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Belkin FM Transmitter Review
Since becoming a full-time driver my days of sitting behind a desk and whiling the hours away surfing the net for entertainment are over. While I'm driving my only real form of entertainment is audio. Fortunately my iPhone affords me the opportunity of countless audio options including audiobooks, music, podcasts and radio stations from cross the globe. The only downside is that since I am in a company vehicle I have to make do with the manufactures choice of in car entertainment. Although some manufactures are now providing ports that let you plug your iDevice in directly there are still plenty of vehicles out there (including mine) that does not offer this as a possibility. As a result the frustrated iDevice user must look elsewhere.
In my own car have fitted a dedicated device that splices into the cars radio system and pumps a strong audio signal to a preselected frequency. Since this feed is pumped directly into the radio the only signals that can interferer with it are strong national broadcasts, as long as I stay away from these I get uninterrupted audio bliss. The installation of this device involved removing sections of the dashboard and slicing cables. Unfortunately most companies will not allow you to do this to one of their fleet. The added problem is you might be assigned a different vehicle each day so all the hard work of installing would be for nought.
Much more convenient solutions are portable FM transmitters. These connect to the port of your iDevice and pump out a signal which you then tune into on your cars stereo. This was the option I was forced to go with and my first try was with the Belkin FM Transmitter (pictured above).
The device looked and is very easy to use. Simply connect it to the iDevice and then plug it into the vehicles cigarette lighter. This allows the transmitter to also charge your iDevice, a handy little feature. Next you simply tune in your car stereo until you find a frequency mainly carrying static. You dial the same frequency into the Belkin and now the audio from you iDevice is being broadcast through your vehicles radio. Great idea.....right?
I'm pretty sure if you lived out in the middle of nowhere this device would be brilliant, with one caveat that I shall get to shortly. Unfortunately if you are anywhere near a major metropolitan area the chances of finding a free frequency are minute. Instead all you will find are countless pirate radio stations bleeding across many frequencies. I realise this is not a failing of the Belkin unit but it is a side effect that makes it practically useless. Maybe if the Belkin's own transmitter was a little more powerful it might be able to overcome this problem but as things stand now it hardly makes a dent through these transmissions.
If this was the devices only fault however I could forgive it, unfortunately it appears the EU has also hampered it's usefulness. It appears that due to some strange law the transmitter must power down if it is has not been used for 30 seconds. I would again have no issue with this but it only considers itself being used if you are listening to content through the iPod app. If you are listening to music or streaming a radio show using any other app the transmitter does not realise it's being used so turns itself off after 30 seconds. This is inexcusable and is one of the biggest reasons I cannot bring myself to recommend this device to anyone else. An added insult is that the device also randomly powers down when you ARE listening to the iPod app, very annoying.
In conclusion, although the Belkin FM Transmitter appears to be well made, is easy to use and when used under ideal conditions it works great, unfortunately those ideal conditions are rarely available and so I am often forced to return to physical media or commercial radio stations to get my entertainment while driving around. How very last millennium.
Overall, they are on the right lines but the execution is poor. Only 2 Golden Bagels I'm afraid
Karl
http://www.KarlMadden.com
Author
Ewen Rankin