Nothing terrifies me more than the idea of someone trying to break into my van while I’m asleep inside. This fear is intensified when I’m inside the van late at night. With the shades up and curtains drawn, it’s impossible to tell if the person I hear talking outside my van is a random pedestrian or someone planning me harm.

Knowing what’s happening outside the van while sleeping inside the van is not a simple problem to solve. It’s possible to peel back my window shades and peek, which isn’t particularly sneaky and sends any lights on inside the van out like a beacon. I’ve considered adding cameras to the van’s roof which I think would make it look like an FBI surveillance van. Nothing suspicious about that!

This alarm system from LETWESAF offers an interesting alternative. The two included devices combine to create a radar-based security system. The system comes with a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter can be set up anywhere outside and will monitor a roughly cone-shaped area that extends 50′ out and 20′ wide. The receiver is kept inside your van (or tent, or whatever) and will notify you when something (or someone) enters your area. Both the transmitter and the receiver are USB-C rechargeable and will run for 60 hours and 200 hours on a single charge, respectively.

As someone who has been playing with computers and messing with gadgets it is my normal tendency to toss the manual that comes with items like this one, and this is one case where I would highly recommend you don’t do that. Pairing the two devices is not particularly intuitive, and even when it succeeds, it’s not easy to determine whether or not it’s working. There are ways to adjust areas of traffic to ignore (if you’re camping by a busy hiking trail or parked near a busy road) and many other features, but the success or failure of these settings is relayed in LEDs that flash in different colors and in different patterns which one can only decypher with the manual. Once the two devices are paired they are easy to use, but getting to that point took me over an hour due to a different issue (my receiver was shipped in “mute” mode which made the unit appear like it wasn’t working when it really was).

Once the devices are paired you’ll want to put the transmitter somewhere where it covers your entire parking area or campsite. The transmitter has small plastic hoops on the top and sides that allow it to be strapped or hung, but you’ll have to provide your own means to do that. The rear of the transmitter has a threaded hole ont he rear that can be used to attach it to a tripod or to the included plastic mount. The included mount has four screw holes and comes with packets of screws and a 3M double-sided sticker. The problem with both of those solutions is that they’re designed to be semi-permanent. For vanlife or camping situations, ditch the plastic mount and bring a bungie cord or strap to attach it to a nearby tree.

Of all the things I’ve received on this website, this radar alarm system from LETWESAF is the one I’m most on the fence about. While setting up the system and even while using it, I couldn’t get it out of my head that I was using version 1.0 of the device and what I need is version 2.0. At just under $200 on Amazon these are not cheap and for that price I would expect a simpler setup process or a display screen telling me what was happening, what settings were on, and whether or not the unit was enabled. While this alarm is designed to work completely off-grid, having the option to set up or change options via a phone app would have made things much easier.

This radar alarm from LETWESAF is a good idea and a good product that could be made great with a few tweaks.

LETWESAF Radar Perimeter Security Alarm: https://link.amazon/B0gZmtQ0F