Reactivity & Latch Time Performance Review

We test three top-rated radar detectors–the Uniden R9, the Escort Redline 360c, and the Valentine V1G2–for K-band responsiveness and latch times and the results are very telling.

Published: 6-30-23, Updated: 07-16-2023  by Veil Guy

K-band Reactivity & Latch Time Performance Test: Uniden R9 vs Escort Redline 360c vs Valentine V1G2

As we have maintained over nearly five-decades of driving with radar detectors, we continue to believe a true measure of what makes a radar detector the best, is not its sensitivity or if it alerts at the longest distance to constantly transmitting (C/O) police radar, on an isolated closed-course test.

In the real world, there are other radar detection performance characteristics—that are just as important if not more so—that need to be taken into consideration including what we call, the “big four” which additionally includes reactivity (or responsiveness) to alert to the initial transmission of constant-on radar or how quickly a radar detector is at catching brief instant-on radar.

If your radar detector is too slow at reacting to police radar transmissions primarily for the sake of being quieter and more falsing resistant, the trade-off in increased risks to getting ticketed from instant-on police radar is not worth it in our opinion.

Latch time or the decay time relates to how long a radar detector continues to alert once the radar ceases transmitting.

If the latch or decay time is too long, the radar detector will blur the nature of instant-on radar that could be ahead of you and that’s an important piece of information to know.

In this test, one of a two part series, we compare some of the best radar detectors—the Uniden R9, the Escort Redline 360c, and the Valentine V1G2.

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xOUJgPR-7s[/embedyt]

In this test, we test the responsiveness of each radar detector to the initial transmission of K-band police radar and the look at how the radar detectors handle their alerting when the source of the police radar is no longer present.

As you can see from this test, the Uniden R9 is consistently the best by far at reacting to K-band and is the best at alerting to I/O than either the Escort Redline 360c or Valentine V1G2.

So, even though the V1G2 and the Redline 360c may be viewed as superior by some, mainly because they are sensitive and they are quieter and more resistant to falsing to K-band CAS systems, their sluggishness to react to achieve that apparent falsing resistance is a high of a price to pay and not necessarily a reflection of how well their filtering algorithms really are.

Sure, both the Escort Redline 360c and the Valentine V1G2 are sensitive detectors and will show well on a test course when confronted with constant-on transmitting radar but, in the real-world as you can clearly see, that sensitivity can be completely wasted because they are too slow to react to instant-on K-band radar and as a consequence.

As such, static test results can be very misleading and shouldn’t be the primary reason in making a purchasing decision, which is why Veil and RadarBusters rate radar detectors differently than all other radar detector review sites.

In our opinion, this test clearly demonstrates that the Uniden R9 is far better at protecting you from instant-on than either the Escort Redline 360 or the Valentine V1G2 on K-band.

Uniden has struck the right balance and their approach to not sacrificing reactivity for the sake of appearing to be better at filtering–as do the Redline 360c and V1G2–is why we rate Uniden detectors—including the Uniden R8, Uniden R7, Uniden R4, and Uniden R3–as our top picks and why Uniden radar detectors remain our top choices as daily drivers over the other brands.

We also conducted the same test using Ka-band where performance differences, while still there, were as we expected, not as dramatically different.

You can also read about that test, here:  Uniden R9 vs Valentine V1G2 vs Escort Redline 360c Reactivity & Latch Time Test – Part 2

If you are interested in learning more about the new Uniden R9, please read our in-depth Uniden R9 Review.

If you would like to learn more about the Uniden R9, RadarBusters and Veil have created a collection of Uniden R9 videos.