Home > Consumer Reviews > Escort Direct Wire SmartCord for Radar and Laser Detectors

The guy below me, Norman, said exactly what I wanted to say about the product. It is a bit expensive for the simple circuitry (I should have just made one as a EE major...).

The only thing I want to note is that if you are buying this, you need to access your car's fuse box. It's rated at a certain current rating (I can't remember what, I think its 10 or 15 amps), which means you need to find an open slot for it to work it...

... If you are like me, and may not have any open slots with this requirement, you'll need one of these:

http://www.f150online.com/galleries/images/1408-2028-51119.jpg

That is called an "add-a-fuse". It will allow you to plug that into a fuse slot, and piggyback it for your hardwire setup (this way, you don't void any warranties). This is a less than 5 dollar buy at most hardware stores, I know pep boys has them. It's worth it to check out your fuse box before you buy, so you can have all the components in-hand when your setting it up (which should take you 5-10 minutes, depending how you want to cleanly run the wires).

If you want to use your Escort in multiple cars this is the way to go. Not only does it allow you to hardwire your passport but it frees up the wires from the factory if you want to use in another vehicle.

I wish I would have purchased this 6 years ago when I bought my Escort 8500. Very, very easy to install and I now have my radar wires hidden and the radar unit above my mirror where it works much better.

This was the easiest thing I've wired in my car - pretty much plug and play. You just need to find a +12 accessory wire and snap it on with the supplied clamp. It works exactly as the coiled lighter one does, but can be better concealed.

$30 for a wire is pretty ridiculous, and the same thing can be done with a phone wire for less than $5, but it's a quality product.

I used this kit to wire my detector directly into my car so I didn't have a wire going from my cigarette lighter up to my windshield. I didn't want to loose the external mute button, so this was a great product.