New radar tones - OK but still not great...

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James Parker

• June 10, 2025 04:08

Opening yet another thread about radar tones as Hammerhead still haven't got it right and the other threads have all been marked as completed.

So the radar tones options are a welcome update - thanks devs. However, still some room for improvement in my opinion. All the tone settings have two tone sequences, one for normal speed vehicles (yellow alert) and one for fast vehicle approaches (red alert). The  fast approach on the "shorter and quieter" option is a lot quieter than the normal approach so while the tones are shorter there is a discrepancy in perceived volume. The issue is down to the frequency response of the speaker in the unit. Clearly the fast approach tone on the "Shorter and quieter" setting is a slightly different frequency  so sounds quieter than the normal approach speed tone. I understand the hardware limitation of not having a volume control and I have no issue with the volume of the tones anyway - loud is good. It would be helpful though if each of the settings had used the same kHz audio frequency for both their respective alerts. When using the KXRadar extension the loudest tones on my unit were when it was set to "5000" (I assume kHz as it didn't say..) and a single beep of "500" duration  (assume half a second in milliseconds) was plenty long enough. 

In addition they should not be called "shorter and quieter",  "short and loud" "longer and louder" as they are all pretty much the same perceived volume. They should be just called "short tones", "medium tones" and "long tones" or similar.

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  Aishwarya

  • June 18, 2025 19:25

  Hi James, Thank you for sharing your feedback on the new radar alerts.
  I have passed your suggestion on to our team, and they will look into it. It's always great to hear from our riders, as your input helps us improve. This means a lot to us.

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  Christian Renner

  • July 07, 2025 21:30

  I'd like to add that I really appreciate the work that has been done (even though it's taken an ununderstandable long time and still has room for improvement). It finally made me buy and keep a Karoo after I had returned my device in fall last year.

  I also found the short version strange in that the single sequence is louder than the (more serious) double sequence. However, I felt that the perceived loudness level is less in real operation (vs. the samples played during setup). Anyway, the sounds are still pretty loud (it's the loudest I would tolerate), so it would be great if this could be slightly reduced by changing the frequency or duration. 

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