Tried that cheap RF detector from Amazon after a guy on here swore by it

Spent $35 on the K17 RF detector after a user named SpyCamJim said it could find any hidden camera in 5 minutes, but it just beeped at my wifi router and missed a tiny pinhole lens I planted in a clock 3 feet away - has anyone actually had luck with these budget detectors or is it just a gadget for paranoid folks?

4 comments

4 Comments

harper91413d ago

$35 spent on a K17 and all you got was a beep at your router, that's rough. Honestly most of those cheap RF detectors are more about making people feel like secret agents than actually finding anything useful. Unless you're genuinely worried about someone putting a camera in your bathroom, a quick physical look around is probably all you really need.

nancyg1413d ago

The K17 actually picks up magnetic fields too, not just RF, so it could be detecting power lines in the wall.

angelarivera13d ago

Oh totally, I heard somewhere that the K17 can actually pick up fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field too, which sounds wild but makes sense for a gauss meter. My buddy tested one near an old breaker box and said it went wild, then he found a loose wire that was arcing slightly, so it's not totally useless for electrical work. But yeah, for spy stuff? Probably not worth it unless you're really paranoid about hidden wiring in an old house. I saw a video where a guy used it to trace the path of buried electrical lines in his yard, which seemed more practical than looking for cameras.

leo_black7613d ago

That K17 actually has a pretty solid sensitivity down to like 10Hz, so it can catch the 60Hz hum from wiring in walls better than a lot of the cheap toy ones. I've seen guys use it to map out old knob-and-tube wiring in plaster walls where you can't see anything from the surface.