Mini Coyote: A Peer-To-Peer Speed Trap Detector

Autos — 11 November 2008

I’m all in favor of the red light and speed cameras, that is if they save lives. The ones that juice the system and rip off hard working citizens should be abolished. Since those convicted of these erroneous crimes don’t seem to becoming out with pitch fork and torch in hand to protest, I offer you the Novus Mini Coyote. Although it largely looks to be a EU only device, it works by utilizing a peer-to-peer system. When a fellow Coyote user approaches a speed camera (or speed camera) they push a dedicated button that within 3 seconds transmits their location (and the location of the ‘trap’), speed and speed limit to close by Coyote users. Ticket averted and money saved.

The Mini Coyote currently has 50,000 users in France with 27,000 speed trap locations already reported.

[T3]

About Author

Christen Costa

Grew up back East, got sick of the cold and headed West. Since I was small I have been pushing buttons - both electronic and human. With an insatiable need for tech I thought "why not start a blog focusing on technology, and use my dislikes and likes to post on gadgets."

frank

if i bought one from france would it work in uk

cheers

frank
cris

its available in uk AND works in France – but not the other way round!
Angela Slaney

I have been using one for three months in France at the time of writing. The gaget is useful and does as advertised. It finds satellites esily and I had it sitting under the cowl in front of my speedometer. In that position I had no problems with reception. HOWEVER… visibility of text is difficult. The messages are impossible to read if you are driving because the text is too small. The alert message – giving your speed and the speed limit are larger so you can make these out. But just give up if thbe sun is shining on the coyote as you will see nothing. Many users do a modification and remove a dark black film covering the LCD screen but that only goes so far, as the LCD is protected by dark smoked plastic. Why on earth the designer thought that transparent black plastic would be a good idea is beyond me.

Overall the unit functions well. As proof of concept it succeeds. But more design iterations are needed before the hardware reaches an acceptable standard. I would expect to have an OLED screen viewable in full sunlight as a matter of course.

So given all the above I feel the cost of £200 is exhorbitant; I have a full funtioning computer (albeit a netbook) that I bought for less! And there is no-way the hardware is worth the asking price.

I note the UK Coyote site fails to list the number of users. That is a problem because the only way this unit has advanatage over its competitors is that it provides real time mobile radar indications – and without a large userbase of active motorists that information will not reliably be signalled back to the coyote database.

So .. nice idea, shame about the implementation.
Alan George

I have one of these units purchased in the UK and it responds to GPS in Frqnce but does not warn of spped cameras, even though the web site says that it will.

I also note the comments about other users on the Coyote website . I don’t believe there are many users in the UK . The documentation that comes with the unit says that it give a different coloured light warning depending on how often a site is used. I have NEVER seen the unit do anything other than flash a yellow light. I think that in the UK it is just an expensive GPS speed location detector with a battery. The enhancement (and the reason for choosing the mni coyote) don’t work.

My unit rattles when placed on the screen in the holder as suggested .

There is also no way to subscribe on the UK site and I see that they are launching a version called Eagle which updates for three years for no subscription .

I wouldn’t recommend anyone to buy one for the UK at present .