I am somewhat familiar with them, mostly from ads in Motor Trend and such. Honestly, only a few times have I seen the V1, that's the one with the arrows right?.
Also you are really only going to get a warning that an officer is up ahead running radar if he is leaving his radar on and letting the cars come by. When the traffic is low and I have a good, somewhat hidden spot I only turn on the radar when the car I want to read is well within the radar area, and it takes literally less than one second to get a speed. So sure, if an officer is leaving his on, you'll get the warning well before, but if he's turning it on and off for each car, you basically just got a warning that you're getting pulled over.
Don't get me started on Lidar (laser). It's a laser, like a big laser pointer. At its max usable distance the laser beam is about the size of a basketball. Unlike the radar, it does not send out large waves that saturate the entire area that your radar detector can pick up while the officer is busy targeting someone else. The only time a Lidar detector is going to go off is when the officer is literally shooting you with the laser, and at that point, it's already over. The lidar is even more effective than the radar but they are expensive and not used nearly as often as the radar. However, in very congested cities where traffic is very thick, the most effective way to conduct a speed patrol is with an officer in a stationary position using a lidar gun who then radios ahead to other officers. Those types of setup, no device is going to save you from.
