. I used it going to Vegas from LA a week later for a boys weekend. It saved me twice going up a hill on the 15 Hwy. I was also very impressed with the distance the R3 picked up Ka signals. It warned me 2 miles before I made visual of the CHP officer in Baker.

A week and a half later I received my Redline and decided to test out the performance with the R3. Don't get me wrong, I love my Redline. It has saved my bacon more times than I can remember but while I was driving East on the 60 Hwy near Rowland Heights, the R3 went off and about 3-4 seconds later the newly flashed and serviced Redline (new dual antenna/software) went off indicating Ka band. It did this twice on the way home. I was upset my Redline got out performed but glad the R3 did it's job. I tested it a few more days and similar results. However, the Redline picked up K bands about 1-3 seconds before the R3 but in Cali the Ka band is the one I'm worried about. Now my Redline is on Ebay and getting sold.

I love the setting adjustment of the R3. Q-ride, display adjustments, low battery indicator, auto shut off with low battery, ease of updating software, GPS, auto mute memory, etc. Too much to list. The R3 does get extremely hot after running it but it doesn't seem to affect performance. Though, I dislike the two suction mounting as the smaller one is not very stable and the larger one is too big for my liking but ended up using the smaller mount as it less noticeable behind the rear view mirror. Power cord is nice that it as an extra USB in so you can still charge other devices. I mounted the unit just under the rear view mirror on the windshield and I am able to access the unit without reaching for the power cord to mute the unit. I ended up making an mirror cord using and old RJ11 telephone cord, a couple of spade connectors, heat shrink, and some solder (not paying $19 for the mirror power cord hard wire). If you decide to make one remember the Red wire is power and the Green is ground in the RJ11 connection.

So far excellent performance and the unit has paid for itself. $399.99 is a great price. As of today 8/15/18 I did notice on Uniden's website that they are all sold out but they do have the refurbished units of the R3 and R1 for 329.99 and 239.99 respectively which IMHO is a great price.

This is my first radar detector I'm a delivery driver and it is amazing it has already saved me from two tickets within the first week. It's quiet about 90% of the time the false alerts that I do get is mainly from automatic door openers but it works great right out the box plugged and without changing the settings. on the road very few cars sensors can set this off and I mean barely any . I haven't updated the unit yet. a State Trooper (VA) pulled up behind me and he didn't notice or detect it but the detector spotted him cars away from behind. I love that it has a display setting called Dark mode really makes it that less visible. The fact that it's undetectable so far is extremely beneficial. Also it's quick to disconnect from the mount that's a great Plus! push button slide off. The more stealthy mount that comes with it barely supports

I’ve used many different types of detectors over the years and this one blows everything else out of the water.

First, if you’re reading about it detecting radar from miles away, please don’t always expect that in the real world. Lots of things such as terrain and such can and will affect range. Don’t expect it to detect laser early enough to save you either, not gonna happen but no other detector can either.

Giving this 5 stars cause it still surprised me on a real world use daily. The off-axis detection on it is insane! Just yesterday I got off work and about to make a right turn on the main road and the R3 went off. I made the turn and drove down half a mile and that’s when I seen a highway patrol getting “off” the highway on my left about to make the right turn onto the road that I’m on. And it wasn’t a fluke as it’s alerted me to the same type of scenarios numerous times. If it’s KA, it’s ALWAYS been police. Furthest detection I’ve gotten was 1.2 miles along a bending highway, it was c/o and lots other cars. Every time it has been plenty of time to correct. Plenty!

I love it’s features too! Low speed muting is my favorite! I also use marking/delete of gps locations around where I live a lot, and love that I can change the alert sounds. Display is perfect, and I ride around in dark mode.

I currently use a Radenso XP visor mount for it. Where it slips into the R3, it’s a little loose but once on the visor, the visor pushes against it and holds it in place. Hardwired with an Escort wiring kit I had laying around and works perfectly.

I know there’s bunch of stuff I didn’t touch about the R3 in this review as I feel lots of other reviews have already mentioned it (I know, I read them all haha). But never owning a Uniden before but curious because it was always on backorder throughout 2017, I figured it had to be good.

Let me just say that I’ve never been more confident in a defector. It has rock solid dependability and since I do drive in VA also, it’s a breath of fresh air not having to worry about Spectre RDDs and what not.

Oh! And false on BSM are very limited, and you can easily tell from ramp up and noise. I am so satisfied that I’ve been thinking of switching everything over to Unidens.

After reading reviews and watching videos of trusted reviewers i decided to upgrade one of my older radar detectors mainly because of all the false alarms. My previous detector was GPS enabled and could lock-out known fixed false signals but couldn't do anything with the false signals caused by newer vehicles with radar equipped systems built in for safety systems. So I tolerated the false alarms and learned which were caused by nearby vehicles. I could mute them, but it was very annoying to say the least. More and more false alarms as time went on.

I'm a seasoned radar detector user since I was old enough to drive. The range of this detector is awesome and definitely one of the best if not the best on the market. It recognizes false alarms like no other. It exceeded my expectations in this manner.

It is very customisable and can be set with different colors and the look of the display. It can show your current speed and which bandwidth it is detecting along with strength of signal. You can mute sound of signal with mute button on the end of plug or lockout the signal for known false alarms. It will remember those locked out and not sound them off next time. Once setup, with your options it is a dream. I set mine to not sound an audible alarm if I'm driving under 45mph but it will show visually. Also, I have it mute the audible alarm at higher speeds after a few seconds so im alerted but not annoyed and i dont have to press mute. The visual still shows so i know if im getting closer and when it is gone. You can also set it for different sounds for different bands. In my area ka band is prevalent along with k band. You can also choose which bands to not even detect at all if police don't use those in your area.

The mounting bracket is also awesome. I was able to mount the bracket/suction cup behind my rearview mirror and only have the detector showing just below the mirror. Cord is perfect length too and a coiled cord. Very well thought out in my opinion. The complete package is very nice looking as well as functional. It all just works and performs like nobody's business.

The price of this detector is a steal compared to some of it's competition at twice the price. I did a lot of research before I purchased and this fit the bill and exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend this to anyone other than those willing to spend thousands for built-in protection. You won't regret it.

So I have had a Passport 9500ix for as long as I can remember and this is the first non-Escort brand radar detector that I have owned. First, the build quality. It's good, but it doesn't feel as sturdy and rigid as my 9500ix. It's lighter and the detector just feels a little bit "cheaper" than my old 9500ix. Even the power cord feels a bit less well built. Time will tell how it holds up. I still have original parts for my 9500ix and it is 7 plus years old.

Controls - this is a very easy and intuitive layout with a lot of similar operation concepts as the 9500ix. For example, to auto mute and GPS tag a false alert for future reference, you double tap the mute button on the detector or the power cord. This is identical to the 9500ix. Navigating the menu and making changes are pretty straight forward.

Features - There are a lot of features and customization options for this detector. I would say that if you are looking for something that you just plug and go, this is not the detector - at least not with its default settings out of the box. I would look at the Escort line of detectors like the Max 360 if you want a plug and go/auto-learn type of detector. But, if you are willing to take the time to learn how to tweak the settings, this detector in the long run, is a better option in my opinion.

Performance - This detector has insane sensitivity! First the good, KA performance is off the charts. I recently picked up a KA band radar over 5 miles away. Granted i was on a bridge over water, straight line, but this detector crushes the KA performance of my 9500ix. Not. Even. Close. I also find the rear detection sensitivity to be better as well on the Uniden R3. Running this detector with Waze gives me great confidence in sniffing out KA band in any environment. Same for K band and X band although the gap isn't quite as wide vs. the 9500ix on these two bands but still better. And herein lies the weaknesses of the R3.

The Bad and the Ugly. In its stock factory settings, this unit falses constantly on K band in city/mixed driving. It's about as bad as a V1 (I have a good friend who owns one and it reminds me of a V1). You will utilize the automute/GPS function constantly to lockout annoying false alarms around town until you have driven most of your daily routes. Be prepared to constantly teach it to auto mute those annoying K band false alarms. Same goes for X band, it picks up EVERYTHING. I ended up turning off X band altogether as there are no local or state law enforcement agencies that use X band radar for traffic control where I live.

I also ended up running the detector in advanced mode with K band sensitivity dialed back to 80%. I changed another setting to run it in K band Narrow mode for additional filtering of false signals. Doing this made the detector much more quiet to false alarms while still giving great detection range on K band. It is much easier to occasionally auto mute those automatic doors now than the constant double tapping that I was doing before. Most law enforcement run KA in my area. There are a few local agencies that use K, but I can attest that even with these filtered settings my R3 is still better than my 9500ix on K band.

The Ugly. Blind Spot Filtering. I came into this hoping to get much better performance versus my old 9500ix. It's better at BSF than the 9500ix, but not by much. My old 9500ix would pickup mostly GM cars and Honda made cars BSF K band signals. When it did, it would usually peg the alarm and scare the living Jesus out of me for a moment thinking that I just got popped with Instand On radar. While the R3 isn't this extreme, it's still a chatty Cathy on the highway. The alerts tend to be for a couple of seconds with the signal meter staying low. It's more like a hey I got something here but not like the sky is falling that my 9500ix was prone to do. I also would say that the weakest link for BSF is that it will false everytime if you are around a Honda/Acura automobile. Uniden needs to do a better job with BSF as both Radenso and Escort seem to have solved the Honday/Acura problem with their latest firmware updates.

So there it is, my real world opinion. I've had detectors for decades and travel extensively on the road. The R3 is the most sensitive detector that I've ever laid eyes on. Easily beats my 9500ix and even bested my buddy's Valentine V1. But with that sensitivity comes a price......you must customize the settings to reign in the K band false alerts or it will constantly go off around town in mixed driving. With that said, with factory settings, it's still not as chatty as my buddy's V1. There are other things you could do with the R3 to more severely restrict K band sensitivity, but it's a fine line between performance and quiet. I'd also recommend running with X band turned off if you know for sure that it isn't used for traffic control where you live. KA is superb, wouldn't trade it for the world. I can't comment on Laser as I haven't encountered a situation yet where I live. It's kind of less important to me though because to defeat Laser and have legitimate protection, you really need a jammer.

So would I recommend it? Absolutely, but knowing that you have to make changes to tame the K band chattiness of the detector. There are so many options available in terms of customizing the R3. I'm hopeful that with the next firmware release, Uniden will catch up to the other manufacturers improvement with BSF - especially with Hondas!

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Feature Product

• 360 Degree Digital Signal Processor
• GPS With Red Light Camera Alerts
• Quiet Ride - User Set Speed Auto Mute
• K False Filter / KA False Filter

Description

Uniden R3 DSP Extreme Long Range Radar and Laser Detector w/GPS

Experience the unsurpassed range with the Uniden R3 radar detector!

With the convenient GPS feature you can get Red light camera alerts, Mute memory false alerts, or mark location.

Features:
Digital Signal processor
Extreme radar sensitivity
GPS with red light camera alerts
Free GPS database updates
Quiet Ride - User set speed auto mute
Color OLED display
K false filter
KA false filter
Spectre Elite undetectable
Single suction cup bracket included
Double suction cup bracket included
Cigarette adapter with "Mute Key" and USB Jack
Carrying case included

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I have been using this in my 2005 Pontiac Montana for over 3 months now. I live In Las Vegas NV, and I primarily drive in the metro area here. But I do take road trips up to St George, Out to LA, and last week I even went to Reno.
Because I came from a different detector, that had a ton of X band false alerts, and because I did my research and knew that NO ONE in CA, NV, or UT used X band any longer, I immediately turned that band off. Thusly I got zero X band false alerts :-)
I have been watching my K, Ka, and Laser bands, and writing notes on what I see and when I see it.
I have gotten a ton of false alerts on the K band, and the ONLY cop I ever saw on K band was a podunk sheriff's car in a podunk town on the way to Reno, one of those towns where the highway runs right through the middle of the town and they decrease you to 25 just for the purpose of giving you a traffic ticket. I don't even remember the name of the town, might have been Goldfield.
Anyway, Other that that one time last week, I have found that EVERY laser was a cop I could put eye balls on.
I found that almost every Ka notification was a cop I could put eyes on, so I have now turned off my K band because I get almost no false alerts on the Ka band. And the Ka warnings I got were almost 100% at a distance of at LEAST a block in the city and at LEAST a 1/4 mile on the highway. This detector has gotten me out of at lest 5 speeding tickets in the last 3 months, that is how good it is!
We don't have red light cameras in Vegas, and I have only heard the red light camera go off once while I was in another state, so I have no practical experience with the red light feature.
I have three complaints about the detector, none of which caused it to loose any stars for me.
#1 No volume dial. I would like to be able to set the volume on the fly just by rotating a dial.
#2 When I mark a spot as mute, it continues to announce my distance to that spot multiple times as I approach it on future visits. I HATE that, if I muted it, it is because I don't want to know about it. I should have the option to leave announcements on, or turn them off. I have a K band motion sensor at the door of a Walgreens right by my house that I pass by sometimes 3 or 4 times in a day, and the announcements were worse that the actual beeps when the detector saw the motion sensor. I just don't want the K band to announce at that location at all, ever.
#3 The laser is not enough notification. I have heard my laser go off 5 to 8 times in 3 months. Twice on my trip to Reno and back where I was in the middle of nowhere and I could not identify a cop anywhere. Lets call those anomalies, which leave 3 to 5 in the city. Of those I recall 3 where I could put eyes on the cop, and the warnings I got where too late for me to do anything about it. I was not speeding enough to get pulled over at those times, but If I was I would not have been able to slow down quick enough to get out of the ticket. I think this is because cops with Ka band, just leave their detectors on while driving, even if they are not looking for speeders, and the same goes when they are looking for speeders. Cops here do not seem to POP with their Ka band guns at all. But cops using laser seem to be turning them on and off quickly as they target specific vehicles, which makes it much harder to catch them before they target me, or someone right around me.

Very sensitive, you need to turn on the filter for driver assist radar but that's not hard to do. Not quite as fancy as some of the other devices, but what I gather from review sites is that those extra functionalities increase task latency, resulting in a slightly delayed notification. Supposedly they are still early enough to give time to slow down, but I like knowing immediately. Most of the reviewers mentioned that this was their daily use, and I can see why.

** to use the mute memory click mute once. It will say “mute on” while it says that then double click the mute button again and then it will say “mute memory”**

On a flat strait road I can pick up a ka band speed sign for about 6-7 miles. On an open interstate if a cop is driving with his radar on I can pick him up for a few miles of us driving at each other. It’s works far enough that I forget about the cop before I meet them if I mute it. Some speed signs don’t get picked up to far out but that is because different radar guns put out different signal strength. Cops have better equipment that send a signal much further. Also radar guns are very directional. If it’s not pointed in your general direction you won’t pick it up as quick. Example, a cop is sitting with his radar on at a stop light to your left as you drive threw it you will only get the signal a block or 2.

Pros
Works far away
Dimmer settings are great at night
GPS has a great connection
Starts up and shuts off fast
Has a quick release button and easy power wire to unplug if needed to remove from the window fast without taking the mount off the window
The color changing is nice
Menu is fairly simple to navigate

Cons
Ka is not mutable yet but might be with an update
The marker button is kind of useless and with the mute memory had its own button
The duel suction cup mount bounces and vibrates bad
It could be louder

The Ka band detection on this unit is second to none. I've caught cops from 2 miles out, in Highway mode. If you have K band enabled in-town, this basically becomes a Honda detector. Thankfully, most CO cops don't use K band, so I have it disabled. I only use K band on long road trips, when driving out of state. Laser detection is okay, but is not the reason to buy this unit.

The build quality is good and the unit seems sturdy. I haven't had the burnin issues that others have been having. I have the R3 and dashcam mounted in a BlendMount and hardwired using MirrorTap cables. It makes for a nice, clean, unobstructed setup.

Did over 3000 miles over highways this summer of 2018, this thing works great, not one ticket, run about 10 MPH over, once out of the small towns no false alarms, early warnings. Love the GPS, love the speed display of my car MPH, volume adjustment. With the MPH display I look at that more then I do the car speedometer and have my eyes on the road more. Suction cups for windshield attachment doesn't​ do the job.