About This Book

Highway Radar is an application to help drivers be aware of road hazards, cameras, and speed traps. It collects traffic-related information from multiple sources and provides notices on potential risks on the road.

Highway Radar is an advanced tool and has a steep learning curve. This application isn't an easy "plug and play" application; think of it as more of a professional instrument for drivers. It requires a fair amount of learning and configuration before its full potential is available.

This book is a comprehensive guide to the Highway Radar application. It describes all of its features and shows some insights into how the application works internally. This book aims to familiarize the reader with all of the application capabilities and make the application predictable for the end-user.

The book has three main chapters

• Basic Setup chapter provides the minimum required information required to start using the application.
• Features Walkthrough chapter covers all the application features. In that chapter, sections marked with (A) are "advanced" sections and describe complex yet compelling features requiring steep learning curves.
• Change Log chapter contains information about changes between different versions. Everything in this book covers the latest version of the application, which is now v3.0. This book is constantly getting updated as new versions are released. Whenever a new version of the application is out, a section is created in this chapter.

The application is supported for Android versions no older than 5 years. Highway Radar can be launched on older versions of Android, but correct implementation of all features is not guaranteed.

If you have any questions, or there is anything not covered in this book, please post in the application support section on RDForum. Alternatively, you may send an email to [email protected].

Highway Radar is free to use and doesn't contain any ads or trackers. There are no "premium" or "pro" features. The development is entirely supported by users' donations. If you enjoy this application, please consider donating. Thanks!

Basic Setup

This section covers the very basic features of the application. The goal of this section is to give you the minimum required knowledge to use this application. For a complete configuration, please continue reading to the Features Walkthrough chapter once you're done with this one.

Highway Radar has many options to configure. These options allow creating perfect configurations matching your location, driving style, and personal preferences.

To work correctly, Highway Radar needs some permissions which can be granted from the start screen.

• Location permission is the core permission of the application, as the application shows what is happening around you. Highway Radar never accesses your location when it isn't running (has a persistent notification in the notification bar).
• Microphone permission is needed for voice control and bug reporting. If you disable both of these features, permission won't be needed.
• Accessibility service is only used when a "startup action" is configured (e.g., launching split-screen with a navigational app when started).

The most critical features of Highway Radar are based on alerts. Here are the types of alerts that are supported.

• Crowdsourced reports (police and hazards)
• Enforcement aircraft alerts
• Enforcement cameras alerts
• Alert received from a radar detector over Bluetooth (not covered in the "Basic Setup" section)

Highway Radar can be in two primary states: running and not running. Whenever it is running, it actively fetches alerts, warns about potential hazards, and performs its other duties. Once the application starts, it continues running even from the background. To stop the application, use the "Stop" button in the lower right corner of its primary screen.

Crowdsourced Alerts (Police, Hazards)

Highway Radar can use crowdsourced data to alert on police presence (including possible speed traps) and road hazards (e.g., accidents, cars stopped, objects on the road).

We don't have a good user base to run our own crowdsource exchange server and still be effective. Instead, the application only implements some protocols allowing communication with other servers.

There are two ways Highway Radar can fetch crowdsourced alerts

1. Set up a server hostname. This way, you'll be able to fetch crowdsourced reports but not submit your own reports.
2. Use a SABRE plugin (covered in another section) – this way, you'll be able to both fetch and submit crowdsourced reports. You'll also be able to vote for alerts if a SABRE plugin is used.

Go to Settings > Crowd-sourced alerts > Server hostname to set a server hostname. You can input a server name in the prompt dialog, and press OK.

NOTE: Due to protocols' similarity, entering waze.com as a server hostname often results in Highway Radar pulling real-time crowdsourced alerts directly from Waze. However, it violates Waze's ToS and might be illegal in your country.

Aircraft Alerts

In some countries (for example, United States), aircraft may be used for aerial speed enforcement. This way of enforcement is also known as aircraft VASCAR speed enforcement. A police aircraft may have speed-measuring equipment onboard. Then, when flying over a highway, an officer in the aircraft clocks vehicles on the highway. If they find a violator, they direct a ground unit to the vehicle over the radio so that an officer can issue a ticket.

Highway Radar has a built-in mechanism for alerting drivers on proximity aircraft, which may potentially do speed enforcement. Highway Radar connects to ADS-B exchange networks (what is ADS-B?), then attempts to detect which nearby aircraft can do speed enforcement, and displays them to the user. The aircraft alerting mechanism doesn't require any configuration and works out of the box.

It is essential to understand that Highway Radar tries to filter out aircraft which can't do speed enforcement (e.g., not alerting on passenger Boeings or flight school-owned aircraft). If the application didn't do that and alerted on every aircraft above, it would have become unusable. Because of the filtering, sometimes it may seem the aircraft alerts aren't working – especially if you see an airplane with your eyes but don't see it in the app. There is a way to make Highway Radar display all aircraft (Settings > Aircraft alerts > Choose which aircraft to show > All aircraft, including safe). However, we don't recommend using the application with all aircraft enabled. The all aircraft mode is only suggested to verify that the application is pulling the aircraft data.

Cameras Alerts

Highway Radar can warn about enforcement cameras ahead. There is a default database available, which has data from POI-factory. The default database covers only the United States and Canada; it supports only speed and red light cameras. Also, the default database doesn't have cameras directions. There is a way to load third-party camera databases; the following book sections will cover this topic.

Screen Overview

This section covers the elements visible on the main screen of the application. The four pictures in this section represent

• A screen when the app isn't running
• A screen when the app is running
• A screen with an in-drive menu and an annunciator. To get to the in-drive menu, swipe up from the bottom section of the screen while the app is running.
• Application in Picture-in-picture (PIP) mode over Google Maps.
  PIP mode is automatically activated when pressing the home or tasks system button on Android 8 and newer. It can also be activated by pressing a back button and selecting "PIP." These behaviors can be overridden in settings.

This section has only a brief overview of each element on the screen, you can get more information about these features in further sections of the book. Now, let's look at the same four screens with all their elements marked and described.

1. Application configuration status
   list of system permissions and external connections
2. Application version
3. Settings button
   takes you into settings menu
4. Start button
   start watching for alerts and hazards
5. Alert badge
   with default settings all acitve alerts are displayed as alert badges next to the map. Tap on alert badge to mute and unmute the alert. Muted alerts have the stripred pattern as a part of their background (helicopter alert on this example).
6. Alert severity level
   represented as a number of dots ranging from one (less important) to five dots (more important)
7. Bearing towards the alert relative to the user's heading
8. Alert direction
   In case of police or hazard - the movement direction of user reported the alert (or opposite if the reporter requested so); in case of aircraft, the aircraft movement direction
9. Alert type
   Could be airplane/helicopter for aircraft alerts. Other possible values are police, hazard, camera, and many different names for radar alerts. "(?)" next to aircraft alerts means the application can't classify it as safe or risky.
10. Additional alert information
    In the case of aircraft, the aircraft model; in case of police, the number of individual reports grouped; for speed cameras, the maximum speed from the database is shown here.
11. Additional alert information
    In the case of aircraft, the aircraft registered owner; in case of police or hazard, time when since it was reported or confirmed by someone; for cameras, the street from the database is shown here; for radar/laser alerts, custom processing rules matched are listed here.
12. Distance to the alert location
    For radar alerts, the signal strength is shown here instead.
13. Muted status text
    For police, aircraft, hazards, or cameras alerts just indicates whether the alert is muted. For radar alerts this section also displays the lockout or auto-lockout status.
14. *Time since reported or confirmed
    Only applicable to crowdsourced alerts.
15. Button for expanding the alerts list
    Only appears when there are alerts badges that didn't fit into the list. Tapping on the button expands the list and makes it scrollable.
16. Map icons for alerts
    Dark-gray or light-gray icons correspond to inactive (not significant) alerts – e.g., a police report far away on a different street. Icons point towards the alert direction. For aircraft alerts, the miniature aircraft is pointed towards direction of flying. For police alerts, the tip of the map icon is pointed towards the report direction.
17. Additional report location
    These markers are shown when multiple police reports close to each other were groupped together. Highway Radar automatically finds the most significant alert in the group and displays it as usual. Other reports in the group are displayed as small dots.
18. Aircraft trail
    Shows the recent path of an aircraft displyed in the map.
19. Labels corresponding to the alert
    Labels are displayed next to the icons on the map. Tapping on a label mutes the corresponding alert; muted alerts have digonal stripes across them. Labels for active alerts contain alert severity displayed as a number of dots on the left edge. They also show distance the the alert in the top left corner. In the top right corner the time since report (or confirmation) is shown for crowdsourced alerts; current altitude is shown for aircraft; maximum speed from database is shown for cameras. Lables for inactive alerts are always displayed in gray colors.
20. Weather radar widget
    Only shown if weather radar overlay is enabled. Displays either a timestasmp of the radar data (or forecast), of a speed for speed-projected weather radar (described further in the book).
21. Risk score widget
    Represents a chance of meeting a police officer in this area at this time. Described further in this book.
22. System status widget
    Briefly shows status of crowdsourced alerts source, aircraft alerts source, and GPS. If a radar detector is paired with the app, also shows the status of Bluetooth connection. Tapping on the widget shows additional data.
23. Current position on the map
24. Circles at 0.5, 1, 2, and 5 miles for easier visual distance estimation
    The distanced for the circles, can be changed in the settings.
25. Map reset button
    Resets map to its default position, orientation, and zoom
26. Map lock button
    Locks map position, zoom, and orientation. Otherwize the map will return to its default state in 10 seconds. This button only appears if you move or zoom the map.
27. Map zoom in button
28. Map zoom out button
29. Submit crowdsourced report button
    Only visible when a SABRE plugin is installed and the button is enabled in settings.
30. Mute button
    Short tap mutes the first active alert; long tap mutes all alerts.
31. Your current speed
32. Speed limit on current street
    Based on available public data, may not be always accurate
33. Stop button
    Stop watching for alerts and hazards
34. Voice command button
    Activates the voice control feature of the application
35. Current street name
    Based on abailable public data, may not be always accurate
36. Annunciator panel
    All important malfunctions (lost GPS, internet problems, lost Bluetooth connection, processing proformance issues) are immediately displayed as an annunciator.
37. Settings packs
    Must be configured in the settings in order to be visible in the bottom card.
38. Map overlays
    This section allows enabling and disabling map overlays. Enabled overlays are highlighted in orange.
39. Heat map overlay button
    Heat map is built based on historical crowd-sourced police reports data. It can be used to find frequent speed trap spots.
40. Weather radar overlay button
    By default, when weather radar is enabled, sometimes the map is zoomed out, and all alerts are removed from the map. This behavior can be controlled from the settings.
41. Traffic overlay button
    Traffic jams data is provided by Google Maps.
42. Bug report button
    Allows to quickly submit a bug report by recording a voice message. Must be enabled in settings manually.

About Alerts

Alert is one of the primary concepts of the Highway Radar.

Currently, Highway Radar supports the following types of alerts.

• Crowdsourced alerts
  • Police
  • Hazards
    • Accident
    • Vehicle stopped on road
    • Vehicle stopped on shoulder
    • Roadkill
    • Object on road
    • Pothole
    • Animals
• Aircraft
• Enforcement cameras
  • Red light camera
  • Speed camera
  • Speed and red-light camera
  • Lane control camera
  • Distance control camera
  • Overtaking control camera
  • Pedestrian crossing control camera
  • Height control camera
  • Weight control camera
  • Entrance control camera
  • Bus lane control camera
  • Dummy camera
  • Speed section control start
  • Speed section control middle
  • Speed section control end
  • Multi-camera
• Radar alerts (varies by the connected detector)
  • X-band
  • K-band
  • Ka-band
  • Laser
  • POP K-band, POP Ka-band (not supported by V1)
  • MRCD / MRCT / Gatso (not supported by V1)

Each alert can be in an active or inactive state. Inactive alerts are colored gray and don't trigger any audible notifications. All active alerts have a severity level – it is ranging from one to five and displayed as a number and color of dots on the left side of an alert badge, and map label. Severity level describes the importance of the alert, and calculated differently for each type of alert (e.g., for crowdsourced alerts it depends on the proximity and bearing, and for radar it depends on the signal strength). Severity level also affects beeper frequency.

Each alert has different ways of notifying the driver of its presence. Currently, the following ways are supported.

• Alert badge (a.k.a "arrows") – This are badges with the information about alert, normally displayed over the map.
• Map marker – A map marker and a label with basic information about the alert. Only available for geo-referenced alerts (not for radar alerts).
• Voice announcement – Contains basic information about the alert and is triggered at a selected severity level and speed. Each alert triggers its own voice announcement.
• Bogey tone – Similar to voice announcement, but uses a short sound instead of a voice announcement.
• Beeper – A continuous sound triggering for active alerts when exceeding a preset speed. For example, it can be activated when driving above the posted speed limit.
• Screen flasher – Flashes the device screen several times with a chosen color whenever an alert reaches preset severity level.
• Camera flashlight – Flashes the camera flashlight several times whenever an alert reaches preset severity level.
• Vibration – Vibrates the phone using a chosen pattern whenever an alert reaches preset severity level.
• System notification – Submits a system-level notification whenever an alert reaches preset severity level. Only works when the app is backgrounded.

Features Walkthrough

This chapter covers all features of the application. If you haven't used Highway Radar before, please read the previous chapter first.

This chapter is structured in the same way as the Highway Radar settings menu. If you're already familiar with the application and only need to get a reference on some options, you may find it in this chapter as well.

General Setup

Configured in Settings → General.

The general section of the settings menu covers settings that couldn't be placed in any other section.

Measurement Units

There are two systems of measurement units supported – U.S. (miles, feet, MPH) and metric (kilometers, meters, km/h).

All preferences dependent on units (e.g., distances) are automatically converted to the new system whenever this value is changed. When there is no way to convert a precisely, the application uses the closest possible value.

Start Sevice Automatically

With this preference enabled, whenever you launch the application (e.g., tap an icon on the home screen), it starts working automatically (same as clicking the "Start" button in the lower right corner). This preference only has an effect if all permissions are granted and crowdsourced alerts are correctly configured.

Shutdown When Stationary

With this preference enabled, if there is no movement for 10 minutes, the application stops automatically. "No movement" is defined as "the device stays in a circle with a 50 meters (164 ft) radius".

Activate PIP on home / tasks button press or application switch

Only available on Android 8 and above

When this preference is selected, pressing home or tasks button moves the application to the PIP (picture-in-picture) mode.

Please note that this preference may interfere with Android Auto and move the Highway Radar into a PIP mode every time the Android Auto is activated. I suggest keeping this preference off if you're using Android Auto together with Highway Radar.

Back Button Action

This preference controls what should be happening when the service is running and a system "back" button is pressed. The options are

• Shutdown – stop service and close the application
• Background – close the application window, but keep the service running
• Picture-in-picture – activate picture-in-picture mode, only available on Android 8 and above
• Always ask – show a dialog asking what to do

Report Button Action

The report button can be displayed on the left side of the status panel. The following options are available

• Disable report button – don't show report button at all
• Launch Waze – open the Waze application so that you can submit an event report in the Waze
• Submit report via SABRE – open in-app reporting dialog; the button is only displayed when a SABRE plugin is installed and connected

Use Google location services

Highway Radar may either use GPS only, or rely on location provided by Google services (a.k.a fused location). Google location services provide an approximate location when GPS isn't available (e.g., in an underground garage). However, location provided by Google is also known to be slight less accurate on slow speeds when a good GPS signal is available, especially when it comes to the direction of movement.

Enable Bug Reporting

You may tap the "bug" button in the in-drive menu and record an audio message with a bug report when this preference is enabled. Your voice recording is sent to the developer as is. Together with the voice recording, the entire application state is sent as well. Please remember that the "entire application state" includes your location and short location history (up to 10 minutes). At the same time, no data which may let me identify the user is collected (e.g., no device ID, Google account, or other similar data is submitted); however, you may inadvertently disclose sensitive data such as home address.

Bug reports greatly help with improving the application. Besides this built-in feature, you may submit bug reports and feature requests in RDForum or by writing at [email protected].

Action On Service Start

Highway Radar is capable of doing some automation upon starting (pressing the green button). Some of these actions require the accessibility service to be enabled, which can be done from the start screen. The following actions are available:

• Preload another application - briefly open another application, and switch back to the Highway Radar. That will put the application being preloaded to the second location in the stack of currently opened apps which will allow to easily switch there. Some applications (e.g. Waze) may start background activity upon being preloaded.
• Start another app in split screen - splits the screen in half putting Highway Radar on one side, and another application of your choice on another. There are options to either put another app on the first half, or on the second.
• Start another app in the foreground - upon start, Highway Radar will load another application of your choice. Highway Radar may also be configured to switch itself into a PIP mode upon starting another app.

Display Configuration

Configured in Settings → Display.

Dark Theme

Highway Radar supports dark and light color themes. The "dark theme" preference specifies which theme should be used. Currently there are four supported options: always light, always dark, same as system, and based on sunset/sunrise. Note that sunset/sunrise only applies when the service is running – the reason for this is that the application needs your location to calculate the times of sunset and sunrise; however, Highway Radar never accesses your location when the service isn't running.

HINT: You can also switch the appearance of this book between dark and light themes by clicking on a paint brush icon in the top left corner. All the screenshots will follow the book's theme.

Prevent Display From Sleeping

Highway Radar can prevent the phone's display from going into sleep (turning off the display) when the app is open. The behavior depends on whether the service is running, and whether the phone is charging. There are size possible options.

• Always - phone will never go to sleep on its own when the app is open
• Only when running - phone will only stay awake when the service is running and the app is open
• Only when charging - phone will only stay awake when it's charging and the app is open
• When running AND charging - phone will only stay awake when the service is running, the app is open, and the phone is charging
• When running OR charging - phone will stay awake when the either service is running, or the phone is charging; the app still needs to be open
• Never - Highway Radar won't change the default behavior of the phone related to the going to sleep sleep

Show Current Street Name & Show Speed Limit

When running, Highway Radar is always trying to find out which street the user is located on; this allows showing a street name and current speed limit (when corresponding options are enabled). Please remember that the speed limit is taken from a crowdsourced online database, so it may not always be accurate. Speed limit is shown in a white box next to the current movement speed in the bottom card. Current street name is shown in the bottom of the screen.

Show "Thanks" Message On Startup Screen

This preference controls whether a "thanks" message on the start screen is displayed or not

Maximum Number Of Alert Badges On Top Of The Map

This preference controls maximum number of alert badges displayed on top of the map. If there are more alerts, than some badges would be hidden. Note that Highway Radar will never display more alert badges than can fit on the screen, even if this preference is set to a higher value. If there are any alerts hidden, then there will be a button expanding alert list - clicking on it enlarges the alert list and makes it scrollable, so you can see all the alert badges.

Collapse Badges For Inacitve Alerts

Enabling this preference makes badges for inactive (gray) alerts to be always hidden and only accessible by expanding the alerts list.

Map Options

Map Overlays

This preferences section controls map overlays – they are displayed over the map.

There are three types of overlays supported:

• Heat map – this overlay shows the frequency or police officer presence in different locations. It can help to find frequent speed trap locations.
• Weather radar – Shows precipitation in the area. When weather radar is enabled, the map may be zoomed out and all alerts removed from the map. This behavior can be controlled from the weather radar settings.
• Traffic – Activates the traffic layer on the map. The traffic data is provided by Google.

Also, there are two ways how the overlays may be displayed (controlled by the "allow combining overlays" preference):

• Selecting one overlay
  In this case, no more than one overlay can be displayed. When selecting an overlay in the in-drive menu, the previously enabled overlay is turned off. Also, when this mode is used, a "no overlay" button is added to the in-drive menu.
• Toggle overlays
  In this case, every overlay is controlled individually, so any combination of overlays can be used.

Map Labels Opacity

Map Zoom

Default map zoom is defined as a minimum distance ahead of the driver, behind the driver, and on the side. Map zoom and the position of the driver icon on the map are automatically adjusted to satisfy the distances mentioned. These distances can be either customized or set to the same values as set for police alerts: side and back distances map to the corresponding values of the police alert. Front distance maps to the maximum of police alert distance ahead and police alert distance on the same street.

Also, the application supports auto-zoom. If the auto-zoom is enabled, the map automatically zooms in near map markers. The amount of the zooming is determined based on the current speed – the slower you're going, the more map zooms in near map markers.

Tilted Map View

Tilted map view is also known as "3D-view" or "Pseudo-3D view".

Map Style

There are six built-in map styles in the application. Three of them are only available when using dark theme, and other three are only available using light theme.

Light theme styles

Dark Theme Styles

Custom Styles

You can also create a custom style. To do this,

• Go to Google map style wizard
• Create a map style in the editor
• When done, click "Finish" and copy the JSON
• Set "map style" to custom in the settings
• Insert the JSON from the export step to the "Map style definition" field

If you find a great style which in your mind is better than built-in ones, please share it either in the application support section on RDForum or send it to us by email to [email protected].

Map Circles

Map circles are a nice feature for easy visual distance estimation. A maximum of four circles can be configured – red, yellow, green, and violet. The radiuses of these circles can be set in the settings menu. To disable these circles, disable each of them one by one in the settings (drag the slider all the way to the left).

Display Street Ahead

When this option is selected, the current street ahead is displayed with a magenta line – all alerts "on the same street" are evaluated based on that line.

Link roads (entrance and exit ramps) connected to the current street are considered parts of the current streets (often, speed traps are set on the ramps). Link roads are colored with cyan when the "Display Street Ahead" is preference is enabled.

Sounds

Configured in Settings → Sound.

Audio output

This preference controls how the audio is played. On most systems it affects how the autio is routed (e.g., phone speaker vs headphones vs Android Auto, etc). However, some vendors may add their own "features" breaking the default Android's behavior. Currently, there are three options:

• Default - Audio is played as a media stream (e.g., Android treats it similar to a music player). In most cases it will be routed through a default device. When Android Auto is connected, in most cases the sound goes through the car speakers. If a Bluetooth device is connected, then the audio goes through Bluetooth.
• Phone speaker - Highly experimental. Same as "Default", but the app explicitely asks the OS to play the sound through a phone speaker. However, not every phone respects this request, and on some devices the behavior can be quite glitchy (e.g., audio jumping back and forth between the phone speaker and the Android Auto). This mode can be useful when a car stereo has a noticeable sound lag, to expedite the audible alerts delivery.
• Alarm - Audio is played like an alarm. On most Android devices this means playing through all available devices at the same time (e.g. Bluetooth headset + phone speaker together). However, some vendors add a special treatment to alarm sounds. For example, some Motorola devices, force gradual ramp up to all alarm sounds.

Reset System Volume On Service Start

This configuration allows setting device volume to a specified value whenever the service is started – for example, make it as loud as it can get. Resetting the system volume on start can prevent the alert not being heard due to the low system volume set in the past. Please note that the volume isn't returned to the original value when the service is stopped.

Vocie Announcements Sound

This section allows to configure the volume and the speech rate of voice announcements. On some devices an application restart might be needed for this preference to take effect.

Volume Level

This preference controls the volume of voice announcements. The volume is set in a range from 5 to 100 percent.

Speech Rate

This preference controls the speed of voice announcements. The rate is set in a range from 0.5 to 3.0, where 1.0 is the default speed.

Volume Normalization

This preference controls the volume normalization of the audio alerts. The voice message is produced by a device's TTS engine, and on some devices the volume of the voice message can be significantly lower than the volume of the alert sound. This preference allows to normalize the volume of the voice message to the volume of the alert sound. The volume normalization is applied to the voice message only, the alert sounds are not affected. There are three possible options for voice normalization:

• None - No normalization is applied, the voice message is played unchanged as it is produced by the TTS engine.
• Basic - The whole message is normalized according to the EBU R128 standard. The normalization is applied to the whole message, so the volume of the voice message is adjusted to the volume of the loudest part of the message. This is the best options for most cases.
• Aggressive - Some devices (usually cheaper ones, with a poorly implemented TTS engine) can produce voice messages with varying volume levels thoughout the message. The aggressive mode targets these devices and normalizes the volume of each phoneme independently. This option can make the voice message sound more consistent, but can also slightly distort it and make it sound robotic.

Alerts Notifications

Configured in Settings → Alerts Notifications.

Highway Radar has various means of notifications about approaching an alert. All configuration related to notifications is located in the "Alerts Notifications" section in settings. There are also shortcuts to the notification preferences of specific alerts types in related preferences sections (e.g., you can also get to aircraft notifications from the Aircraft preferences section).

Alert badge

Alert badges are displayed on top of the map in portrait layout, or on the left side in landscape layout. Alert badges show the bearing towards the alert with a big arrow, and a direction of the alert with a small arrow. You can see more information about meaning of different elements of the alert badge in the Screen Overview section.

For alert badges you can also configure the minimum alert severity, when the badge should appear. For alerts with a lower severity level, the badge won't be shown.

Map markers

Map markers are available for geo-referenced alerts, such as crowdsourced reports, aircraft, cameras, etc. Map markers aren't available for radar/laser alerts.

A map marker consists of the marker itself, and a label next to the marker. Their appearances are configured separately. For example, you can configure Highway Radar to show only markers for inactive alerts, and markers + labels for active alerts.

There are also two options for coloring the markers - the color may either depend on the alert type, or on the alert severity. Map label is always colored based on the alert type.

Beeper

A beeper is a continuous sound played when a specific condition exists. The possible conditions are current speed (see Activation Speed section for more details on this), and alert severity.

The beeper can be configured to quiet down automatically after several seconds after activation. When any new alert with the beeper appears while the beeper is quiet, the beeper is returned to the loud level (then quiets down again).

Beeper is supported for all alerts except non-speed cameras and hazards.

Conceptually the primary purpose of the beeper is to notify the driver about over-speed when an alert is presented. For example, when you're going faster than the current speed limit, and there is a nearby police report.

Bogey Tones

A bogey tone is similar to a beeper, but the bogey is a short sound played only once. Bogey doesn't repeat continuously. Bogey has activation conditions similar to beeper (activation speed, alert severity).

Bogey tone is helpful for quick notifications about new alerts – for example, for radar alerts. Another good use of bogey tone is reminding about the alert. For example, if police alerts are configured to activate at a long distance, it may be a good idea to play a bogey tone when approaching the police as a reminder about their presence.

Voice Announcements

Voice announcement can pronounce different properties of an alert. Those properties may include distance to the alert, reporting time, alert bearing and direction, aircraft registered owner, and others.

Voice is generated using a built-in TTS system of the phone (in most cases Google TTS). Voice announcements are only available in the English language.

The speech rate can be controlled using a corresponding preference in the "Sound" preferences.

Screen Flasher

Screen flasher briefly floods the applciation screen with a specific color when a certain alert becomes active or reaches some severity level. The color, speed, and number of flashes are configurable.

Camera flashlight

Same as screen flasher, but uses the built-in camera flashlight instead of flooding the phone screen. In real life mostly suitable only when driving at night.

Vibration

Same as camera flashlight, but vibrates the phoPne instead of flashing.

System notification

Allows pushing a system notification whenever an alert becomes active or reaches a certain severity level. The notification can also be intercepted by smart watch or automation software.

Activation Speed

Activation speed defines the speed at which alert sound is played.

The beeper is active when you exceed the activation speed. Bogey and voice announcements are played when the activation speed is exceeded for the first time.

There are four primary types of activation speeds that may be combined in different ways.

• Fixed speed is a value in MPH or km/h, not related to the current speed limit.
• Absolute offset is an offset from the current posted speed limit in MPH or km/h. For example, if the current speed limit is 40 MPH, and the offset is set to +5 MPH, then at this location, the activation speed is 45 MPH (40 + 5 = 45).
• Relative offset is an offset from the current posted speed limit in percents. For example, if current speed limit is 40 MPH, and the offset is set to -10%, then at this location the activation speed is 32 MPH (40 - (40 * 10%) = 40 - 8 = 32)
• Fallback speed is similar to the fixed speed but only available when absolute or relative speed is set. This speed is used when the current speed limit isn't available. If the fixed speed is set, then it is used as a fallback speed.

The speeds mentioned above can be used in various combinations. Usually, these combinations represent the fastest or slowest of the configured speeds. However, there are some more complex combinations.

When configuring an activation speed, there is a table showing activation speed at different posted speed limits. It can be used for verifying if actual values match your expectations.

Voice Control

Configured in Settings → Voice control.

Voice control allows interacting with the application by using voice recognition technology.

There are three possible ways of starting voice command (these methods may be enabled and disabled in settings):

• Say aloud "Voice command" (voice activation)
• Tap with three fingers anywhere on the main screen
• Long tap on current speed or current speed limit

List Of Available Voice Commands

The voice commands component uses soft matching, so it would be difficult to get a list of all possible voice commands. There are examples below, but these aren't the only voice commands supported.

For example, this article may have examples "enable traffic layer" and "show traffic jams." At the same time, you can say "show traffic layer," or "enable traffic jams," or even "enable traffic jams layer" - these all work as well.

If you come up with a phrase for a supported action that isn't correctly recognized, please share them either with the built-in bug reports feature or on RDForum or by sending an email to [email protected].

Map Overlay Control

There are three types of maps overlays – heat map, weather radar, traffic jams (or traffic layer); and there are four types of actions that can be done with these overlays

• Show overlay – add an overlay to the map if not added yet; if Allow Combining Overlays preference is enabled, the layer is added to other already visible layers. Otherwise, other layers are hidden.
  Example commands: Show heat map, activate traffic jams, display weather radar, enable traffic layer
• Switch to overlay – show requested overlay only, hide other overlays.
  Example commands: switch to traffic jams layer, show weather radar only
• Hide overlay – hide requested overlay; if the overlay is not shown, then nothing happens.
  Example commands: hide heat map, deactivate traffic jams, remove weather radar, delete traffic layer, disable traffic jams layer
• Remove all overlays – remove all overlays from the map; if no overlays are shown, then nothing happens
  Example commands: disable map overlay, disable overlay

External Application Control

• Launch Waze – allows launching Waze to submit application reports
  Example commands: start Waze, launch Waze, activate Waze, switch to Waze, open Waze

Reporting Crowdsourced Alerts Via SABRE

If a SABRE plugin is installed, then commands for reporting crowdsourced alerts are also available. The reports are submitted at the user's location when the voice command has started (not when submitted). If there were multiple attempts to execute a voice command, the user's position at the starting point of the first attempt is used.

• Start report – equivalent to pressing the "Report" button, shows report dialog
  Example commands: start report
• Report police – submit a police report via SABRE plugin
  Example commands: report police, report visible police, report hiding police, report opposite hiding police, report police visible on the other side, report police hiding another side, report police on another way
• Start hazard report – open hazards report window, but don't submit an actual report
  Example commands: report hazard, start hazard report
• Report hazard – report a specific hazard via SABRE
  Example commands: report car stopped on road, report car on shoulder, report animals, report pothole on road, report roadkill
• Report accident – submit an accident report via SABRE plugin
  Example commands: report accident, report minor car accident, report major crash on another side, report opposide crash

Muting Control

• Mute Current Alert – mute the topmost alert in the list, equivalent to pressing the mute button.
  Example commands: mute, mute current alert, mute active alert, mute this alert, mute first alert, mute one alert, mute next alert
• Mute All Alerts – mute all active alerts, equivalent to long-pressing the mute button.
  Example command: mute all alerts

Bug Reporting

• Start recording bug report – you can also trigger a bug report recording by using a voice command.
  Example commands: send bug report, submit bug report

Delay Before Execution

Note that a short delay is added to ensure the command is recognized correctly when the voice recognition is completed. During that delay, there is an option to cancel the voice command or restart the recognition to try again. The duration of that delay can be configured in the preferences (Delay before executing the command).

Sharing Voice Recordings

The quality of the recognition model used by Highway Radar depends on the quality of the training data. You have a choice to opt-in to sharing your voice data. Whenever participated users activate a voice command, the recording is automatically submitted to the application developer. Only the raw sound data is submitted, no additional metadata is shared. Also, the application submits both executed and canceled voice commands.

Crowdsourced Alerts

Configured in Settings → Crowd-sourced alerts.

Crowdsourced alerts include police and multiple types of hazards alerts.

Any crowdsource alerts require an exchange platform – a service allowing users to submit and vote for reports and distribute them between other users. The number of users on such servers defines the quality of the data produced there. Highway Radar doesn't provide its own crowdsource exchange server because that kind of application (very powerful but with a steep learning curve) can't have a vast user base. Crowdsourced servers should have at least tens of thousands of active users at any moment to produce high-quality data.

So, instead of providing its own crowdsourced data exchange server, Highway Radar can connect to other third-party crowdsourced servers. Highway Radar has two ways of connecting to crowdsourced data exchange servers.

1. By specifying a hostname of the remote server. In this case, the application can connect to the remote server and fetch alerts from there. This method has a more straightforward setup but doesn't allow reporting events or voting for reports. Instructions on where to set the hostname are provided in the "Crowdsourced Alerts" section of the "Basic Setup" chapter.
2. By installing a SABRE plugin. A SABRE plugin is a typical Android application, which needs to be installed from an APK. With a SABRE plugin, you'll also be able to submit reports and vote for other reports.

Police

Configured in Settings → Crowd-sourced alerts → Police alerts settings section, a SABRE plugin or a crowd-sourced server should be configured for this section to appear.

Police alerts are among the most used and most helpful of all alerts available in the Highway Radar application. There are multiple configuration options available for police alerts. To make these options visible, either the hostname should be configured or a SABRE plugin installed.

Alerting On Opposite Direction

The "Alert on opposite direction" preference controls whether an opposite police alert should be considered active. We don't recommend disabling this preference as often crowd-sourced reports may contain the wrong enforcement direction (e.g., when camping on a freeway median).

Grouping Close Alerts

If grouping close alerts preference is enabled, police alerts close to each other can be grouped into a single alert. The alert most aligned with the driver's movement direction is considered a primary alert and displayed as a prominent icon on the map. Other alerts are displayed with small dots.

If a user votes for grouped alerts via SABRE, then the most recent report gets the vote.

Alerting Strategy

Highway Radar can apply special rules for determining whether a police alert is active or not if the alert is located on the same street as the driver.

Method 1: For any alert, it can determine whether it should be active based on the distance and bearing. This estimation method can be configured using three values: maximum alerting distance ahead, maximum alerting distance behind, and maximum alerting distance on the side. For a police alert to become active, it should be within the maximum alerting distance corresponding to its bearing.

Below is an example of alerting area if the configuration values are set to 2 miles ahead, 1 mile behind, 0.5 miles on the side. A 0.5-mile grid is added for convenience. Different colors show severity levels if "even" algorithm is used (see below).

Method 2: If the police report is located on the same street, another method for determining whether an alert should be active can be applied – a distance to the alert along the street may be considered. An alert is considered active if it is closer than some configured distance (same street maximum alerting distance).

NOTE: An alert is considered to be on a specific street if it no further than 75 meters from the center line of that street. This way alerts on neighbour streets or intersections may also be considered as being on the same street.

Below is an example of two estimations methods. Blue area corresponds to the alerting area determined using method 1. Magenta corresponds to the alerting area determined using method 2. The right picture shows the alert severity if a combined method is used (see below). Both pictures are shown for 5 miles same-street distance, 1 mile front distance, 0.5 miles back distance, and 0.25 miles side distance. "Even" severity algorithm is used (see below).

Highway Radar allows three ways of combining these methods (called alerting strategy in the preferences)

• Simple – only method 1 is used.
• Same street only – only method 2 is used; however, if the application is unable to find the current street, it falls back to method 1.
• Combined – an alert is considered active if any of the methods above treats it as active.

More details on how the active status and severity are determined, including exact computation formulas, are in the Determining Alert Severity section.

Determining Severity

The alert severity is determined based on the distance to the alert and the maximum alerting distance.

Highway Radar has the following algorithms for determining severity built-in. The table below shows distances as percents from them maximum alerting distance.

Example

• an alert is located at 30° to the right
• there is 1.5 miles to the alert
• maximum alerting distance for 30° is 2 miles
• an even algorithm is used

In this case, the alert is located at 75% of the maximum alerting distance for its bearing (\(\frac{1.5}{2} * 100\%\)), which gives us 2 dots of severity (60% - 80%).

More details are available on how the severity is determined in the Determining Alert Severity section.

Fadeout Interval

Fadeout interval allows hiding outdated police alerts completely. The alert is considered outdated if its report time or last confirmation (whichever is later) is older than a value set with a "Fadeout interval" preference.

Determining Alert Severity

Determining Alerting Area

Alerting area is an area on the map where police alerts should be active. As mentioned in the previous section, there are two methods for determining that area.

Method 1 (Marked Blue On The Chart Above)

This method doesn't require the current position to be snaped to a street and only depends on the driver's relative bearing to the alert. This method computes the maximum straight-line distance for each relative bearing for which an alert should be active. The road graph data isn't taken into consideration.

This method uses the following parameters to determine the maximum alerting distance for a bearing

• \(\theta\) - Relative bearing from the driver to the alert
• \(F\) - Maximum front alerting distance
• \(B\) - Maximum back alerting distance
• \(S\) - Maximum side alerting distance

Based on the values above, the following intermediate values are computed

• \(\alpha = 0.25F + 0.25B + 0.5S\)
• \(\beta = 0.5F - 0.5B\)
• \(\gamma = 0.25F + 0.25B - 0.5S\)
• \(M = min(F, B, S)\)

Then the maximum alerting distance \(D\) for bearing \(\theta\) is computed according to the following formula

\[D = max(M, \alpha + \beta cos(\theta) + \gamma cos(2\theta))\]

Method 2 (Marked Magenta On The Chart Above)

Method 2 is applicable when the current driver position is snaped to a street on the road graph. Then the street is extended from the current driver position forward until a predefined distance is reached (that distance is configured as "The same street alerting distance"). A 150-meters wide corridor (75 meters to each side) along the street is considered the alerting area.

Note that in this case, the distance is measured along the street, not along a straight line (as in method 1).

If the current driver position can't be snaped to a road graph, this method becomes inapplicable.

Severity Estimation

• The severity is defined by five numbers \(A_5, A_4, ..., A_1\)
       for example, let's take \(1, 1, 2, 3, 3\)
• We'll also need the maximum alerting distance and the distance to the alert
  *     in our example, let's take max distance = \(2mi\), distance to alert = \(0.5mi\)
• First of all let's find the sum \(T\) of these numbers
  *     in our example \(T = 1 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 3 = 10\)
• Now, divide the maximum alerting distance onto \(T\) small segments
       in our example it will be 10 segments 0.2 miles each - \(2mi / 10 = 0.2mi\)
• Then, starting from the driver and moving towards the alert
  • The first \(A_5\) segments correspond to the severity level 5
    *     in our example, that would be one segment and distances from 0 to 0.2 miles
  • The next \(A_4\) segments correspond to the severity level 4
    *     in our example, that would be again one segment and distances from 0.2 to 0.4 miles
  • The next \(A_3\) segments correspond to the severity level 3
    *     in our example, that would be two segments and distances from 0.4 to 0.8 miles
  • The next \(A_2\) segments correspond to the severity level 2
    *     in our example, that would be three segments and distances from 0.8 to 1.4 miles
  • The last \(A_1\) segments correspond to the severity level 1
    *     in our example, that would be three segments and distances from 1.4 to 2 miles
• Then we need to find into which segment does the distance to the alert \(V\) fall
  *     in our example that is the segment corresponding to severity level 3 as \(0.4 \le 0.5 < 0.8\)

The images below shows areas corresponding to different severities when "combined" alerting strategy is used, severity estimation algorithm is "1 1 1 1 1", and alerting distance preferences are front = 1mi, back = 0.5mi, side = 0.25mi, same street = 5mi.

The same info, but for nerds

Alert severity is based on the maximum alerting distance \(D\) and an actual distance to the alert \(V\).

• If method 1 was used for estimating alerting area, then \(D\) is taken from the formulas above, and \(M\) is a straight line distance to the alert
• If method 2 was used for estimating alerting area, then \(D\) is equal to the value of "Same street alerting distance" preference, and \(M\) is a distance to the alert along the street
• If the combined method is used for severity estimation, then the maximum severity value of those produced by the two methods above is used

Alert severity algorithm is defined by 5 values \(A_5, A_4, ..., A_1\).

Formally the severity \(Q\) of an alert is defined by the following formula

\[Q = \max_{i=1..5}(i | \frac{\sum_{j=i}^{5}A_j}{\sum_{j=1}^{5}A_j} > \frac{V}{D})\]

Hazards

Configured in Settings → Crowd-sourced alerts → Hazards alerts settings section, a SABRE plugin or a crowd-sourced server should be configured for this section to appear.

There are seven types of hazards that Highway Radar supports

• Accident
• Object on road
• Pothole
• Vehicle stopped on road
• Vehicle stopped on shoulder
• Animals
• Roadkill

Alerting Area

Unlike police alerts, beeper and bogey aren't supported for hazards alerts.

Hazards alerts have different shapes of the activation area than police alerts.

• If "Alert on same street only" preference is enabled and managed to identify the current street, then the alert becomes active only if it is within the alerting distane and on the same street. "Same street" means within 75 meters of the street center line.
• If either "Alert on same street only" preference is disabled or the app failed to identify the current street, then the shape of hazard alerts is a 60 degrees sector pointing in the direction of movement, stretched for a specified distance in front of the driver. (it is also dilated by 20 meters in every direction to handle very close alerts located near the tip of the sector better).

SABRE

Configured in Settings → Crowd-sourced alerts.

"SABRE" stands for Special Activity Broadcast Receiving Engine.

SABRE plugins were introduced to expand the range of data sources used by Highway Radar. SABRE plugin is a typical Android application, exchanging data with Highway Radar.

SABRE allows implementing any communication protocol with crowdsource exchange servers without needing Highway Radar to support them directly. Technical description of the SABRE protocol is available at https://sabre.app.

The main benefit of using a SABRE plugin compared to entering a crowdsourced server hostname is the ability to submit crowdsourced reports, and vote form them.

You can search for SABRE plugins at RDForum.

Installing A SABRE Plugin

SABRE plugins are installed like any other APK file on Android. You may Google "How to install APK on Android" if you don't know how to do this.

Battery Optimizations

Several Android manufacturers have poorly implemented battery-saving features in their firmware. They prefer battery life over the proper functionality of apps, which may lead to some applications not behaving as desined. These optimizations often hit SABRE integration and Highway Radar background operations.

Several issues have already been reported for Samsung and Huawei phones.

Both Highway Radar and any SABRE plugins must be whitelisted from any battery optimizations to ensure that everything works properly. There is a great website that gives much information about non-standard battery-optimization tweaks for different manufacturers. Please check if your device is affected, and follow the instruction for whitelisting the applications.

The site is https://dontkillmyapp.com/

Both Highway Radar and all SABRE plugins existing when writing this article are idle when not used. It means there is nothing to optimize there, as they have zero battery consumption regardless. Any "optimizations" when the application is actively used can only break some of the features.

If this doesn't help, you may try enabling the User alternative SABRE startup method preference in the bottom of the preferences screen for crowd-sourced alert.

Submitting Report Via SABRE

There are two ways of submitting crowdsourced reports via SABRE: using a dialog window and a voice command.

To make the submission dialog appear, tap on the report button in the status panel. Please note that the "report" button is only available when the "Report button action" preference (located in General) is set to "Submit report via SABRE (if available)."

For information about submitting reports using voice commands, please read the Voice Control section.

Voting For Reports

SABRE also allows voting for reports. Voting becomes available when the driver's location is within 500 meters of an active alert and remains available either until a vote is submitted or for 20 seconds after the moment the conditions above aren't met.

Aircraft Alerts

Configured in Settings → Aircraft alerts

About Aircraft Enforcement

Aircraft speed enforcement (also known as "aircraft VASCAR") is used in several countries.

The main idea of aircraft speed enforcement is measuring how long it takes for a vehicle to drive a predefined distance – usually 1/2 or 1/4 mile. The time is entered into a VASCAR computer which calculates the average speed on the segment. Older VASCAR computers require road markings painted every 1/2 mile or every 1/4 mile – you can see examples of such markings on Google Maps – they're located on the outer side of the road at the marked points along the route. Modern VASCAR systems don't need these markings and can clock any vehicle anywhere.

You can see some examples of the aircraft enforcement at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Highway Radar can help with avoiding aircraft speed enforcement by notifying the driver about potentially enforcement aircraft nearby. Highway Radar pulls data from very similar sources as FlightRadar24 and FlightAware.

Getting Aircraft Data

Nearly every aircraft in the sky is equipped with a so-called ADS-B out transmitter. It constantly transmits the aircraft's callsign, position, speed, altitude, and a lot of other valuable data. ADS-B significantly helps with air traffic control and collision avoidance. ADS-B data is unencrypted and can be received by anyone. There are many enthusiasts throughout the world maintaining ADS-B receivers and sharing their data. ADS-B data are then fed into exchange networks. Examples of such networks are ADSBExchange and OpenSky network – they accept the raw ADS-B data from enthusiasts and share data from other ADS-B receivers across the world with them. Highway Radar can get real-time air traffic data across the world from these ADS-B exchange networks.

Highway Radar connects to several exchange networks and fetches all air traffic data in a 20-miles circle radius around the driver. If several networks report the same aircraft (happens most of the time), the network with the most recent information is used as a ground truth. Also, it is crucial to understand that while ADS-B exchange networks have extensive coverage, they don't cover 100% of the earth. These networks are driven by enthusiasts hosting receivers (also called "feeders") at home, so the data is only available from places with these enthusiasts. All of the major cities are covered; however, some rural areas may not have any coverage. ADSB-exchange has their map of feeders available. If you want to ensure coverage for your area, you can start feeding ADS-B data as well – use this page as a starting point. The cost of a minimal kit for receiving and feeding ADS-B data costs around $100.

Aircraft Matching And Filtering

Once Highway Radar gets air traffic above the driver, it matches the callsigns against various databases (such as government databases, or crowd-sourced ones like OpenSky aircraft database). There is no public "list of all enforcement aircraft," so Highway Radar needs to guess which aircraft may do enforcement.

• Some aircraft can be ruled out pretty quickly – for example, if this is a Boeing 747, Airbus A320, or any other passenger jet owned by an airline, it definitely won't do speed enforcement. Also, if we're getting a signal from an air balloon or a glider, we can also rule it out. Highway Radar names these types of aircraft safe and never makes alerts with them active. Also, in alerts, they are prefixed with "(S)."
• Other aircraft can be definitely matched with some enforcement agency – for example, an aircraft owned by "Washington State Patrol" or "Los Angeles Police Department" would pose a threat. Highway Radar names them suspicious. = However, some aircraft can't be positively identified as safe or suspicious – we don't have any rules on how to determine whether it is safe or not automatically. These aircraft are named unknown. Also, in alerts, they are prefixed with "(?)".

Highway Radar can be configured to alert on different types of aircraft differently. Preference Choose which aircraft to show is responsible for this. In the options for this preference, the "proximity" means "at a distance when the aircraft alert becomes active (non-gray)."

Several other preferences are allowing to reduce the number of alerts further

• Show unknown aircraft – this preference controls whether the application should display aircraft for which there is no available information at all, where we only know that "There is something in the sky at this location." In some areas, military aircraft can cause much noise by reporting nothing except position – this preference allows to hide that signals.
• Show foreign aircraft – this preference allows hiding aircraft positioned in a country other than their registration. I'm not aware of any enforcement agency using aircraft registered in different countries.
• Show grounded aircraft – self-explanatory

Aircraft Categories

Highway Radar classifies all aircraft into three categories – airplanes, helicopters, and unknown (named just aircraft in alerts). The Aircraft categories to show preference controls which of them are displayed. Please note that aircraft with the unknown category are always displayed, regardless of this preference.

Alerting Sensitivity

Highway Radar can have different levels of alerting sensitivity for the aircraft. This preference is explained in the Aircraft Severity section.

Aircraft Presentation

Several preferences control how an aircraft can be presented to the driver.

• Show aircraft icons on map – controls whether an aircraft icon should be overlayed over the map.
• Show map labels – controls whether a label with basic aircraft info should be added next to the map icon.
• Show aircraft traces – controls whether to show a 5-minute trail of the aircraft positions.
• Zoom out map on active aircraft alert – when enabled and an active unmuted aircraft alert is presented, the map is zoomed out to fit the aircraft. To return the zoom to normal, you can mute the aircraft alert.
• Show aircraft tail numbers – when enabled, an aircraft tail number (also known as "registration number") is added to the map label and alert alert badge.

Determining Alert Severity

Aircraft alert severity is determined based on the following parameters

• Aircraft distance to the driver
• Aircraft altitude
• Aircraft speed \(V\)
  if less than 50 m/s (~100 kt), use 50 m/s instead
• Kill zone angle \(\alpha\)
  Determined by the sensitivity preference – the values are 60°, 50°, 40°, 30°, 20°, 15°, 10°
• Kill zone extension time \(E\)
  Determined by the sensitivity preference – the values are 0s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 45s, 1m, 2m

Defining A Kill Zone

Kill zone is an air space above your location from where we consider an enforcement aircraft can clock the vehicle.

Highway Radar considers the kill zone as a spherical sector with a tip at the driver position, extending upward, having a radius of 2000 meters (6562 ft), and a half cone angle \(\phi = 90° - \alpha\).

Computing Severity

Aircraft alert severity in Highway Radar is computed from the time required by the aircraft to reach the kill zone.

• 5 dots mean that the aircraft is inside the kill zone
• 4 dots mean that the aircraft need 0-30 seconds to reach the kill zone
• 3 dots mean that the aircraft need 30-60 seconds to reach the kill zone
• 2 dots mean that the aircraft need 60-90 seconds to reach the kill zone
• 1 dot means that the aircraft need 90-120 seconds to reach the kill zone
• If the alert is inactive, then the aircraft needs more than 2 minutes to reach the kill zone

Once the kill zone is defined, the following rules apply to find out alert severity.

• If the aircraft is inside the kill zone, set the maximum possible severity (5).
• Otherwise, considering the aircraft speed \(V\), and assuming its ability of climbing and descending at a rate of up to 5 m/s (~1000 ft/min), compute time to kill zone \(T\) - the minimum possible time for the aircraft to reach the kill zone if it follows the optimal path.
• Then compute the adjusted time to kill zone \(T' = T - E\)
• If \(T' \le 0\), then set the maximum possible severity (5)
• Otherwise, compute the raw severity value \(S = 5 - \lceil \frac{T'}{30s} \rceil\)
• If \(S \le 0\), then mark alert inactive, as the aircraft isn't in proximity
• Otherwise, consider the alert active and set its severity to \(S\)

Please note that the algorithm above doesn't take the driver's speed and location into account – it doesn't adjust the severity values depending on whether the driver is approaching or receding from the aircraft.

Cameras

Configured in Settings → Cameras alerts.

Highway Radar can alert on various enforcement cameras. Currently, Highway Radar supports the following types of cameras

• Red-light cameras
• Speed cameras
• Speed + red-light cameras
• Lane control cameras
• Disatance control cameras
• Overtaking cameras
• Pedestrian crossing cameras
• Height control cameras
• Weight control cameras
• Entrance control cameras
• Bus lane cameras
• Dummy cameras
• Section control cameras
  (limited support – only announces section boundaries, doesn't measure an average speed)
• Multipurpose cameras (any combination of the above)

Each of the types above can be enabled or disabled independently in the Enabled cameras type preference.

Cameras Data Sources

Highway Radar supports two primary data sources for cameras: a cameras database provided by Highway Radar and third-party cameras databases.

Cameras Provided By Highway Radar

The Cameras database provided by Highway Radar is the default option and doesn't require any configuration – it works straight out of the box. The camera locations are sourced from the POI-factory.

The default database has several limitations

• It only covers U.S. and Canada
• It doesn't contain enforcement direction
• It only has Speed, red-light, and speed + red-light enforcement cameras

To overcome these restrictions, you have to use a third-party cameras database

Thirdparty Cameras Database

Highway Radar supports side-loaded third-party cameras databases. The only supported format is an ExCam format explicitly designed for Highway Radar. The protocol is open, and its technical description is publicly available. Currently, there is no public converter from other database formats; however, there are plans to create one.

There are two ways to import side-loaded cameras into the application; both are documented in the ExCam protocol description

• Loading from a URL
  Highway Radar downloads the database from a provided URL; every time the application starts, it checks if a database update is available. If there is, Highway Radar automatically downloads the latest version in the background.
• Loading from a file
  Highway Radar accepts a file containing the entire database. This way doesn't use any data; however, it doesn't support automatic updates.

Cameras Directions

The cameras database may specify enforcement directions for the cameras (also known as "approach vectors"). Highway Radar may treat this information differently, depending on the Consider camera direction preference value.

• Respect direction from the database
  In this mode, alerts are only issued then the driver's direction is aligned with the camera direction. The shape of the current street is also considered, so if the road bends right before the camera, the application would still alert.
• Respect direction from the database and alert on opposite cameras
  This mode is similar to the previous one. The only difference is that the application also alerts on the opposite cameras. This mode can compensate for potential database mistakes, where one camera can enforce both lanes simultaneously. Note that the application doesn't alert cameras with the direction perpendicular to the current street in this mode.
• Ignore direction, alert based on proximity only
  In this mode, Highway Radar completely ignores camera directions from the database. The application alerts on any camera located on the driver's way.

Alerting Distance

There are different alerting distances for speed and non-speed cameras. This distance only defines when the alert becomes active. All the notifications are configured separately in the notifications section of this book.

An Alert on the same street only preference defines whether Highway Radar should consider road graph data when building alerts. When this preference is enabled, the algorithm is similar to hazards alerts with the "same street only" alerting strategy. When it is disabled, the algorithm is similar to hazard alerts with the "simple" alerting strategy.

Heat Maps

Configured in Settings → Heat map. A map display type should be selected for these preferences to appear.

Heat maps can show where police reports appear more often; this can help identify frequent locations of speed traps or traffic stops.

Building Heat Maps

Heat maps are generated based on crowdsourced data and contain information for the past year.

Heat maps are normalized to the area around. Normalization means that if there are many police reports in some area in general (say, in Manhattan) – the entire area is painted colder to allow still seeing more frequent locations of police reports. It also means that a "red" spot in a rural area has an entirely different meaning than a "red" spot in a downtown megalopolis. Normalization helps demonstrate where police are seen often; however, it doesn't help with showing how often police are seen there. To know how often is police seen in the area, check out the Risk Estimation section.

As the map is zoomed out, the colors get normalized to a larger area. It can lead to some hot areas disappearing as the map is zoomed out – this effect is especially noticeable close to big cities.

Presentation

There are four preferences responsible for heat map presentation. Their effects are outlined below.

Overlay Opacity

Transparent Backround

Transparent background allows not painting "cold" areas of the heat map, which can help declutter the map.

Color Map

There are 5 color maps supported.

Heatmap Dilation

This preference allows extending the "hot" areas. It is useful when the heat map is combined with the traffic jam layer.

Risk Estimation

Configured in Settings → Risk estimation.

Highway Radar uses crowdsourced historical data for estimating the chance of meeting police at this location, this time, and this day (weekday/weekend). The estimation is solely based on past user reports. The estimation is computed based on the data obtained during the last 365 days.

The risk score is shown in the bottom left side of the app, inside the "Risk" widget.

Interpreting The Data

The estimation value is a number and a probability of having a police report based on location, time, and day. By default only the number is visible. If you tap on the number, you'll see a message with the probabilty.

To make things easier, let's consider a couple of examples.

Say you're getting the following value for the risk score: the widget shows 8/10, and the message says Risk: 8/10 (>70% in 3mi ±1h)

• 8/10 means that there are 10 possible risk levels with your configuration, and this one is 8th (starting from the least risky).
• ±1h means that the estimation is computed for a time window beginning at the current time rounded down to the nearest hour minus 1 hour and ending at the current time rounded up to the nearest hour plus 1 hour. For example, if you see that at 8:32, the estimation would be computed for a timeframe between 7:00 and 10:00.
• 3mi means that the estimation is computed for a circle with a radius of 3 miles around your current location.
• >70% means that the probability of encountering at least one alert in the given circle within the given timeframe is between 70% and 100%.

So, overall, if you see the message above say at 8:32 on Sunday, it would mean that
During more than 70% of weekends out of those in the past 365 days, there was at least one police report within 3 miles of your current location between 7:00 and 10:00.

Let's consider another example: Risk 7/10 (40-70% in 3mi ±1h)

This one is similar to the example above, except the probability ranges from 40% to 70%.

So, overall, if you see the message above say at 4:15 on Monday, it would mean that
The number of weekdays out of those in the past 365 days, when there was at least one police report within 3 miles of your current location between 3:00 and 6:00, falls between 40% and 70%.

Another example: Risk 15/25 (~55% in 1.9mi ±1h)

• 15/25 means that there are 25 possible risk levels with your configuration, and this one is 15th (starting from the least risky).
• ±1h means that the estimation is computed for a time window beginning at the current time rounded down to the nearest hour minus 1 hour and ending at the current time rounded up to the nearest hour plus 1 hour.
• 1.9mi means that the estimation is computed for a circle with a radius of 1.9 miles around your current location.
• ~55% means that the probability of encountering at least one alert in the given circle within the given timeframe is close to 55%.

So, overall, if you see the message above say at 7:57 on Wednesday, it would mean that
During approximately 55% of weekdays out of those in the past 365 days, there was at least one police report within 1.9 miles of your current location between 6:00 and 9:00.

One more example: Risk 2/25 (no reports in 5mi ±2h)

• 2/25 means that there are 25 possible risk levels with your configuration, and this one is 2nd (starting from the least risky).
• ±2h means that the estimation is computed for a time window beginning at the current time rounded down to the nearest hour minus 2 hours and ending at the current time rounded up to the nearest hour plus 2 hours.
• 5mi means that the estimation is computed for a circle with a radius of 5 miles around your current location.
• no reports means that during the last 365 days, there wasn't a single police report in the given circle within the given timeframe.

So, overall, if you see the message above say at 3:24 on Saturday, it would mean that
There were no police reports in the past 365 days within 1.9 miles of your current location between 1:00 and 6:00 on weekends.

The last example: Risk 0/25 (no reports in 10mi)

In this case, there is no timeframe given. It means there were no reports at all in this area, regardless of the time. Weekdays/weekends are still taken into consideration.

So, overall, if you see the message above on Thursday, it would mean that
There were no police reports in the past 365 days within 10 miles of your current location on weekdays.

Scoring Models

There are two types of risk scores supported by Highway Radar - 10-score and 25-score. The former is easier to interpret, and the latter provides more granularity. Below are the possible risk scores from both models.

10-score Model

• Risk: 1/10 (~0% in 10mi)
• Risk: 2/10 (~0% in 5mi)
• Risk: 3/10 (~0% in 5mi ±2h)
• Risk: 4/10 (<10% in 3mi ±1h)
• Risk: 5/10 (10-20% in 3mi ±1h)
• Risk: 6/10 (20-40% in 3mi ±1h)
• Risk: 7/10 (40-70% in 3mi ±1h)
• Risk: 8/10 (>70% in 3mi ±1h)
• Risk: 9/10 (>80% in 2mi ±1h)
• Risk: 10/10 (>90% in 1mi ±1h)

25-score Model

• Risk 0/25 (no reports in 10mi)
• Risk 1/25 (no reports in 5mi)
• Risk 2/25 (no reports in 5mi ±2h)
• Risk 3/25 (no reports in 3mi ±1h)
• Risk 4/25 (~0% in 3mi ±1h)
• Risk 5/25 (~5% in 2.9mi ±1h)
• Risk 6/25 (~10% in 2.8mi ±1h)
• Risk 7/25 (~15% in 2.7mi ±1h)
• Risk 8/25 (~20% in 2.6mi ±1h)
• Risk 9/25 (~25% in 2.5mi ±1h)
• Risk 10/25 (~30% in 2.4mi ±1h)
• Risk 11/25 (~35% in 2.3mi ±1h)
• Risk 12/25 (~40% in 2.2mi ±1h)
• Risk 13/25 (~45% in 2.1mi ±1h)
• Risk 14/25 (~50% in 2mi ±1h)
• Risk 15/25 (~55% in 1.9mi ±1h)
• Risk 16/25 (~60% in 1.8mi ±1h)
• Risk 17/25 (~65% in 1.7mi ±1h)
• Risk 18/25 (~70% in 1.6mi ±1h)
• Risk 19/25 (~75% in 1.5mi ±1h)
• Risk 20/25 (~80% in 1.4mi ±1h)
• Risk 21/25 (~85% in 1.3mi ±1h)
• Risk 22/25 (~90% in 1.2mi ±1h)
• Risk 23/25 (~95% in 1.1mi ±1h)
• Risk 24/25 (~100% in 1mi ±1h)
• Risk 25/25 (~100% in 0.75mi ±1h)

Weather Radar

Configured in Settings → Weather radar.

Weather radar and its forecast can be overlayed onto the maps to show the precipitation information.

Data Sources

Highway Radar can pull weather radar data from three different sources

• RainViewer
  This is the only source providing weather forcast, currently 30 minutes ahead. RainViewer provides coverage close to world-wide. The quality is average, the service stability is satisfactory.
• Raw National Weather Service radar
  This data source displays data from the radar as is. It requires very little CPU resources to process; however, is is only available in the United States, there is no forecast, and the radar images aren't cleared from the noise.
• Open Weather Maps precipitation map
  This is the least accurate data source, and doesn't have a forecast. However, it has a world-wide availability and consumes very little CPU resources. This data source also supports using a custom color scheme, while others stick to the standard radar coloring.

If you know any free or reasonably-priced (less than $25/mo) weather API supporting precipiration radar forecast (aka NowCast), please let me know at [email protected].

Overlay Opacity

The weather radar layer can have different opacity depending on your preference. The opacity level is configured in the preferences.

Zoom

If the correspontion preference is enabled, the application can zoom out the map when the weather radar is enabled. It allows to observer a larger area. When zooming out is enabled, an additional preference is appeared – the map range. The map range value denotes the distances from one side of the map to another along the shorter edge. Them the map is zoomed out, all alerts are removed from the map until the weather radar layer is disabled; however, audible notifications aren't disabled.

Forecast Type (RainViewer Model Only)

Forecast type preference controls how the forecast is presented. Conceptually there are 3 different ways to present it:

• Forecast at a given time – For example, weather radar forcast in 30 minutes, or weather radar now
• Speed-based forcast – Each location on the map shows a different forecast depending on the distance to that point and the speed

The type of the forecast you speed is shown in the top right corner.

Speed-Based Forecasts

Speed-based weather radar shows the weather data at the time of your arrival to the location. Based on your location and speed, Highway Radar combines multiple forecast layers to show you the radar forecast you're expected to get if you keep your movement speed.

On images below you can see how the multiple forecast layers are combined. Look at the forecast and note a small rain cell on the north-east moving away from your location. It moves at a speed of approximately 20-30 MPH. The weather radar is configured to show you speed-based forecast at 25MPH. If you start moving north-east at 25 MPH you'll be going under that rain cell all the time. The speed-based forecast presents it by showing you green area all the way to the east, as long as it has the forecast data. The arrows on the image show, which forecast layer's data are displayed at corresponding locations (10-, 20-, and 30-minutes forecasts).

This type of radar requires your speed – it can either use some predefined speed, or your historical average speed. If you configure the application to use your average speed for say 10 minutes, then it will compute the "straight-line" distance to your location 10 minutes ago, and divide it by 10 minutes. This means that on curvy roads the displayed speed may be less that an actual one; however, it provides a more accurate speed-based forcast.

Radar Detector Integration

Configured in Settings → Radar detector integration.

Highway Radar can pair with several models of radar detectors to provide an even higher level of situational awareness. Currently, the following models of radar detectors are supported.

• Radenso DS1
• Valentine V1 Gen 2 (gen 1 is not supported)
• Uniden R4
• Uniden R8
• Uniden R9

Radenso Theia will be added to the application as soon as released.

Pairing your detector with the Highway Radar provides the following benefits:

• View radar alerts on the big phone screen
• View complete information about multiple signals
• Set up intelligent low-speed muting considering the current speed limit
• Apply custom processing and signal filtering rules
• One of the best auto-lockouts
• Modify internal detector settings from a friendlier user interface on the mobile phone
• Define different radar setting profiles for different scenarios via settings packs
• Mute/unmute the detector from the application, control muting per alert

Getting Started

To pair with your detector, proceed to Settings → Radar detector integration, and use the Radar detector model selector to choose your model. Then continue to your detector's page – Radenso DS1, Valentine V1, Uniden R4/R8/R9].

Once you select your radar detector, you'll see several new preferences. Also, you'll see a Bluetooth status icon on the main application screen.

Valentine V1 (Gen 2 Only)

Configured in Settings → Radar detector integration → V1 connection manager. The Radar detector model preference under Settings → Radar detector integration should be set to Valentine V1 for this preference to appear.

Connecting To V1

To connect to your Valentine V1 detector:

1. Proceed to the V1 connection manager in the preferences. You can also get there by pressing the "V1 Bluetooth Connection" on the start screen in the "Configuration Status" section.
2. From there, ensure that your detector is powered on and no other device is connected to it (there is no Bluetooth icon on the V1 display).
3. Press the "Scan" button in the connection manager on your phone, and select your detector.
4. After selecting your detector, wait for 5-10 seconds for the application to connect.

Highway Radar remembers the detector and reconnects to it automatically whenever it is in range. Press the "Forget" button in the connection manager to forget the detector.

Connection Manager

V1 connection manager consists of four sections: Connection, display view, device settings, and alerts table.

Connection

Connection displays connection status and the remembered detector name. The Scan button is used to pair a new detector, and Forget button is used to clear the paired detector.

Display View

This section is only displayed when a V1 is connected.

The information in this section should precisely duplicate the information on the detector's display.

Device Settings

This section is only displayed when a V1 is connected.

Highway Radar stores a copy of V1 settings internally and supports two-way synchronization. In this section, both settings are displayed. Local values are stored in the Highway Radar application and can be changed at any time in Settings → Radar detector integration → V1 internal Settings. However, local settings don't affect how the detector operates. V1 values are stored inside the detector, and the detector uses them for operation.

Local and V1 values may differ and can be copied both ways. Pressing the V1 → Local button copies settings from the V1 to the application storage. Pressing the Local → V1 button writes settings from the application storage to the V1. You may change local settings any time, even when V1 is disconnected. However, you can transfer settings both ways only when the V1 is connected.

Alerts Table

This section is only displayed when a V1 is connected.

It displays a list of signals currently detected by V1 with directions, bands, frequencies, and strengths. You can use that list for verification of V1 connection health.

Changing Internal Settings

One of the good benefits of V1 integration is managing the detector settings from a user-friendly interface on a big phone screen. To update internal detector settings, proceed to Settings → Radar detector integration → V1 internal Settings and set up your desired configuration. Then to push the settings to the detector, proceed to the V1 connection manager, and press the Local → V1 button in the Device Settings section.

Radenso DS1

Configured in Settings → Radar detector integration → DS1 connection manager. The Radar detector model preference under Settings → Radar detector integration should be set to Radenso DS1 for this preference to appear.

Connecting To DS1

Before you start: Please ensure that your detector has at least firmware version 1.07. This manual may not work on older firmware versions.

• To check your version, go to Settings → Unit → FW Ver on DS1.
• Please look for instructions and required files at the Radenso website to update your detector's firmware.

Pairing With DS1

Pairing is performed from the Android's system settings. You need to pair the detector only once, you won't need to do it again as long as the detector isn't "forgotten" in the Android preferences.

The following instructions are based on a vanilla Android 12. Some phone manufacturers may have their own settings menu (Samsung is well-known for this, for example); in this case, the steps may differ. Also, on older Android versions, the steps may differ as well. For these devices try the steps may slightly differ.

To pair your DS1 with your Android phone:

1. On DS1, enable Bluetooth by going to Settings → User preference → BT → On.
2. On Android, activate a search for nearby Bluetooth devices by going to System settings → Connected devices → Pair new device.
3. On DS1, enter the pairing mode by going to Settings → User preference → BT pairing → Pairing set.
4. On Android, look for your DS1 device; it should be named DS1@XX, where XX are two symbols.
5. On Android, tap on your device once it shows up; after that, a "Pairing Succeeded" message should appear on DS1.
6. Restart your DS1 – this is a crucial step as, occasionally, the Bluetooth connection goes to an invalid state right after pairing.

Once the detector is paired with the phone, you can pair it with the Highway Radar. To do this, in the Highway Radar application:

1. Proceed to the DS1 connection manager in the preferences. You can also get there by pressing the "DS1 Bluetooth Connection" on the start screen in the "Configuration Status" section.
2. From there, ensure that your detector is powered on and no other device is connected to it (there is no Bluetooth icon on the DS1 display).
3. Press the "Scan" button in the connection manager on your phone, and select your detector.
4. After selecting your detector, wait for 5-10 seconds for the application to connect.

Highway Radar remembers the detector and automatically reconnects whenever it is in range. Press the "Forget" button in the connection manager to forget the detector. Note that "forgetting" the detector in Highway Radar doesn't "forget" the detector in the system settings – this means that you shouldn't perform the pairing again to reconnect your DS1 to Highway Radar.

Connection Manager

DS1 connection manager consists of three sections: Connection, device settings, and alerts table.

Connection

Connection displays connection status and the remembered detector name. The scan button is used to pair a new detector, and the forget button clears the currently paired one.

Device Settings

This section is only displayed when a DS1 is connected.

Highway Radar stores a copy of DS1 settings internally and supports two-way synchronization. In this section, both settings are displayed. You can change local values from the application in **`Settings → Radar detector integration → DS1 internal Settings``*; however, local values don't affect how the detector operates. DS1 values are stored and set on the detector itself, and the detector uses them for operation.

You can copy settings both ways. Pressing the DS1 → Local button copies settings from the device to the application storage. Pressing the Local → DS1 button writes settings from the application storage to the detector. You can also push settings to the detector from the internal settings menu (equivalent to pressing Local → DS1).

Alerts Table

This section is only displayed when a DS1 is connected.

It displays a list of signals currently detected by DS1 with bands, frequencies, and strengths. You can use that list for verification of DS1 connection health.

Changing Internal Settings

One of the good benefits of DS1 integration is managing the detector settings from a user-friendly interface on a big phone screen. To update internal detector settings, proceed to Settings → Radar detector integration → DS1 internal Settings and set up your desired configuration. Then to push the settings to the detector, tap the "Push settings to DS1" button in the internal settings menu. Another way to push settings is proceeding to the DS1 connection manager and pressing the Local → DS1 button in the Device Settings section.

Setting Detector Volume

In the internal settings you may also set detector volume. Please note that detector will return to that volume after every alert, even if you change the volume using the detector buttons. To prevent this behavior, you may set the detector volume to the "Controled only from device", which is at the leftmost value of the slider.

Uniden R4/R8/R9

Configured in Settings → Radar detector integration → R4 connection manager or R8 connection manager or R9 connection manager. The Radar detector model preference under Settings → Radar detector integration should be set to Uniden R4 or Uniden R8 or Uniden R8 for these preferences to appear.

Connecting To The Detector

Before you start: Please ensure that your detector firmware supports Bluetooth. If there are no Bluetooth options in the detector settings menu, then you might need to update your firmware.

• To check your version, on the detector go to the menu and find "Ver" item.
• Please look for instructions and required files at the Uniden website to update your detector's firmware.

Pairing With The Detector

Pairing is performed from the Android's system settings. You need to pair the detector only once, you won't need to do it again as long as the detector isn't "forgotten" in the Android preferences.

The following instructions are based on a vanilla Android 12. Some phone manufacturers may have their own settings menu (Samsung is well-known for this, for example); in this case, the steps may differ. Also, on older Android versions, the steps may differ as well. For these devices try the steps may slightly differ.

To pair your Uniden detector with your Android phone:

1. On detector, enable Bluetooth by going to Menu → Bluetooth → On.
2. On Android, activate a search for nearby Bluetooth devices by going to System settings → Connected devices → Pair new device.
3. On detector, enter the pairing mode by going to Settings → BT pairing.
4. On Android, look for your Uniden device; it should be named R4@XX or R8@XX or R9@XX depending on your model, where XX are two symbols.
5. On Android, tap on your device once it shows up; after that, a "Pairing Succeeded" message should appear on your detector.
6. Restart your detector – this is a crucial step as, occasionally, the Bluetooth connection goes to an invalid state right after pairing.

Once the detector is paired with the phone, you can pair it with the Highway Radar. To do this, in the Highway Radar application:

1. Proceed to the connection manager in the preferences. You can also get there by pressing the "R4 Bluetooth Connection" or "R4 Bluetooth Connection" on the start screen in the "Configuration Status" section.
2. From there, ensure that your detector is powered on and no other device is connected to it (there is no Bluetooth icon on the detector display).
3. Press the "Scan" button in the connection manager on your phone, and select your detector.
4. After selecting your detector, wait for 5-10 seconds for the application to connect. If the reconnect doesn't happen, restart your detector, and toggle Bluetooth on your phone off and on.

Highway Radar remembers the detector and automatically reconnects whenever it is in range. Press the "Forget" button in the connection manager to forget the detector. Note that "forgetting" the detector in Highway Radar doesn't "forget" the detector in the system settings – this means that you shouldn't perform the pairing again to reconnect your Uniden detector to Highway Radar.

Connection Manager

The connection manager consists of three sections: Connection, device settings, and alerts table.

Connection

Connection displays connection status and the remembered detector name. The scan button is used to pair a new detector, and the forget button clears the currently paired one.

Device Settings

This section is only displayed when a detector is connected.

Highway Radar stores a copy of detector settings internally and supports two-way synchronization. In this section, both settings are displayed. You can change local values from the application in **`Settings → Radar detector integration → R4/R8 internal Settings``*; however, local values don't affect how the detector operates. R4 or R8 values are stored and set on the detector itself, and the detector uses them for operation.

You can copy settings both ways. Pressing the R4 → Local or R8 → Local or R9 → Local button copies settings from the device to the application storage. Pressing the Local → R4 or Local → R8 button writes settings from the application storage to the detector. You can also push settings to the detector from the internal settings menu (equivalent to pressing Local → R4 or Local → R8 or Local → R9).

Alerts Table

This section is only displayed when a detector is connected.

It displays a list of signals currently detected by the detector with bands, frequencies, and strengths. You can use that list for verification of the connection health.

Changing Internal Settings

One of the good benefits of R4/R8/r9 integration is managing the detector settings from a user-friendly interface on a big phone screen. To update internal detector settings, proceed to Settings → Radar detector integration → R4/R8/R8 Internal Settings and set up your desired configuration. Then, to push the settings to the detector, tap the "Push settings to R4/R8/R9" button in the internal settings menu. Another way to push settings is proceeding to the R4/R8/R9 connection manager and pressing the Local → R4 or Local → R8 or Local → R9 button in the Device Settings section.

Setting Detector Volume

In the internal settings you may also set detector volume. Please note that detector will return to that volume after every alert, even if you change the volume using the detector buttons. To prevent this behavior, you may set the detector volume to the "Controled only from device", which is at the leftmost value of the slider.

Operational Settings

Configured in Settings → Radar detector integration → Operational settings. The Radar detector model preference under Settings → Radar detector integration should be set to a value other than No radar detector ingtegration for this preference to appear.

Operational settings control how the application integrates with the connected radar detector.

Display Mode (V1 Only)

Valentine V1 supports its display being turned on or off by the Bluetooth application. Highway Radar can utilize this capability in various ways, selected via the Display mode preference.

The following options are supported:

• Always on – the V1 display is never turned off; that is the default behavior of V1 when no mobile device is connected.
• On when any signal present – the V1 display is on when the detector is receiving any signal, regardless of its muting status.
• On when unmuted signal present – the V1 display is on when there is an active radar/laser alert which is not muted on the Highway Radar side.
• On then alerts with beeper present – the V1 display is on when there is an active radar/laser alert which causes Highway Radar beeper to be active.
• Always off – the V1 display is always kept off.

Muting Mode

Highway Radar can control whether the connected detector should be muted or not at any time. That feature is controlled via the Muting mode preference.

Please note that detectors may have additional self-muting logic which Highway Radar can't control (e.g., built-in low-speed muting, built-in lockouts, etc.)

The following options are supported:

• Don't control muting – Highway Radar doesn't intervene in the detectors' muting logic, so the muting systems are separate.
• Unmuted when unmuted alerts present – The detector is unmuted when any active radar/laser alerts not muted in the Highway Radar are present.
• Unmuted when alerts with beeper present – The detector is unmuted when there is any active radar/laser alert which causes the Highway Radar beeper to be active.
• Always muted – Highway Radar tries to prevent the detector from producing any sounds.

Push Internal Settings On Start

When this preference is enabled, the Highway Radar will always push the internal detector preferences upon starting, or first connection to the detector should this happen when the service is already started.

Announce Radar Frequency

The radar frequency is added to voice announcements when this preference is enabled.

Signal Latch Interval

Signal latch preference controls how long the Highway Radar should display the alert once the detector considers the signal gone. Also, this preference applies a sliding maximum to the signal strength (e.g., if the latch is 2s, then at any moment, Highway Radar displays the maximum signal strength during the last 2s instead of showing the current reported strength).

On DS1, the data reported via Bluetooth disagrees with the data presented on the device. Bluetooth data contains the radar signals "as is" - the same as the detector is receiving. However, the data presented to the user has a latch applied to it. This behavior leads to inconsistent data displayed by the application and the detector. For example, let's say the DS1 is receiving a radar signal lasting precisely one second. In this case, the Highway Radar will receive the alert for one second via Bluetooth, and then the alert will immediately disappear. However, the detector will display the same alert for about 6 seconds, slowly "fading out" when no actual signal exists. Signal latch interval preference is created for exactly these cases to give the user more time to see and interpret the signal.

High Threat And Low Threat Signals

While most detectors and mobile applications are configured per signal bands, Highway Radar uses a different approach. The problem with configuring different bands separately is that the configuration becomes increasingly complex as detectors support more and more different bands. For example, DS1 has nine different signal classifications (X, K, Ka, POP-K, POP-Ka, Laser, MRCD, MRCT, Gatso).

So, by default, Highway Radar supports two types of alerts – low threat and high threat. However, you can configure which band goes to which category. For example, X-, and K-band can be configured as a low threat, and Ka-band and Laser could be configured as a high threat.

The alert type (high or low threat) directly controls the following:

• High threat alerts are displayed higher in the alerts list.
• Low threat alerts are displayed in green in the alerts list, and high threat alerts are displayed in red.
• Auto-lockouts are only enabled for low threat alerts (unless overridden by a custom processing rule).
• Low threat alerts are muted until an initial GPS fix is acquired (unless overridden by a custom processing rule).

Also, sounds are configured separately for high threat and low threat alerts.

High Threat Signals Preference

You can select which radar bands should be considered a high threat by adjusting the High threat signals preference in the Operational settings menu.

Lockouts

Configured in Settings → Radar detector integration → Lockouts. The Radar detector model preference under Settings → Radar detector integration should be set to a value other than No radar detector ingtegration for this preference to appear.

What Is "Lockouts"?

Let me put here a slightly edited article from vortexradar.com to give a good idea about lockouts.

Suppose you're constantly driving past the same stationary false alerts from automatic door openers in shopping centers and drugstores or speed signs on the side of the road. Wouldn't it be nice if a radar detector could learn those are false alerts and not alert you to them every single time you drove by? Wouldn’t it be cool if your detector could recognize the difference between the false alerts it has previously learned and new radar signals coming from police officers and alert you to police officers while staying quiet when it sees a false alert? Well, that feature is called GPS lockouts, and it's an incredibly useful feature to help cut back on incessant false alerts.

This feature is primarily useful in urban areas where you have shopping centers, grocery stores, drugstores, and speed signs. However, you’ll sometimes be able to pick up shopping centers that sit right next to the highway, so it can be useful on the highway as well.

If you drive primarily in rural areas where you don’t encounter these sources of stationary false alerts and/or you’re constantly driving to new places where your detector hasn’t yet had a chance to learn these false alerts yet, you won’t need this feature. However, if you regularly drive in the same areas, particularly where these false alerts are located, this feature will be very helpful.

Automatic lockouts: Some detectors have the ability to automatically recognize false alerts and begin locking them out for you after you’ve passed them a few times. This feature is especially helpful for people who are just starting out, so you don’t have to worry about doing it yourself or making a mistake and inadvertently locking out something that shouldn’t be locked out. If you like, you can also manually lock signals out too instead of or in addition to letting the auto-lockouts do the work for you.

Manual lockouts: Some detectors offer this GPS lockout capability as well, but they don’t have the ability to automatically learn and lock those signals out after seeing them a few times (usually due to patent restrictions). Instead, when you encounter a stationary false alert that you want to lockout, you teach the detector (usually by double pressing, triple pressing, or long-pressing the mute button, or pressing a button on your phone), and the detector will then learn this false alert and filter it out for you in the future when you come by again.

Lockouts In Highway Radar

Highway Radar has its own lockouts implementation. It supports both automatic and manual lockouts. Highway Radar locks out signals by frequency (match frequency ref ± 0.005 MHz) and strength (match strength up to ref + 30%).

(A) Learning And Forgetting

Highway Radar relies on alerts "hits" and "misses" to learn new or forget existing lockouts.

• A hit is receiving a signal where it is expected to be received.
• A miss is not receiving a signal that it is expected to be received with a strength of at least 40%; misses are recorded when you pass the location with an expected radar signal and drive 500 meters away from it.
• Each stored lockout has counters for consecutive hits and misses.
  • Whenever a hit is recorded, the number of hits is increased by one, and the number of misses is set to zero (this means we're only counting consecutive hits).
  • Whenever a miss is recorded, the number of misses is increased by one, and the number of hits is set to zero (this means we're only counting consecutive misses).
  • For a hit/miss to be accounted for, it should happen after at least several hours after the previous evert of the same type (configured by Min interval between hits/misses recording preference).

Once you drive past a radar source, an auto-lockout candidate is created.

• The auto-lockout candidate follows the same rules described above for collecting hits or misses.
• Auto-lockout candidates don't affect the signal presentation and can't be used in custom rules.
• Alerts matched with auto-lockout candidates are marked with "ALOC-X" in the alerts list, where "X" is the number of consecutive hits recorded.
• Once the auto-lockout candidate reaches hits count defined by the Number of hits for auto-lockout preference, it is automatically converted into an automatic lockout.
• Once the auto-lockout candidate reaches two misses, it is automatically deleted.

Auto-lockouts are automatically muted and displayed as inactive alerts (custom processing rules may override that behavior). Whenever an auto-lockout reaches a certain number of misses (controlled by Consecutive misses to delete auto-lockout), it is automatically deleted from the lockouts database.

You may also create manual lockouts. To do so, tap and hold on any ongoing radar alert, then choose the "Add lockout" option. Manual lockouts are automatically removed after a certain number of misses, configured via Consecutive misses to delete manual lockout preference.

You can manually remove the lockout by tapping and holding on the alert for any ongoing and already locked-out alert, then selecting "Remove lockout."

Lockouts Shape

Most radar lockouts implementations use lockouts of circular shape; they lock out all signals of a given frequency within a certain radius from a reference point. On the other hand, Highway Radar lockouts can have a very complex shape – and are usually limited to the street where the signal was encountered. Highway Radar also remembers signal strength at each location within the lockout shape. It doesn't apply a lockout if a received signal is significantly stronger than the one seen previously at the same location.

The more you drive in the area, the more lockout shape and signal strengths data may evolve. Lockouts can also merge over time – for example, if you encounter the same false alert when driving on parallel streets, Highway Radar will store two different lockouts – one for each street. However, once you drive from one street to another while constantly receiving that false radar signal all the time, Highway Radar will merge the lockouts.

Integration With Detector's Built-in Lockouts

It is essential to understand that Highway Radar lockouts are entirely independent of lockouts built into the detector. This isn't an issue for V1, as it doesn't support any lockouts internally; however, it may cause some confusion with the DS1 detector. DS1 has its own manual and automatic lockouts implementations, which may (and often will) disagree with Highway Radar lockouts. Highway Radar can neither read nor modify any information stored in the DS1 lockouts database – it can only see whether the DS1 itself locks out each signal or not.

Highway Radar has different strategies for resolving conflicts – it may either respect only one lockout system or lock the signal out if any of those tells to lock the signal out. The way how the lockouts provided by the detector should be treated is configured via Lockouts provided by detector preference (not available on V1). Two options are possible:

• Ignore detector lockouts – Highway Radar won't read and interpret lockouts information provided by the detector. This behavior may lead to Highway Radar alerting at an alert marked as locked out on the detector.
• Respect detector lockouts – Highway Radar will mark its alert as locked out if the detector tells it is locked out. Note that this won't mark this location as locked out in the Highway Radar internal database.

When Respect detector lockouts preference is selected, Highway Radar slightly changes the way it displays lockout information. It will show both what the internal (application) lockouts system is thinking about the signal and what the detector is thinking about it. Application's vertict always goes first. Here are couple of examples:

• ALO cand. (3) / Device LO – application considers this signal as an auto-lockout candidate with three hits, and the detector thinks it was manually locked out.
• Auto-lockout / Device ALO – both application and detector automatically locked out this signal.
• Auto-lockout – this signal was manually locked out in the application, detector didn't lock this signal out.
• Device ALO – detector locked out this signal automatically, the application didn't lock it out.

IMPORTANT NOTE: As of firmware v1.07, Radenso DS1 has a bug preventing Highway Radar from reading the current signal lockout state, which renders Lockouts provided by detector preference inoperative and always behaving as "Ignore detector lockouts."

Database Management

Highway Radar has its internal database of lockouts. That database is individual for each user. You can view its basic information under the Database statistics section in lockouts settings.

There are also three operations available under the Database management section:

• Export lockouts database – exports the database to a file so that it can be backed up or transferred onto another device.
• Import lockouts database – loads lockouts from the file obtained after the "Export lockouts database" step.
• Clear lockouts database – removes all lockouts from the device database.

(A) Custom Processing Rules

Configured in Settings → Radar detector integration → Custom processing rules. The Radar detector model preference under Settings → Radar detector integration should be set to a value other than No radar detector ingtegration for this preference to appear.

Highway Radar has quite limited settings for radar signals processing in a default fashion. However, the custom processing rules mechanism significantly expands the range of possible configurations for radar detector integration. Custom processing rules allow you to pick specific alerts and apply various modifiers to them. So, instead of having thousands of different options and scenarios embedded into Highway Radar, you can now create your own.

Custom Processing Rules Structure

Each rule has three configuration sections – basic info, conditions, and actions. Each radar/laser signal is first matched against conditions, and if there is a match, actions are applied.

Basic Info

There are three preferences in the basic info section.

1. Rule name – this is for the rule identification. A rule name may be announced together with the general voice announcement for the alert.
2. Enable rule – this controls whether the rule is enabled. This preference is one of the only two settings packs may contain.
3. Application order – this value controls the priority of that rule. If multiple rules which have some action set differently match (e.g., one tells to latch for 1 second, and another tells to latch for 3 seconds), the action from the rule with lower application order is used.

Conditions

The conditions section describes the filter to match against the alerts. You may specify several conditions; the rule is considered matched only if all the conditions match.

There are five conditions available to set

1. Signal band – X, K, Ka, Laser, MRCD, MRCT, Gatso.
2. Signal frequency (only available when non of Laser, MRCD, MRCT, Gatso bands selected) – allows specifying specific frequency range or multiple ranges.
3. POP signals (only available when either K or Ka-band is selected) – allows choosing whether to match POP / non-POP signals.
4. Signal incoming direction – front, rear, side, or unknown (for arrowless detectors, such as DS1 or R4).
5. Signal strength (only available when Laser is not selected) – allows matching signals by their strength.

Actions

Actions define what to do with the alert. All actions have an option named "Not affected by this rule," which is self-explanatory – the action won't apply to that alert.

There are many actions available.

1. Signal visibility – sets whether alert on the signal, mute it (make the alert inactive), or discard and hide it completely.
2. Override threat level (only available when signal visibility is not set to "Completely discard the signal") – sets whether the signal should be treated as a high threat or low threat.
3. Auto-lockouts (only available when signal visibility is not set to "Completely discard the signal") – explicitly enable or disable auto-lockouts for the given signal, regardless of the threat level.
4. Mute before GPS fix (only available when signal visibility is not set to "Completely discard the signal" or "Show signal as inactive, don't alert") – explicitly enables or disables muting before the first GPS fix for the given signal, regardless of the threat level
5. Announce frequency (only available when signal visibility is not set to "Completely discard the signal" or "Show signal as inactive, don't alert") – explicitly enables or disables frequency announcement regardless of the corresponding preference in the "Operational settings."
6. Signal latch interval (only available when signal visibility is not set to "Completely discard the signal") – overrides latch interval for the given signal.
7. Add rule name to voice announcement (only available when signal visibility is not set to "Completely discard the signal" or "Show signal as inactive, don't alert").

Notifications override

Notifications overrides are only available when signal visibility is not set to "Completely discard the signal" or "Show signal as inactive, don't alert". You can override beeper, bogey tone, voice announcement, screen flasher, camera flashlight, vibration, and system notifications for alerts matching the rule.

Examples

BSM Filtering

You can reduce sensitivity for several radar bands that often correspond to false alerts. Below is a possible configuration.

• Conditions
  • Signal band: K band radar
  • Signal frequency: Advanced mode, ranges: 24.120-24.124,24.157-24.163,24.197-24.204
  • POP signals: Match normal signals only
  • Signal incoming direction: Any direction
  • Signal strength: 0% - 55%
• Actions
  • Signal visibility: Show signal as inactive, don't alert
  • Auto-lockouts: Disabled
  • Signal latch interval: No latch
  • all other actions set to "Not affected by this rule"
  • all notifications overrides are disabled"

Reduce Rear Sensitivity For All Bands

• Conditions
  • Signal band: All except laser
  • POP signals: Match all signals
  • Signal incoming direction: Rear
  • Signal strength: 0% - 35%
• Actions
  • Signal visibility: Show signal as inactive, don't alert
  • Signal latch interval: No latch
  • all other actions set to "Not affected by this rule"
  • all notifications overrides are disabled"

Set A Different Tone For X-band

• Conditions
  • Signal band: X band radar
  • Signal incoming direction: Any direction
  • Signal strength: 0% - 100%
• Actions
  • Override beeper configuration for matching alerts: enable
  • Once the switch above is enabled, you may set the desired beeper for alerts matching this rule
  • all other actions set to "Not affected by this rule"

(A) Settings Packs

Configured in Settings → Settings packs.

The settings pack allows you to store some settings and quickly apply them as needed. Couple examples:

• You may create day and night settings packs that can control the map style.
• You may create city and highway settings packs that can control alerting distances, map overlays, map circles, zoom, and many other parameters.
• You may create a settings pack with your common settings, so you can play with the settings and then quickly restore everything to the original state.
• You may create different settings packs for driving in different states to enable or disable different radar bands (when a radar detector is connected).

The settings packs feature is an evolution of the previously existing application "profiles" feature. The main differences from profiles are following:

• You can hand-pick which preferences are affected by the settings pack.
• You can have an unlimited number of settings packs.
• Settings packs can affect radar detector internal settings.

Managing Settings Packs

You can manage settings packs under Settings → Settings packs. Tap on Create setting pack to make a new one. To reorder settings packs, ensure that you have at least two of them; then tap and hold on any, and select whether you'd like to move it up or down.

Tap on the settings pack name to access configurations and actions.

The following configurations are available:

• Settings pack name
• Add shortcut to this pack to in-drive menu – when this is enabled, a button with the settings pack name is added to the in-drive menu; the settings pack is applied upon clicking that button.
• Push radar detector internal settings on activation (only available radar detection integration is enabled) – upon profile activation, also pushes internal radar detector settings to the unit.

Also, the following actions are available (see "Preference States" section for details about preferences states and disallowed flag):

• Apply settings pack – load all stored settings from the settings pack
• Write current settings – take all current Highway Radar settings, and write them as is to this settings pack, except disallowed preferences.
• Allow all settings to be a part of this pack – remove the "disallowed" flag from all preferences in this settings pack.
• Disallow all settings to be a part of this pack – set the "disallowed" flag for all preferences in this settings pack.
• Clear settings pack – clears all stored values of this settings pack; all preferences except disallowed ones move to the "Nothing is stored" state.
• Delete settings pack

Preference States

For every settings pack, each preference may be in three states:

• A value is stored means that there is a specific value stored for this preference in this settings pack; upon application of this settings pack, that preference will be overridden.
• Nothing is stored means that there isn't anything stored for this preference in this settings pack; however, if you use the "Write current settings" feature, the currently stored value will be put to the settings pack.
• Disallowed (also mentioned as "disallowed flag") means that there isn't and shouldn't be anything stored for this preference in this settings pack.

Some preferences can not be stored in the settings packs (for example, preferences related to settings packs themselves, or most of radar custom rules preferences).

To manage the preference state, first of all, ensure you have created at least one profile. Then navigate to a preference (e.g., "Display type" or "Weather radar data sources") or a preference group (e.g., "General", or "Map overlays"). Then tap and hold that preference. If that preference (or preference group) can be stored in settings packs, a management dialog should show up.

Next to each settings pack, you'll see this preference state for each settings pack and control buttons. There are three possible control buttons:

• Clicking on a pencil icon writes current preference value (or values of all preferences belonging to the group) to the settings pack
• Clicking on a crossed circle icon disallowes the preference (or all preferences belonging to the group) from the settings pack
• Clicking on a checkmark removes the "disallowed" flag from the preference (or all preferences belonging to the group) for the settings pack

Also, there are three bulk actions buttons:

• Clicking on allow for all is equivalent to clicking on all checkmarks on the dialog page
• Clicking on disallow for all is equivalent to clicking on all crossed circles on the dialog page
• Clicking on set for all is equivalent to clicking on all pencils on the dialog page

Online Viewer

There is an online preferences viewer. It is described on the Settings Backup And Sharing page. When working with the settings packs, it is your best friend, as it allows you to quickly and easily validate if the configuration you created matches what you expect. Creating a similar viewer inside the app would be tricky because phones have very small screens compared to computers or tablets.

Cache And Data

Configured in Settings → Cache and data management.

To reduce mobile data usage by Highway Radar, it caches some information it downloads. Specifically, it caches parts of the road graph, heat map, risk scores, and cameras database (if cameras provided by Highway Radar are used). Highway Radar caches data as soon as it needs to download it – that usually happens when you drive in that area.

The cached data is stored in the application cache, which means that you may easily clean it by going to the system settings page for the Highway Radar application and using the "Clear cache" button.

You can set the maximum size of cached data in the application's Cache and data management settings section.However, Android may remove some files from the cache when the device is low on disk space. The cache retention can also be set in the application's Cache and data management settings section. Also, the same section of the application allows you to control whether Highway Radar may download the data over the mobile network or metered internet connection.

Settings Backup And Sharing

Configured in Settings → Settings backup and sharing.

You may back up your Highway Radar settings and all settings packs in the cloud. Highway Radar implements an anonymous backup system that allows you to create backups without providing your personal information (such as your email address). When you create a backup, you're assigned a random three-word backup key called a primary key. It allows you to restore that backup on this or another device. By having that key, you may also update and overwrite your backups in the future, so please keep your key secret and don't share it with anyone. It would be a wise idea to write it down and store it in a secure place — if your phone fails for some reason, you'll be able to restore your backup on any other device with the primary backup key.

Also, sometimes you may want to share your settings with someone. Giving out your primary backup key won't be a good idea in this case, as the possession of your primary key allows anyone to overwrite the backups. To overcome this issue, you're also assigned a sharing key whenever you create a backup. Sharing key has a very similar format to the primary key (three random words). However, the sharing key is read-only, and having only that key won't let anyone modify the backup.

To recap, whenever you create a backup, you're assigned two keys:

• A primary key, which allows you to read and modify the backup data
• A sharing key, which allows you to read the backup data only

Managing Backups

Backups are managed in Settings → Settings backup and sharing.

Highway Radar always tries to maintain a current backup – that is the backup for which it has the primary and sharing keys saved.

To create a new backup, ensure you're connected to the internet and tap on Create new settings backup button. Once the process is completed, you'll be assigned primary and sharing keys, which will appear on the same screen. Tap on the key to copy it to the clipboard.

Tap on Restore existing backup (or Replace current backup if the current backup is set) to load a previously created backup. You'll be prompted for your primary key. Once the backup is loaded, it will be set as the current backup, and both primary and sharing keys will be loaded to the application.

To load settings from another backup with a sharing key, tap on Load other settings with a sharing key. You'll be prompted for your sharing key. Loading backup with a sharing key doesn't replace the current backup.

If the current backup is set, you may also update it with your current settings by tapping on Update existing backup with current settings. You can also discard your current settings and load ones from the current backup by tapping on Replace all current settings with the ones from backup.

Online Viewer

Backups are stored remotely and can be browsed with an online settings viewer. The viewer is available at https://highwayradar.com/settings/. It shows all the settings contained in the backup along with the contents of the settings packs you've configured. It is highly recommended to use the online viewer on a computer or a tablet. Using it on your phone won't be easy due to the small screen.

To start working with the settings viewer, proceed to the viewer page and enter your primary key or your sharing key (either work). The viewer displays all your settings, their current values stored in backups, along with their values for every settings pack you have. You may also toggle the visibility of settings packs, current values, and hidden settings by setting up checkboxes on the side panel.packs, current values, and hidden settings by setting up checkboxes on the side panel.

Changes Throughout Versions

This section contains the changelog for every version of Highway Radar.

The purpose of this section is to brief existing application users about essential changes without requiring them to reread the entire book. If you're new to the application, reading all the other sections of this book would be sufficient and give the most up-to-date information.

This changelog starts from version 2.6.1, the version released together with the release of this book.

You can find release notes for versions before 2.6.1 in the application support section on RDForum.

v2.6 to v2.6.1

Highlights

• Integration with Radenso DS1
• Introduction of custom rules for the radar detector integration
• Introduction of low threat and high threat model for radar alerts
• Improved auto-lockouts
• Option to import, export, and clear lockouts database
• A brand new application core (code working behind the scenes) – increased responsiveness, reduced battery usage, reduced response time on radar alerts
• Performance self-monitoring – an annunciation is shown when Highway Radar detects it isn't able to process all events in real-time
• Removed donations page as it may violate Google Play policies – you can always find information about ways to donate at the donation page
• Fixed the MRMS weather radar

Significantly Updated Book Sections

• Radar Detector Integration – including all subsections

v2.6.1 to v3.0

Highlights

• User interface has been rebuilt from scratch
  • Dark/bright mode, and automatic switching between them
  • Now in line with the new Material v3 UI guidelines
  • Support gestures in many places
  • Smooth animations
  • Better landscape layout
  • Moved all important information to a widgets area
  • No more strange actions to get to rarely used actions (such as "tripple-tap speed to start bug report")
  • "Arrows" mode is deprecated, now "map" is the only available UI mode
• Updates to alerts notification
  • New "Alerts notifications" preferences menu where all notifications can be configured from one place
  • Every alert can have a badge now, badges are displayed on top of the map
  • Updated maps labels, added alert severity there
  • Support for screen flasher for notifying about alerts
  • Support for using camera flash light for notifying about alerts
  • Option to configure phone vibration as a mean of alerts notification
  • More flexibility in using system notifications for alerts
  • Every alert has a severity level now, including hazards and cameras
  • Simplified some notifications configuration
• Updates to radar detectors integration
  • Added integration with Uniden R4 and Uniden R8
  • Various improvements for DS1 integration
  • Improvements to auto-lockouts model
• New weather radar data source
  • Added RainViewer weather radar overlay
  • Deprecated the MRMS radar model due to low stability and high resources consumption
• Various improvements
  • Optimized the first launch experience
  • Voice commands are now disabled by default for smoother first run (no microphone permission request)
  • Background location permission is no longer needed, cleaned out a lot of compliance BS thanks to this change
• Updates to the support policy
  • Application should start on any phone running at least Android 5.0
  • There is a full support for Android versions at least 5 years old. All features are working properly as long as they are supported by the system.
  • There is a limited support for older Android versions. Application should start and be able to display alerts at least somehow. Some features may not work correctly, or not work at all (e.g., camera flashlight notification doesn't work on older phones).

New or Significantly Updated Book Sections

• Screenshots in almost every section
• Screen Overview - explains the new UI
• Display Configuration - deprecated maps and arrows subsections
• Alerts Notifications - new section
• Weather Radar - RainViewer model
• Uniden R4/R8/R9 – new section

v3.0 to v3.1

Highlights

• Uniden R9 support
  • Same level of support as for R4/R8
  • Initial Bluetooth might have some issues and require resetting the unit several times, the subsequent connections work fine
• Re-implemented audio subsystem
  • Not much changed from the user side
  • Voice announcements are now stopping instantly upon muting or alert disappearing
  • Added an experimental option to force playing audio through a phone speaker
• Performance optimizations
  • Seven times less CPU cycles spent on maitaining the roag graph (the most CPU-intesive component)
  • Removed weather radar flickering
  • Removed animated weather layer for RainViewer
• Various improvements and bug fixes
  • Added options to control the app preventing the phone from going into sleep
  • Full compatibility with Android 14
  • Fixed a bug when Uniden detectors briefly muted for a couple seconds at the very start of alerting
  • Improvements to the croud-sourced alerts
  • Several improvements related to split-screen functionality and launching other apps
• Updates to the support policy
  • Application should start on any phone running at least Android 7.0.
  • There is a full support for Android versions still receiving security support from Google. All features are working properly as long as they are supported by the system.
  • There is a limited support for older Android versions. Application should start and be able to display alerts at least somehow. Some features may not work correctly, or not work at all (e.g., camera flashlight notification doesn't work on older phones).

New or Significantly Updated Book Sections

• Uniden R4/R8/R9 – new section
• Weather Radar - removed mentions of the animated layer
• Sounds - added "Audio output" section, added a section about voice announcements
• Display - added "Prevent Display From Sleeping" section