Wednesday
Oct032012
Belkin CarAudio Connect AUX with Bluetooth
Wednesday, October 3, 2012 at 10:48PM 
I may well be the last person to find out about this device....it's been on the market for quite a while now, but hopefully this video will still be of use to someone. I demonstrated this in the video with an iPhone, but it should work fine with any devices that can output their audio via bluetooth.
I don't own a decent Android phone, so I'm not familiar with how voice control operates on them, but if it can be activated by a press of the 'answer' button on a bluetooth headset, then it will work fine. This device can perform every function you can activate by pressing an answer button on a normal bluetooth headset
If you shop around you can usually get this at a good discount. At the time of writing, it's on Amazon for £40.99
Reader Comments (12)
Excellent review. Cool gadget. I also dig the new Techmoan intro graphic and "jingle".
Fun review.
Love how you took the time to edit to mention "I already synch the Bluetooth to my phone", because that exact question popped to my mind "How/when did he synch ?"
:-D
That is a neat device that could be a lot of use for plenty of folk. I guess the sound quality of calls could be improved if your car had a surface that allowed you to position the mic somewhat closer to you.
One question (as I know you love questions!) do you know if it mutes the car CD/MP3 player if you get a call and are not streaming audio from the phone? I guess it should and it would be a pain if it didn't.
It doesn't work like that. The audio that is played through your car speakers at the time a call comes in would be whatever you are streaming to the auxiliary input on the car stereo. This gets muted. Your car's built in CD player wouldn't be playing at the time, because you would be listening to AUX, not CD, or FM etc
I suppose you could be listening to a CD and then press the button to answer and switch to AUX on your stereo to hear the caller, but that would be inconvenient and you also wouldn't hear the phone ringing in the first place.
Thanks Techmoan, that's a shame. I listen to Radio 4 in the car and answering the phone and muting the radio in one button press would be ideal.
cool until you upgrade yo OS6 and uses the new apple maps... LOL
Another great review. I was hoping the navigayor to take you to some sunny place. A pity it didn't work.
Excellent review!
In my opinion, the microphone is too far from your mouth, and too close to the car engine.
Maybe you could improve the performance of the voice recognition by installing the microphone somewhere on the ceiling.
This is the place chosen by Toyota for the microphone (phone and voice command) in my Prius.
Daniel (France)
I've just ordered one of these for my car. It has bluetooth but the microphone isn't sensitive enough to pick up voice from the drivers seat to the dash. I seldom get calls in my car however it is now illegal to even HOLD a phone in Australia as a driver, so my previous method of using the cars speakers and the phone mic is now illegal. I am quite annoyed at the nanny state we live in now, but I guess the rule makers have to factor the lowest common denominator in. I used a phone in my car for years and years before I became illegal and i have had no accidents. Anyway, off topic.
The only drawback I see with this unit is it uses an Aux input, luckily, my aftermarket head unit has one, but my wife's 5yo car, with top of the line sound system doesn't. I think a RCA input would be better, however there my be adapters to convert 3.5 to RCA,
It will also add more clutter to my car with 1 wire for the button (which I can hide easily enough) and a power wire, as I'm already using my cig socket to power a DVR and my socket has a cover over it, at present I'm able to close it, but I will have to now run a double adaptor and mount it in the glove box so I can use my cig lighter to charge my phone, and run DVR and Belkin off the other jack.
Further to my comment above:
Item arrived today and was installed in a few minutes.
Pros: (I mounted mine on my A pillar just above my visor in my coupe) sound quality is excellent. I phoned my answering machine and the message was very clear and crisp. A++
Simple operation.
Cons: the wires. As mentioned the power wire is an issue, perhaps a rechargeable battery would be better, but ill hve to get creative to tidy all my cables up now.
Biggest drawback for me, and this is my stereos problem, not Belkins, but I ONLY want to use this as a handsfree device. Not to stream music (although it's handy, and I believe I can even stream video as I have a DVD screen) but as soon as my device connects, unless I have my stereo set to AUX, my phones ringer is silent as it relies on the car stereo speakers to ring. So if I'm listening to the radio, unless I see my phone light up, or feel it vibrate, then switch the input to aux, it won't work.
I can overcome this by mounting my phone on a bracket in my line of sight and then waiting for it to light up, selecting aux input and then answering the call, but it's a bit of fapping around.
Keyboard Cat ringtone FTW!!! :D