If you live in a small village with only a single dirt track you may have failed to notice the proliferation of speed cameras in the UK, the government claims they save lives, but their own statistics show that fatalities have risen since cameras were introduced after a prolonged fall.

 Why well perhaps the increase in cameras and reduction in police patrols has resulted in more drunk and drugged drivers going undetected? more dangerous driving which while under the speed limit goes undetected??  Well ours is not to reason why but to offer gadgets that do protect your license and therefore livelihood against this stealth tax.

We've just finished a long weekend with the Cyclops GPS system which detects fixed camera locations by a combination of the GPS system and a huge database of all UK speed trap locations.

For £369 you get a Cyclops unit which is finished in a toughened black plastic, a 12 v car power lead, mains adaptor, mounting kit, instructions and PC download cable. Unlike many systems we've tested its a simple affair to set the unit up on your dash with a good sight of the sky and power on for the first time, once powered on the display shows a red X while it acquires enough GPS satellites to get a fix, this can take a while on the first go but is much quicker (less than a minute) after the first time.

Once on the move it really is a simple (yet effective) system to use, the main readout will show the direction you are heading with an N for north / SE for Southeast etc, until you get within range of a known camera location or frequently used mobile site.

The Cyclops unit jumps into life about 800 meters from the site by first indicating the correct speed for that road in green on the display, this is really useful for making sure you are under the limit, rather than just getting a warning beep. At 600 meters the audio beeps start and the display turns read, the audible alarm becomes more rapid as you get closer finally becoming a solid tone just before the camera, once you pass the site the unit shows an all clear logo and the audio switches off.

That's pretty much it, simple clear and effective, sure we love gadgets with lots of readouts and LP is always keen to see how many satellites are locked on his GPS system, but most "normal" drivers just want to know about the camera and forget the box is there the rest of the time.

Our weekend with the Cyclops proved it to be faultless even alerting us to the Specs cameras in the Lime house Link tunnel, which would be missed by all but a GPS enabled system, the recent addition of frequent laser and mobile trap sites offers yet more protection.

If you discover a camera that is not on the database (it can happen) you can use the right-hand button to log its location, which is synced with the main Cyclops database when you download the latest version of the speed camera map using a PC and the supplied PC data cable. The updates are free for year one and then £45 per year thereafter.

The Cyclops GPS Speed Camera Detector really is a very simple and effective unit, it requires little technical know how to operator or install and offers good value for money at £369 including a 1 year database subscription and a 3 year warranty.

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