Drive Smarter Reviews

by Tomnjfl

I’m leaving this review for anyone considering buying the Maxcam 360. If you’re looking for an $850 radar detector then go ahead and buy it. But if you’re looking for a functional dash cam, definitely do not. Sure, the camera records onto the microSD card but accessing clips through DriveSmarter is absolutely non-functional. I literally cannot see how anyone tested DriveSmarter before releasing it because the functionality is simply not there, as if it was never even attempted. There are no thumbnails of the clips, the dates and times are all completely wrong, and downloading them to your phone does not work unless you want a very blurry lo-res video.
I also get over speed alerts from DriveSmarter even though I have that setting turned off in DriveSmarter and on the radar itself. I can’t access the firmware updates because it tells me the server is never available. Settings that I change via DriveSmarter sometimes don’t load into the radar itself. The list goes on…
The entire point of having a dash cam is being able to access the clips immediately in the event of an accident or an incident on the road where you need some sort of evidence. If you can’t do that then this entire unit serves no purpose at all. If this can’t be fixed by the time my return window is over I will definitely be returning the unit.
Sorry, I’ve been a very long time loyal Escort radar user, but if this can’t be fixed I may have to look elsewhere in the future. 👎🏼

by HutNYC

I spent nearly $1000 on the new Maxcam 360c last month and I have not been able to update the firmware because DriveSmarter fails every time. This device can only be updated via Wi-Fi (no usb detector tool option). Every time I call the help line, the queue is full and nobody picks up. I finally called the Sales line and they said they are very short staff in the tech area. She recommended I buy the portable 12 volt cigarette adapter so I can use the Wifi from my hi-rise apt. It arrived today and still no luck. I’m Fairly tech savvy but this is Complete aggravation. Simply terrible.

by BIG9MM

The software is absolutely garbage when it comes to compatibility with the iPhone.
I love how when you check the video on your iPhone on the recordings you watch the video and then it all go back and then you have to wait about a minute to get back in DriveSmarter to watch the next video. Makes you wanna throw this camera out the window Cobra SC 201. I expected a lot more out of cobra engineers. I am running firmware 1.48

by Brian63301

Just got the new m2 camera & I think the camera works but I can’t even access the footage on DriveSmarter . Can’t believe I spent money on something that doesn’t work. Can’t even access the gallery. I came to see if there was anyone else having the same issue & legit so many people & it’s sad that it hasn’t been fixed. How can you guys sell something that doesn’t even work. Hope DriveSmarter gets fixed soon.

by Awesomestang

Plain and simple that app does not work at all . I was convinced by your technician that my m-1 was broke and I shouldn’t use . So like a kid on a candy shop I bought the new one and once again junk . I have purchased probably 20 detectors over the years and this will be the last time .why would you put a app that you have so many complaints out there and say nothing to your customers upon purchase . . I’ve lost total faith on escort and their product . I wasted my time trying and trying to work and nothing . M-1 was crap m-2 is crap Next . Also your sales men acted like I was getting a special discount when it’s the same discount you give everyone who buys this . Now I will waste my time calling tomorrow only to get more aggravated . I would of been better off buying another brand of camera separate . That actually works . It was cheaper .

by Rsimonihd

I made the mistake of buying a Max360c and trying to sync it to this crappy app. Then I called support and they hung up on me because too many customers were in the queue.

It tells me I have a firmware update available, but then it locks up trying to load it. I deleted DriveSmarter and tried to reinstall it. Now it tells me the serial number to the detector is registered to another vehicle.

I have owned several Escorts over the years, and DriveSmarter has really turned me off to the quality I was used to.

by Stooaskingmeforanickname

Wow DriveSmarter is straight junk. Have owned several escort products over the years and always been happy. It bought both a Max 360c and an M2 and DriveSmarter is complete trash. Can’t recognize the detector, saying invalid serial number, the cam gallery is unable to be accessed (really helpful for a camera). Literally nothing works correctly. Thinking of just returning it all and buying something else because there is no excuse for this to be such crap after spending too dollar for premium products I can’t even control.

by AshtonRevai

DriveSmarter is unbelievably slow to do anything and a lot of features (like the auto shut off) simply don’t work or don’t work correctly. My camera is forced to shut off after 1-24 hours (depending on what I have it set to) and I can’t turn the feature off. Doing anything in DriveSmarter is a hassle and I’m incredibly disappointed that cobra, such a huge brand in dash cams and radar detectors, uses such an awful app. It literally took me an hour to delete 15 locked videos. DriveSmarter is simply garbage.

by Tenn0611

DriveSmarter does not work, at all. The camera works fine for the most part. However, if you ever want to access your videos after an accident, good luck. It will say it’s connected to the device but will not access any of the videos/pictures. All it does is spin like it’s trying to load and then DriveSmarter crashes. It’s literally useless. For a dash cam this expensive, I expect to not have all of these problems. At the VERY least I just want to be able to access the videos. Be better.

by BullittK0799

The cobra dash cam seems to work well enough but is horrendously let down by DriveSmarter. Laggy doesn’t begin to describe it. It takes forever to connect and then randomly disconnects itself. DriveSmarter needs a 100% redo.
If I would have known DriveSmarter was this bad I never would have went with this camera. The one I get for our second vehicle will not be this one unless they do a very thorough update that corrected all issues in the near future.

by Aotnyh

on god they must’ve paid y’all like $2 to make DriveSmarter because it manages to lever load any type of video, rarely connects, and when it does clicking to any new screen will require a reconnect. If you plan to ever save the videos to your phone make sure to put on a good show because you’ll have to close and open DriveSmarter around 3 times to get it done. The final straw for me was when I was trying to pull up my list of emergency videos after an incident and had to stand there as a US police officer stared at me like i was stupid for wasting their time. I’ve never experienced so much frustration on an app for $400+ products. Will definitely be avoiding all products that use DriveSmarter in the future.

by Thadole

I recently bought a new Escort M2 camera. The camera itself is nice, but DriveSmarter is really bad. It is very difficult to view all of my footage because every time I look at a video I have to go back to the gallery and wait a long time for the gallery to load. Time, date, and location stamps on video are correct coming out of the camera but in DriveSmarter the date is wrong and it does not show location. The map in DriveSmarter is blank no matter what. When downloading to my phone the dates are correct but the times are wrong and it shows my location as Shenzen, China. I hope things are improved soon or I will have to take the camera back. It’s a shame because the camera is nice, but DriveSmarter to run it ruins the experience.

by Scooter172

I drive ride share, I bought this duel direction SC201 because of the apps ability to upload to cloud. 1. I updated firmware on Feb 21-22 to latest. 2. It connected fine (for about 3 minutes) and then DriveSmarter froze. I restarted the phone to refresh it and see if the “app?” Would function. The last image was still on screen frozen, and DriveSmarter was not connected to the camera. And multiple attempts did nothing. I deleted DriveSmarter and now just bought 3 more so cards to allow for 10 hrs of drive time a day. Hopefully DriveSmarter developers will get it right. Drivers are getting killed and hope that when we go to work that if that would happen at least there would be a way to solve it based on cloud backup.

by Cooper13ksu

I worked at a major league sports app company and can say that DriveSmarter is horrible. I have a brand new Escort Redline radar and M2 camera. The radar has a terrible time reconnecting every time you open DriveSmarter . The camera is useless in DriveSmarter unless you want to take the SD card out to view your clips. DriveSmarter functionality is atrocious. To echo other 1 star reviews, you cannot watch live video or edit / view clips in DriveSmarter . Whoever released this at this stage for the Escort products should be embarrassed. When are you going to actually do something about the video issues? Fix it or continue to get horrible reviews.

by Uboy718

Just bought a cobra 200d dash cam cause I thought it had a working app every time I view a video DriveSmarter resets and restarts then I have to do it all over again and some videos only show 1 second I have to get lucky to view the video I want please can y’all fix DriveSmarter it
Has promise but right. Now it’s making me wanna return my dash cam

by Dsiltala

I am a “road warrior “ and have found that this unit is more frustrating than my old unit that went off all the time, due to the radar on every vehicle now.
My unit will go off and then shut off and restart.
I have tried to do updates as well. They will not upload.
I drive several routes often and when you try to lock out a signal, it will not lock out. I have tried the units buttons and also locking out on DriveSmarter .
As for the recording the events, I have had several lock the brakes moments with deer and not a single one of them have recorded the event. Do the airbags need to deploy for the records to happen?

For those of you that are looking for an all-in-one you might want to steer clear of this one.

by Dan6385

App has promising features and an interface that is extremely presentable.. just feels unfinished as many options dont work or take forever to load. App also thinks it needs an update consistently to where you have to press “skip for now” in order to use…. Would also be nice if I could connect my escort 360c with my escort m2 at the same time

by Terrytech39

Riddle me this Batman, I have just purchased a new M2 camera, downloaded the drive smarter app, I already had a brand new top-of-the-line Escort Raider detector, sorry I don’t have the model number offhand but it is escorts most expensive. no where did I see if you had the original Apple did I should delete it but I ended up doing it. I cannot get both devices to be discovered and to drive smarter app. It only sees the camera. He didn’t see the radar detector once but then when I tried to get into it it would not let me add it and I’ve tried numerous times. Tried closing out DriveSmarter , trading plug-in both the radar detector and the camera multiple times. I think I actually stood on my head for a few minutes also. Moral of the story is Houston we got a problem..

by Use Code Fizzqt On Fortnite

At last, a version that works. After updating DriveSmarter , deleting my camera from my account and adding it back ... everything seems to be working sooo much smoother. Able to see my videos, camera view, settings. Sweet when everything falls into place.

by SheraM69

I have had my Cobra SC200 in my work vehicle for about a month now and have so far been happy with the device and the Drive smarter app.
I did have one issue with DriveSmarter not finding my device but once I removed and reinstalled DriveSmarter it was fixed and since the recent update I have not had any issues.
I especially love being able to download video clips into my own library and edit them down to the exact moments I need.
My employer and I are both extremely happy to have this tool should I experience any issues on the road.

by Vgc256

I’ve been trying and trying for DriveSmarter to finally stop loading. Every time I open it up it just keeps loading. I’m unable to see my previous recorded videos unless I take the memory off the dash cam itself and put it on my desktop.

by It's Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got this as a gift and have been trying to set it up, but I can’t update the system because my IPhone can’t connect to the camera. I’ve tried several different times but it just won’t work.

by KingAza47

To start with, i cant even make an account. It said that there is already an account with my email. So i tried to see if i could recover a password but as soon as i type in the email to try to recover an account, as suspected, there is no email registered to an account....

by Ihatethisgame11111

Wow! App locks up nonstop, worst app ive ever experienced!

by Wallen4319

Hi all at Cobra. I am recently purchased the SC 200 D with rearview camera. I’ve read overAnd over again and again in these reviews about issues that I’m having as well ...repeated month after months by many upset customers. And the response each time from your company is “we are sorry and we have addressed the issue and our firmware update. “ ( paraphrase) I wish I had only read these comments before buying,However I trusted the brand that you have built. That was my mistake.
But the bigger mistake here lies with you and the product and worse than that, is that you are clearly aware of these issues and still advertise promising features that are not delivered. In most cases that’s called fraud.
. . I’m extremely upset because I paid a good bit of money for this. I cannot connect the hotspot on my phone. I cannot get DriveSmarter to open and scan for the camera without immediately shutting down. ,Forget about voice activation features or connecting to your phone or alerts from the cobra community about speed traps , red right cameras etc. Nothing you have promised is being delivered. All the capabilities,
The selling points, at this time they seem to be lies. I do not think you are liars. But at this time, your product is not working as you promised. I spent money on this product and I can’t get it back now. Please address this issue ... or issues rather! How can we make this work!!
Please respond to this post with more than the standard apology and advice to update to latest app.

by 😊AKLYNX

Just got my dash cam, but DriveSmarter is just terrible. Not user friendly, had to manually updated the firmware because it wouldn’t connect. After 2.5 hours, it finally got loaded. Played with DriveSmarter and camera, but there are no features within DriveSmarter to start, stop, video, take pictures, or edit unless you get the Cobra app and pay a fee. With the amount of money spent on the camera, why isn’t DriveSmarter better? Also, why is little car icon named John? That is not the assigned name I gave to my vehicle and I can’t change the name. Hopefully DriveSmarter gets updated and is more user friendly. The camera it’s self is nice with no complaints there.

by Been Missing Your Show.

Purchased the dash cam yesterday. Completed the firmware update from Cobra’s website. Downloaded DriveSmarter . Have DriveSmarter set up. When I go the gallery DriveSmarter closes itself out. Being able to access the video from my phone was a big selling point.

by Preacher's Taxi

DriveSmarter will not connect to my camera. Occasionally it will connect briefly but eill suddenly disconnect

by Sssdfcfyyhgferrt

It’s won’t be connected to my iPhone xe not reach the expected as description so disappointment

by ChinHoWu

The register page is not scrollable on my iPhone 7, I cannot submit the registration!!! Bad user experience!!!

by Chelka99

Tells me it can’t connect to camera every time I try to update the firmware. Also can’t connect to gallery or use other parts of app even though my phone is connected with Bluetooth to the dash cam. It’s complicated and hard to use.

by Terroronice

Just got the sc200d dashcam. Initially DriveSmarter can connect just fine with live view and I was able to download a video to my phone. Then it do a firmware update for the dashcam. Now DriveSmarter says it is connected on the Home Screen but when I try to do a live view it says it’s not connected.

by Fiberhiker

I recently picked up an SC201 dash cam. Connected it to DriveSmarter no problem. Those having issues updating firmware, what worked for me was to take the device in the house, connect it to power with another USB cable I had that I have a wireless charger connected to - closed/re-opened DriveSmarter & the firmware worked fine finally. Did not work in the vehicle or connected to computer. The pdf manual says you can download the firmware, but there were no download links under the firmware section on the website.
It’s be nice if somewhere, there was mention of having to connect to the dash cams wireless network to perform functions like settings, pic/video download, etc. figured it out - but no mention anywhere.
Also, in DriveSmarter , it says my device is set to KM/h for Speed Units. If I change it to MPH, it actually sets the device to KM/h, so that’s a bug.
Would be great to email support directly too, but only way to contact them is via phone during select hours.
I will need to call to ask for the ability to completely turn off my dash cam display. The screensaver option allows the camera image to turn off, but I don’t need to still see the time/date and speed while driving my car at night. The small blinking red LED and small blue LED for recording & Bluetooth are fine - but not the bright red dot and white metered date/time/speed. I may have to make a cover to get these lights out of my eyes at night.

by Bingo21!

I been following the Cobra Electronics and ESCORT Radar independent Connected Car Driving Network’s for over 10 years. This is the culmination of their collective efforts to save people time and money while helping you drive safer and smarter.

Absolutely no other driving Network that can give you a chance to avoid instant on and Laser speed enforcement tickets from providing alerts from the cars and professional drivers on the road in front of you.

Always better to drive connected instead of alone all by yourself or with static non connected devices

by Dkl15131

After the last update DriveSmarter works. Got many dumb drivers on the cam! Along with close calls. Good camera glad that I can cutt the audio so if this goes to court or I have to. Email a incident they don’t have to Indore my horrible singing.