List Price: $59.95
Sale Price: $49.99
Today's Bonus: 17% Off
When I got the HTC Evo back at the beginning of June I just went to Wal Mart and picked up an FM transmitter there for 50 dollars, but it would only transmit to the radio but not charge the phone. For anyone who has an Evo, you know that the battery life is not good. Plus it had a so much excess wiring. I returned it and bought this off of amazon and it is amazing. It paired within 10 seconds and transmits with barely noticeable no static, transmits far better than the 50 dollar thing I got from Wal-Mart or the FM transmitter I had for my iphone. I put my phone onto pandora, plug in the charger and set it down and if a song comes up I want to skip, I can just hit the forward button on the flexSmart unit which can be easily adjusted to any position for your hand.
I love this thing, its not obtrusive, theres not a ton of excess wiring, just the gooseneck and if you want to charge it simultaneously you can just plug it into the usb port with the included 6 inch wire or use your own. The calls come in clear and great too, just as good as any bluetooth headset.
I highly recommend this if you dont have an auxiliary port in your car stereo, I was considering getting the gomadic one which is only 5 dollars cheapers, but has so much more wiring and the typical inconvenient control module built into the wiring. I'm really glad I got this one, I'm about to drive from DC to Portland and this thing will make the trip much more bearable and its not an eye sore in the car.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
This product is an FM transmitter that connects to your Phone via bluetooth, and then transmits the audio to your car stereo through an FM signal. Just the same as other FM transmitters, but using bluetooth connection to your phone rather than a cord.Setup:
I take a lot of trips up to Santa Barbara on the weekends and it's about 90 miles away. I use this with my Motorola Droid usually, but also with my friends' phones too. First you just plug the FLEXSMART X2 into the cigarette outlet in your car, and then press the power button. You see the LCD light up and you can adjust the FM station with the twisting knob. Just match the FM station on the FLEXSMART X2 and your car FM radio. To find the best station you can just hold down the twisting knob for a few seconds and it automatically finds a clear station for you. All you have to do to put the FLEXSMART X2 into pairing mode is hold the blue call button for a couple seconds, and then the lights start to flash. Then you go into your bluetooth settings on whatever phone you have and search for FLEXSMART X2 from the list. It usually connects in about 5 seconds. You here two beeps. One thing to notice is that when you want to disconnect one phone and connect a friend's, you have to unpair the 1st phone before connecting the 2nd one.
Sound for Music and Calls:
The sound quality for music seems to be very good. It's way less interference than other FM transmitters, I think it's possibly because there are no wires connecting the phone to the transmitter. Bluetooth music seems to be superior. One thing I did notice was a difference in my sound levels with the bass and treble. I just tweaked the bass and treble levels and got it sounding the way I like. Call quality is different. I can't figure it out...sometimes when I make or receive calls everything is perfect.. then sometimes the person I'm talking to says they can hear their voice echo in the background, BUT they sound fine to me??? It only happens maybe 1 out of 10 times.. but I can't figure out what causes it... maybe a bad cell phone signal I'm not sure. BUt for the most part calls sound good and I like how I can answer and end calls without ever toughing my phone
Controls:
You can answer and end calls by the controls on FLEXSMART X2, and you can even hold down the call button to call the same person you last talked to. The twisting knob is used for fm station tuning. Twsting it will change the FM station by 0.1 with each click. One cool feature is this Auto-Seek that finds clear stations for you. You just hold down the twisting knob and it zooms into a clear station...very cool. Also, the knob controls volume if you click it down just once. It seems like the best sound comes when you turn the FLEXMSART X2 volume up to 30, and then your car radio at about mid level(depending on how loud you like your music). I've noticed by turning up the volume on FLEXSMART X2 first the sound quality is really great. The play, forward and back buttons control your music. These controls worked great on most phones I've tried, but only the play and pause control worked on the iPhone 3GS we used.
Other cool things.....
I noticed that when you leave your phoen bluetooth on, FLEXSMART X2 automatically re-pairs it when you turn your car on. Thats pretty cool. It also comes with 3 usb cables which can charge iPods and almost any cell phone. It has a USB port on the side of it that you connect these cables to, so you could charge your phone or your friend's phone even though your cigarette outlet is being taken up.
The lights are also really cool at night. They go nice with my 2002 Volkswagen console lights. ALSO, you can use this just like any other FM transmitter if you have an iPod or something without bluetooth capability. It has a 3.5mm headphone cord jack and a two-way cable. It's cool that you can use it even with things(mp3 players / laptops) that don't have bluetooth capability.
What a cool product... for sure one of the coolest car audio products I've ever used...hahha and my friends like it too.
Best Deals for GOgroove FlexSMART X2 Wireless In-Car Bluetooth FM Transmitter
Okay, so maybe everybody knows this, but this isn't just for the Android phone-it's compatible with the iPhone 4 as well. I wasn't sure of this (I've never really messed with bluetooth before) as they list the FlexSmart on here for the iPhone and the Android phone as separate products. The one listed for the iPhone is actually more money and is not Prime eligible, so I took a chance and just ordered this one. Success, it worked! So if there's anyone out there that's as silly as me wondering hey, will it work for both? The answer is YES. I have an iPhone 4 and my husband has the Samsung Galaxy (an Android phone), and we both connect to it with NO problems whatsoever.The sound is super crisp. I've had an FM transmitter for my iPod before and not been impressed-it was static-y and wouldn't hold the signal. But this little gadget really knocked my socks off! Pairing it with 2 different phones was super easy, and the sound quality is terrific. My husband wants one for his truck now. :)
In the item pictures, it only shows the mini & micro USB and audio cords, but this comes with a little package of all the USB cords you'd need for charging if you're a multi-phone family like us (including iPhone/iPod cord). That is REALLY awesome because now I've got ONE device for bluetooth, charging and music! I can get rid of all those other cords! The cord plugs into the USB port and keeps my iPhone charged on long drives. :)
I also plugged my mom's iPhone 3G and my sister's iPhone 3GS into it, paired it using Bluetooth, and it worked flawlessly with those models as well.
I highly recommend this!!
Honest reviews on GOgroove FlexSMART X2 Wireless In-Car Bluetooth FM Transmitter
I was hesitant to purchase an FM based transmitting device for my iPhone. I was going to spend the money and get a new stereo with an wired interface for my iPhone instead. I've tried quite a few of the FM based devices before, and I was always getting interference from FM broadcast stations, even ones that were not close by. I was very surprised that I did not have that problem with this device. I traveled over 250 miles one way, going through 3 major cities, and not once did I have to search for a clean station. When I turned off power to the Flexsmart X2, there was a very strong station being broadcast on the frequency it was using, but I never had bleed through from it. Amazing. I did not really buy it for the phone capabilities, since I use a BlueAnt visor clip model, but the Flexsmart X2 is superior to the BlueAnt. No one tells me that I sound awful using it, and most people don't know that I am on a speaker phone unless I tell them. Since the audio for the phone is coming through the radio, I don't have a problem hearing the party I am speaking to, either. Only problem with it is that the flex arm seems to be a bit weak and sags after a while, but it is far from a deal breaker. I have no problem recommending purchasing this to anyone looking for a very good, inexpensive way to interface their iPhone with their car stereo.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for GOgroove FlexSMART X2 Wireless In-Car Bluetooth FM Transmitter
I purchased the GoGroove FlexSmart X2 primarily to use with my Android phone (an HTC incredible) for listening to music and podcasts in my car during my daily one-hour (round-trip) commute. Pairing my phone with this device using Bluetooth was a piece of cake, and only needs to be done once. After that, my phone pairs with it automatically whenever it's turned on and within range. The sound quality of the music that gets transmitted to my FM radio is actually quite good, and I had little difficulty finding a spot between stations that was free of interference. This unit appears to be pretty good at transmitting with enough power to be used without interference even in an urban area where the the FM band is pretty congested.I've only fielded a couple of phone calls while using this device, but in both cases I could hear the caller clearly through the FM radio, and the caller reported good sound quality on their end.
Although I bought the FlexSmart X2 for use with my Android phone, I'm now using my iPod Nano as the source of music and podcasts (because Android is still lacking a nice solution for syncing with iTunes, and because most Android media players seem a little flakey). The included audio cable connects to my iPod's headphone jack and the audio in jack on the unit. The unit still pairs with my phone and interrupts the music if a call is received, which is nice. One thing worth noting in this case is that the volume button on the FlexSmart X2 does not appear to work when a device is connected via cable like my iPod. It does work with a Bluetooth device, though.
The only complaint I have about this unit is that if I connect either my phone or my iPod using the USB cable to charge, I get hum in the audio. It turns out that, for my purposes, I don't really need to charge either of them in the car, so it's no big deal.
One thing to remember is that if you decide to listen to another radio station (I have XM in my car and switch over to that sometimes) and your phone is paired with the device, you'll want to turn the device off to avoid missing a phone call (because you won't be listening to the audio being generated by the unit).
Overall, this has been a great little device for me, and I use it daily.
***Update April 22, 2012: Still going strong after six months. I'm now back to using my Android phone with this unit via bluetooth. I found a great free Android player (Rocket Player by JRT Studio) that I use in conjunction with iSyncr (also JRT Studios--not free but inexpensive) to keep my phone in sync with iTunes. Rocket Player handles podcasts with ease--just what I was looking for.
No comments:
Post a Comment