Cobra Electronics almost got its tail in a knot while trying to keep your car running. Recently, the company was set to be acquired amidst a class action law suit. At the same time, Cobra was preparing to showcase its JumPack charger at Pepcom 2014 in San Francisco.

In early September, Monomoy Capital Partners, a New York private equity firm, offered $4.30 for all outstanding common shares of Cobra Electronics. Several law firms took notice of what they thought was a possible breach of fiduciary duty saying Cobra failed to adequately shop the Company before entering into the transaction. They accused Monomoy Capital Partners of underpaying for Cobra shares. The securities litigation firm Brower Piven filed a class action suit.

All that aside, on October 8 Cobra shares closed finally at $4.28 approximately 95 percent of its 52 week high. That day, Justin Hillenbrand, Monomoy’s Co-Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are thrilled to add Cobra to our consumer electronics portfolio. We look forward to working with the Cobra team to build a thriving business.”

Monomoy investments already include Escort, Gearbox Group, and Compass Automotive

At Pepcom, Cobra products were on display and nothing was said about the brouhaha. Let’s hope Cobra’s JumPack charger can put the now privately-held company within striking distance of success.
As for users, you can jumpstart your smartphone and even your car with JumPack, Cobra’s appropriately named powerpak. What usually takes an amenable friend or stranger to get your car up and going again can be accomplished alone with this portable charger.

Dead battery? Cobra puts help in your hands.

Cobra’s Chris Kooistra shows off the JumPack with its battery cables.

This handheld device packs a punch when you need it most. JumPack has 200A starting current, 400A peak current, 2.1 Amp USB Output and a 7500 mAh Li-Cobalt Battery with an LED battery status indicator. Plus, it comes with its own set of jumper cables. You can load it up with energy to be ready when you need it from either your home electric outlet or a 12V charger. As a bonus, the unit provides a built-in strobing LED flashlight and an S.O.S function.

The portable charging unit is on sale now for $129.99

It’s easy for you to wriggle out of trouble with the JumPack. See how a snake gets out of harm’s way in the BBC presentation or continue below with our discussion of other Cobra products at Pepcom.

If you are looking for portable sound, check out the Cobra Airwave series. They are hands-free speaker / speaker phone Bluetooth wireless devices. The AirWave 360, as its name implies, is a surround sound speaker that is Siri/S Voice enabled. It can be fun controlling the 360 with hand gestures.

The AirWave Mini is not only cute, but its tire-tread exterior is dust and water resistant. It rates as JIS4 (Japan Industrial Standards level 4 on a scale of 1 to 8) which means the exterior is essentially splash resistant. Like Ivory soap, it also floats, so don’t worry about it falling out of the boat or into the pool. If the kids are using it for a game of keep-away, be assured it is supposed to be shock resistant. Bluetooth is V. 2.1 + ERD +A2DP.

It’s cute and durable.

With that kind of protection and a range of 30 feet, 10 hours of music, 120 hours standby, and phone call answering at the touch of a button, what more could you want? Now’s the time to buy a Mini for Christmas while they are on sale for $39.95.

If you are a little harder on your devices, the design of the larger speaker, the AirWave Box is waterproof. It rates better than the Mini for water protection with a score of IPX7 which means the interior won’t get wet if your speaker is actually immersed in water. It contains a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. Bluetooth is 4.0 + A2DP.

Cobra carries dash cams, solar powered products, all weather radios, and radar detectors. For a full line of their products visit their website where you can also trade in your old CB radio, radar detector or navigation unit on a new one.

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Pepcom, a popular CES venue, held their ghoulish-holiday-themed show at Moscone Center in San Francisco this week. The horror of it all was that the event was not well attended.

Journalists usually flock to see the big name vendors up close and personal along with some newer companies all lined up booth-to-booth in one room. Not this time.

Free booze and tables of diet-destroying hors d’oeurves didn’t even draw a crowd. When the show closed, the leftovers could have gone into doggie bags for everyone who did attend.

Open bar on the left didn’t guarantee attendees.

Vendors had their wares spread out on 4×8 tables to draw everyone’s attention. We’ll briefly talk about a few things before doing more in depth coverage of those items that caught our interest.

Lenevo’s Yoga 2 tablet comes with an f2.2 8MP rear camera with Auto focus and glare reducing glass. There is also a 1.6M HD front camera. The tablet runs the Intel Atom Processor Z3745 (2M cache, 4 cores, up to 1.86 GHZ) and Android 4.4 KitKat. Sound projects from twin large chamber front facing Dolby Audio speakers. The Yoga 2 claims a battery life of 18 hours on a single charge.

Aimed at the business world, Lenovo’s ThinkPad Helix for business comes with Windows 8.1 (64 bit) and runs an Intel Core M processor. It has a digitizer pen and optional finger print security.

For both business and play, take a look at the Horizon 2s, an all-in-one tabletop PC at 15mm thin. It has an Aura multi-user interface and Android compatible multi-device sharing. Plus, it comes with more than 40 multi-user gaming and education applications.

Plantronics’  Voyager Legend UC headset can be used with multiple devices: PC, smartphone or tablet. The voice command menu lets you vocalize commands, such as answering calls, checking battery level, and redialing. Noise cancellation is accomplished with enhanced DSP (Digital Signal Processing).

Creative’s Sound Blaster is always a favorite for gamers and audiophiles. The Inferno and X7 were on hand for inspection. The Muvo mini was shown in four colors. It is a wireless, portable, and water proof speaker that passes IP66 standards for weather conditions.

LifeTrak  wearables include the Brite R450 featuring light exposure monitoring, advanced sleep monitoring, ECG heart rate, and fitness tracking. Its claim to fame is that the device needs no recharging and is waterproof. The light exposure reading is important as it checks exposure to overall and blue light levels, letting you know if you need more or less natural light which can enhance your mood and energy levels during the day as well as prepare you for a good rest at night.

Charlotte Johs, Logitech global vice president of computer peripherals, said of their wireless mouse M320: “We used a handcrafted process … and this design technique allowed us to achieve a dynamic, curved shape with a soft rubber grip that is naturally comfortable for the hand.” It efficiently puts itself to sleep automatically when not used to preserve battery time.

If mousing is getting to you, the Logitech Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard K480 can be used with your computer, smartphone and tablet via its Easy-Switch dial. The universal keyboard connects to three different Bluetooth wireless devices simultaneously. They can be a Windows, Mac or Chrome OS computer and an Android or iOS tablet or smartphone.

Escort is for those bad boys who try to beat the system. Their Passport radar detectors strive to be a stay-out-of-jail device with English and Spanish voice alerts to help you hit the brakes in a timely manner. The sticky-cup, windshield-mount detectors are designed around the company’s DSP patent and promise fewer false alerts. Their latest model the Max2 retails for $599.95.

A smart camera with Wi-Fi video keeps tabs on Tabby, but only alerts you if there is human – or zombie? – encroachment. Face detection technology eliminates movements of pets, cars, trees, and other non-human forms from its alert system. Simplicam streams live video to your smartphone from the Closeli Cloud and alerts you of any human movement entering our home. Images are saved in the Closeli Cloud for one, 11, or 21 days depending on the yearly subscription you prefer with rates of $49.99 to $229.99. Peace of mind, priceless. The video shows how it works.

Stay tuned to BSN* for more Pepcom coverage.

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Today we’re taking a look at the Escort PASSPORT Max radar detector. I’ve been using the PASSPORT Max daily for the past year or so, so I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of how the device works and how useful it is.

Let’s start off with the unboxing.

The PASSPORT Max came in a simple box, which contained the radar detector, the SmartCord power adapter, the StickyCup Windshield Mount, the manual, and a soft carrying case for the detector and accessories. In addition, I also received a SmartCord Live to utilize for the purpose of the review.

The SmartCord Live provides the normal features of the SmartCord power adapter, which are notification lights and a mute button, as well as some extra features, which are a USB port that can be used to charge other devices and a report button to report a verified X or K-band alert, or a police officer observing traffic. The report button also reconnects the SmartCord Live to your phone if it has lost Bluetooth connection.

The PASSPORT Max is easy to set up, just place the StickyCup Windshield Mount in the center of the car’s windshield, and push in the locking mechanism. Then slide the PASSPORT Max onto the mount, and plug it into the car’s power port.

I was extremely impressed with the StickyCup mount, it feels very solidly attached to the windshield, and has never come even slightly loose in the past year of use. It can easily be removed and adjusted or moved to a different car, something I’ve done on many occasions, with no loss in suction capability.

The PASSPORT Max has a variety of different settings and options, however, rather than cover all of them, I’m going to talk about my user experience with them, what I liked, and what I didn’t. The full list of options and abilities can be found in the PASSPORT Max’s manual.

I chose to use the PASSPORT Max in Standard mode the vast majority of the time. However, it has four options: Simple, Standard, SpecDisplay, and ExpertMeter.

The Simple mode is for people who just want to get warnings of when to slow down or be cautious without actually caring what type of band is being detected, although these can still be set in the preferences.

The Standard mode shows the user the current band being detected (X, K, KA, Laser) and what the signal strength of the band is. It shows whichever signal it believes is the greatest threat.

The SpecDisplay mode is almost identical to Standard mode, but it also shows the user the actual numeric frequency of the detected band.

The ExpertMeter mode shows bars for all the signals at the same time, and has a meter for each one that fills up based on signal strength.

I found that Standard mode did everything I needed and did so with an intuitive display.

The PASSPORT Max has an option called Overspeed Protection, which alerts the user when they’ve gone over their preferred speed, warning them to slow down. I chose to disable OSP since I felt capable of managing my own speeds without nagging from my radar detector.

The PASSPORT Max also has three sensitivity settings: Highway, Auto, and Auto No X.

For most of my time with the Max, I used Auto mode, though lately I switched to Auto No X as my preferred setting. Before I explain my reasoning, I’ll mention what each mode does.

Highway mode detects radar signals at maximum range. Auto mode attempts to intelligently detect relevant threats and can adjust range of detection. Auto No X is identical to Auto, but ignores X band signals.

In my experience, Auto did a great job even on the freeway, so I never felt the need to switch to Highway mode. However, in my entire year of driving, I never found a single credible threat on X band, but it’s the signal that most frequently occurs. Due to that, I felt comfortable turning off X band detection and giving my ears a rest.

Speaking of which, the default sounds on the radar detector are very annoying and jarring. In Escort’s defense, they certainly get your attention, which is what they’re designed to do. After a while though, the alerts begin to grate your nerves. Luckily the Max begins to drop in volume after the initial detection so that it doesn’t constantly annoy the driver with the same signal.

Also, the PASSPORT Max used to have a terribly annoying and loud beep that would occur every time it booted up. Luckily a firmware update has improved upon that issue by making the beep much quieter.

The PASSPORT Max also has a Mild alert tone option where the obnoxious Standard tones are replaced by chimes. This mode is far less grating on the nerves, though people who listen to loud music in their car may want to consider staying on Standard mode to make sure they actually notice the alerts, annoying as they may be.

The PASSPORT Max has a 3.5mm audio jack on the side for audio out so that it can be plugged directly into the stereo system (or headphones I suppose). While a nice thought, it seems somewhat pointless since most car stereos play sound from only one source at a time. This means that if you’re listening to the radio or music played from a phone via Bluetooth, you won’t hear your PASSPORT Max going off at all, since the radio would have to be set to AUX. Maybe the workaround would be to plug a phone and the PASSPORT into an audio splitter that is plugged into the AUX port, but I’d expect some audio degradation with that setup.

In terms of detection, the PASSPORT Max worked very well, Ka band signals were always picked up and always signified a police car nearby. Laser detection was good as well, though due to the short detection range of Laser signals, the warning time was fairly short. K band signals also had great detection, though didn’t always specify a policeman or speed trap.

It does do a very good job ignoring false positives. The PASSPORT Max marks and grays out false positive signals so that the user won’t be alerted on subsequent detections. The user can also manually mark a location’s signal as a false positive.

Using GPS and Escort’s database, the PASSPORT also had great detection for red light cameras and speed traps, and it alerted me to how far away they were from me.

One thing I do wish the PASSPORT Max had is the ability to change settings and choose options on a computer. The PASSPORT Max can be plugged into a PC via miniUSB in order to upgrade the firmware or update the database of speed traps and red light cameras, however, that’s all the software is used for. The PASSPORT Max also can’t boot without being plugged in through it’s primary power port, meaning it can’t be booted up while plugged in via miniUSB, it can only be turned on in a car. I would like the ability to set up the device through a GUI on my computer, or barring that, at least be able to change settings from the comfort of my room rather than be forced to change them in the car while it’s on.

Since it was provided to me for the purpose of the review, I figure I should talk about the SmartCord Live and Escort Live service a bit. I used the SmartCord Live throughout my usage of the PASSPORT Max since I really liked having the extra USB port. However, when it came to using Escort Live and the Escort Android app, while they functioned very well, I very rarely felt the need to utilize them.

The Escort Live service operates much like Waze; a user and their PASSPORT Max detect or see a threat, report it, and it gets uploaded to the Live service. In doing so, it makes it so that other drivers using the Live service don’t need to worry about their radar detector detecting the threat because their phone already knows about it.

Most of the time, I felt it was more of a hassle to start up the app and begin usage than it was worth, especially since the PASSPORT Max already did a great job detecting threats. When going on longer journeys, it became more practical to use since the time it took to set up versus the time spend driving was minimized. I’d say that for people who plan on driving a lot of long distances, the Escort Live service is worth it, but for daily commuters or people who only take an occasional drive longer than 30 minutes, it’s probably not worth it.

The Escort Inc PASSPORT Max retails for $550. While it is certainly on the high end for a radar detector, it seems to be worth it considering how well it detects threats and also ignores false positives. While I wish I could modify a few more things about the interface, and have a better way to do so, I’m still very happy with my PASSPORT Max and it has saved me on numerous occasions over the past year. If you’re in the market for a new detector and you’re looking for the best, you can’t go wrong with it.

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