Parking sensors can sometimes be a useful thing to have (thank god I haven’t verified this theory yet), but I’m not a big fan of the idea of drilling my rear bumper, to fit 2-4 sensors which most of the time their color does not even match the bumper’s color, in order to have something beeping in my ears when reversing 🙂
But this wasn’t the case the kit I purchased some time ago. Instead of the traditional ultrasonic sensors, this kit uses an antenna to pick electromagnetic reflections behind the car, and sense any obstacles. The antenna is a simple metallic strip stack at the inside of the bumper, so no drilling takes place, and can be removed at any time easily.
The kit included a film antenna, a small black box (the control unit) and a tweeter-sized speaker for the annoying beeping.
I finally had the chance to install the kit after having it sitting in my room for some time now… and you know what? It works!!! I never expected it to work so accurately!!! I did expect it to perform normally with highly electromagnetic absorbing obstacles (car, human body, metallic objects, etc), but I never thought it would be able to detect a brick wall, a bag of clothes, etc.
Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the installed antenna, but there isn’t anything interesting or complicated there. It’s just a strip placed at the bumper’s inside, from one end to the other.
The control unit of the parking sensors, is powered by the the reverse light indicators. Therefore, the kit is activated only when I’m reversing… as it should anyway.
 |
 |
 |