Escort 79-000041-01 Direct Wire SmartCord (Red)

I bought this accessory to use with my Escort Passport 8500 X50 radar/laser detector. It allows you to hardwire the power for your detector to the vehicle's fuse box so you don't have a power cord dangling down from the dash and plugged into a cigarette lighter socket. It also provides the same SmartCord remote control module that is on the Passport's included cigarette lighter socket power cord. The remote module has a power LED, an alert LED that flashes when the detector picks up a radar or laser signal, and a mute button. You can mount this module in a convenient location in your vehicle so you can easily mute the detector when it gets a false alert. It also provides you a concealed visual alert so that if you put the detector into "dark mode" (so that others around you can't see you have a detector when driving at night) you will still have a visual alert.

If you have an Escort or Bel radar detector with a SmartCord, this is really your only option to hardwire your detector without losing your remote display and mute button.

The wires are long enough to route across the headliner, down the A pillar, and to your fuse panel. I was planning to put this in my center console, but the wires weren't quite long enough for that.

Escort makes two very big assumptions with this cord:
1) You want to splice one of your 12V wires
2) You know how and where to locate a 12V wire in your vehicle's electrical system

In my case, #1 wasn't true, so I opted to use a fuse tap instead of the included wire splice. If this is what you want to do, too, you'll need either the Wirthco 30001 Fuse Tap Kit, or if your car uses mini fuses (like mine does), the...Read more

If you've placed your Passport in the proper location on the windshield, the mute buttom is out of reach. Put the Smart Cord control in reach of the steering wheel and you're good to go. A must have.