Snooper Syrius

[mouseymousey]

Hi all

I've currently got a Road Angel for speed camera detection but I want to upgrade to a Sat Nav with integrated camera detection. Tom Tom doesn't interest me because my experience with their camera database is not great. I'm now looking at either the Road Angel Navigator or Snooper Syrius. I'm edging towards the Snooper because the subscription is only a one off payment, rather than ongoing like the Road Angel.

The one thing I'm wondering is whether or not the Syrius has a speed camera only mode, or if it always have to be in sat nav mode. Basically I don't want to always have the map screen on to get camera alerts. Can anyone answer this?

Thanks in advance...

Matt.

[That Daddy]

Yes you do have to have it running on sat nav at the same time,other than that its a good unit.

[mouseymousey]

ok, thanks for that

[leaderb]

Don't know if you've already bought one , but I've got a Road Angel navigator and the speed camera database is excellent but the Sat Nav side is not the best, in fact it's the wrong side of average.

[mouseymousey]

leaderb said:

Don't know if you've already bought one , but I've got a Road Angel navigator and the speed camera database is excellent but the Sat Nav side is not the best, in fact it's the wrong side of average.

Thanks for that, I have since heard that elsewhere as well and was just coming back to post another question

[Strangely Brown]

mouseymousey said:

The one thing I'm wondering is whether or not the Syrius has a speed camera only mode, or if it always have to be in sat nav mode. Basically I don't want to always have the map screen on to get camera alerts. Can anyone answer this?

If you haven't already purchased then you might consider one of these.

http://www.pogogps.com/pogodrive.htm 

It's the successor to the OriginB2 which has arguably the best camera database of them all. I cannot speak for the SatNav in this but it does have the feature that you want.

Might even be tempted to replace my B2 with one.

[mouseymousey]

Ah, how annoying, I decided on a Snooper Strabo and bought it yesterday. The Pogo looks pretty much spot on what I was looking for though.

I'll try the Strabo for a while and see how I get on. If it's no good I'll ebay it and try the Pogo. Strabo was £120 cheaper than the Pogo incidentally.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[Rusty Surfer]

leaderb said:

I've got a Road Angel navigator and the speed camera database is excellent but the Sat Nav side is not the best, in fact it's the wrong side of average.

Too true. Although they have brought out some newer models. I can only hope these are better on the nav front (couldn't be any worse!)

[Username888]

How are you finding the Snooper Strabo? I'm in the market for the same thing, - a good satnav, with good speed camera heads-up

[mouseymousey]

Username888 said:

How are you finding the Snooper Strabo? I'm in the market for the same thing, - a good satnav, with good speed camera heads-up

Well.... I used it for the first time yesterday and I've got mixed feelings about it. Stand by for a long post.

I used it in the girlfriends KA first for about a 10 mile journey, no route planned on the unit, just had it switched on to alert for cameras. About 700 yards away from a camera it gives a spoken alert telling you what type of camera it is and what the speed limit is. This alert was just about audible at 40 mph with the radio on quietly and window open, however after the spoken alert a box is displayed in the bottom left corner of the unit giving info on the camera and the unit beeps pretty loud so even if you miss the spoken alert you will hear the beeping.

I later used it in my TVR with a route programmed into the unit. The navigation commands are loud enough to hear at speed with the roof down yet the camera spoken alerts are inaudible at anything over 40-50mph. To make matters worse, when I had the route programmed in I was not getting the beeps or the warning box on screen for cameras like I was getting without the route. Driving along the South Circular at 50 mph with the roof down this made the unit worthless as a camera detector.

Not having the warning or beeps was even more of a problem when I reached the M25, I vaguely heard the unit mutter something about SPECS but without the beeping or visual alert I actually didn't know when I'd cleared the SPECS section. With my Road Angel the screen stays red until you're clear of the stretch covered by SPECS.

On the bright side of things the navigation was faultless (I genuinely didn't know the way I was going without the navigation) and the unit was aware of every camera that I passed (I could see the tiny POI camera icon on the map as I went past them all).

I'm going to to contact Snooper today to report the following issues and see if there is a fix:

No beeping or visual alert for cameras when navigating a route.
Audible alert for cameras too low.
Device cannot be charged via the mains charger without the screen being on (screenburn anyone?)

The thing I really miss about the Road Angel is the large speed readout and the way the screen completely changes colour on an alert. Ideally I would like a unit that behaved that way when I'm not using the navigation, like the Road Angel Navigator and I believe the Pogo as mentionned in a previous post.

The Strabo only cost £180 new via ebay and unless Snooper can fix the issues I've listed above then it'll probably be back on ebay shortly. If they can fix the issues then I'd be pretty happy with the unit. Hope that helps.

If you've got any other questions just let me know.

[Strangely Brown]

mouseymousey said:

The thing I really miss about the Road Angel is the large speed readout and the way the screen completely changes colour on an alert. Ideally I would like a unit that behaved that way when I'm not using the navigation, like the Road Angel Navigator and I believe the Pogo as mentionned in a previous post.

The Strabo only cost £180 new via ebay and unless Snooper can fix the issues I've listed above then it'll probably be back on ebay shortly. If they can fix the issues then I'd be pretty happy with the unit. Hope that helps.

I think the pogo drive does cover all of those points. [link in earlier post]

I have been looking around at the various options too and I think that it's probably the one I am going to spring for as a replacement for the Origin B2. I will be going down to the local stockist this weekend to see if I can get my hands on one before using the trade in/upgrade option.

[mouseymousey]

I have to admit that if I'd seen the Pogo before buying the Strabo I would probably have gone for that.

Please report back if you do get one so I know if it's worth changing.

Cheers.

[EDIT] would also be interested to know how much you manage to get it for, I'm not overly keen on paying £300 for it.

Edited by mouseymousey on Wednesday 11th July 09:47

[Username888]

Thanks for sharing mousey. I would be very interested to hear what Snooper have to say.

I'm wondering whether if it's a simple case of toggling an option somewhere?

Not telling you where cameras are when you are being guided by sat-nav (ie you're NOT familiar with the roads) is far more important than when you are familar with the roads. Seems ridiculous.

[Strangely Brown]

mouseymousey said:

would also be interested to know how much you manage to get it for, I'm not overly keen on paying £300 for it.

• If* I go for it I think it is likely that I will take their upgrade offer and get it for £225.

I am still torn at the moment. My B2 subscription is coming up for renewal at £50 for another year and I have to hardwire a cradle in the Elise if I want to to use it there too. Against that there is the choice of upgrade to pogo alert at 175 or pogo drive at 225, or I can plump for the Snooper Indago at 350. Your report on the Syrius kind of puts me off that last one though.

Then there is the question of how to mount it... I hate windscreen mounts so it'll have to be a vent or dash bracket or not at all. In that respect the pogo alert looks to be the favourite so do I really need satnav? Decisions, decisions.

[mouseymousey]

Username888 said:

Thanks for sharing mousey. I would be very interested to hear what Snooper have to say.

I'm wondering whether if it's a simple case of toggling an option somewhere?

Not telling you where cameras are when you are being guided by sat-nav (ie you're NOT familiar with the roads) is far more important than when you are familar with the roads. Seems ridiculous.

I've trawled thorugh the options, well I say trawled, it took about 30 seconds because there aren't many of them. And just to clarify, it does alert to cameras when it's in nav mode but it only gives 1 spoken alert which is easily missed, and no beeping or visual alert.

I gather the Strabo is a pretty new product so I'm really hoping that it will just be a software update to fix the issues. Anyway, I'll let you know what they say but if you can't wait then I'd say the PogoDrive looks the better unit at the moment.