Cheetah To Ship Speed-Camera Locator

PHOENIX — Cheetah USA will begin shipping a speed- and red-light-camera locator designed to alert drivers of the more than 2,000 cameras now in use in the United States.

The Cheetah device uses GPS to determine if a driver is approaching a speed or red-light camera. These locations are stored in memory in the device and matched against the user's location.

The Cheetah device is not a radar detector. It is actually a rear-view mirror that clips over the current mirror. It provides digital readouts and voice warnings of upcoming cameras and hazardous intersections.

Such "camera locators" are widely used in the United Kingdom in place of radar detectors because speed and red-light cameras are heavily deployed in that country, according to Alisdair Smith, international sales and marketing director, Cheetah Advanced Technologies Ltd, a U.K.-based company which is bringing the product to the United States.

Drivers can unclip the mirror and connect it to their PC to update the camera locations. A $70 add-on device will also allow the mirror to wirelessly communicate via RF to several brands of radar detectors and laser jammers. The radar alerts then appear on the mirror and also use the mirror's ability to filer out certain false alerts. For example, the mirror can be set to disregard all alerts under the speed of 35 miles per hour.

The Cheetah GPSmirror is available for $299 at www.speedcheetah.com and will be offered through car stereo retailers beginning in June.

Cobra offers speed- and red-light-camera location on its current NAV ONE 2100 portable GPS device and on the XRS R9G radar detector due to ship in June.