I like to consider myself a very photogenic person. I’m not vain but I enjoy being the subject of everyone’s photograph (nope, not vain at all!). Well, that was until I received a letter in the mail from the state of Arizona with an unflattering picture of me along with a speeding ticket. Which brings me to introducing the new GPS Angel v4e! This little Road legal device is a red-light and speed camera warning system. The GPS Angel uses GPS technology to warn the driver of red light and fixed speed cameras. You might wonder if it uses mystical powers to know where these cameras are actually the GPS Angel connects to your PC (Mac not supported) and using the GPS Angel software it downloads the database of Speed and Stop light cameras from the Patriots Camera Database.
You can also even add your own locations for example on a street where a police office commonly squats with his radar gun. On the GPS Angel website in several locations it is advertised that the GPS Angel comes with free unlimited updates to the Patriots database. However in one location it says that these unlimited updates are free for the first year of ownership and then $19.95 buys you unlimited updates for the lifetime of your GPS Angel.
The GPS Angel at $129 is a very simple device with not much to it. There is no battery so the unit must be plugged into the cigarette lighter to operate. No fancy LCD screen or robotic, yet soothing, voice warning you of the oncoming camera; It is just flashing LEDs and an audible alarm. As you approach, the alert system issues a warning before you reach the location of the risk and it will also let you know if you are exceeding the speed limit for that location.
Out of the box, I found the alarm mechanism to be annoying. Approaching the intersection, the alarm would start beeping away more than 1000 feet away and then continue beeping until I got really close. I would prefer if I could hit a button on the GPS Angel, telling it that I acknowledge (and of course appreciate) the warning and now it can go into silent mode so I don’t have to listen to the annoying beeping as I continue to approach the intersection. Another quip about the GPS Angel is that as I left the intersection the alarm would sound again and I get to hear that infernal beeping again. Honestly I was disappointed in the unit, but then when I used the GPS Angel Software I was pleasantly surprised that they had thought about most of the things that annoyed me!
With the software you can set the approach and departure distance of speed camera alarms. Directional cameras are not currently supported in the US database so if you are approaching a camera that is aimed at the opposite direction the unit will still sound an alarm. Directional cameras are supported in the databases for several European countries.
You can also enable the onboard trip recorder and speed limiters. The software also has diagnostics and you can even use the software to play the different alarms (approaching a camera, leaving a camera) so you can familiarize yourself with the different alerts.
Let’s take a look at the hardware. The device has two buttons and a volume control. The first button is a ‘record’ button which records your current position as a user-defined ‘Point Of Interest’ or POI. A chime occurs indicating the location was successfully recorded. These POI’s can be managed using the GPS Angel Manager software available from the GPS Angel website.
The second button is a ‘speed limit’ button which records the current speed of the vehicle and if you exceed this set speed limit the device will beep until your speed falls below this limit. I think this is a good feature but not the best implementation. If I want to set the speed limit alarm for 85mph, I don’t want to have to speed up to 85mph, hit the button and then slow back down. I realize the risk is slight but I don’t want to get a ticket while setting my alarm to avoid getting tickets. I think it would be a nice feature if you can set an alarm based on the speed limit of the road using the GPS Angel Software and use the button to enable/disable this mode.
The GPS Angel comes with a User Manual, Cigarette lighter Power Adapter and a cable to sync the device to your computer or to the Cigarette lighter (which takes a USB input) and a gel skid-free pad to mount the unit on your dash. My cigarette power adapter was picky and sometimes the unit would turn off without me noticing, this could have been because of the adapter or my car’s plug but I haven’t had issues with other devices so I’m inclined to blame the adapter. Since there is no battery and it takes 1-5 minutes to obtain a fix on the satellites this became troublesome if I wasn’t paying attention.
Your GPS Angel website advertises that you can also change the color of the unit to suit your car and that there is a choice of colored click-on skins available in their buy-online section. I however did not see any skins on their website.
Again the GPS Angel has one purpose to protect you and your wallet and there isn’t a lot more to it. I think the concept for this device is great, and at first I found the GPS Angel to be a little annoying out of the box and I was concerned by its simplicity but once I used the GPS Angel software I really liked how it provide me the ability to configure the device. At $129 if this device saves you from just one ticket its pretty much paid for itself!
(Via NaviGadget.)
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