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Bluetooth speaker review!

Bought these from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000R6QAHO/ref=oss_product
They finally arrived today! Couple of days late but heyho.
First off - they are TINY!!! Speaker unit comes in a nice little carry pouch and its small enough to chuck in a bag on your way to the beach.
Bluetooth reciever detaches from the speakers and can act as a reciever for headphones (some background hiss, but nothing amazingly bad, doesnt seem much point plugging in headphones this way as the phone is usually pretty close anyway ). This part also acts as the mic for the speakerphone function, not tested it that way yet.
With the bluetooth reciever docked in the speaker unit I tried playing some Gorillaz, and for something sooo small im impressed! I can see this being used in the kitchen instead of listening to the radio, or maybe in the bathroom, its perfect for smallish rooms.
Speakers run from batteries too (4 AAA) not sure how well it will sound outside but for this much money and this much functionality I think its an amazing bargain.
One thing that others have pointed out in reviews is that the bluetooth reciever can be plugged into a decent stereo unit giving you a wireless way of playing your music through your high end systems.
As for how well it works with the Desire, perfect so far! No problem pairing, didnt even ask for the 0000 passcode. With the speakers switched on and the reciever docked I turn on my Desires bluetooth and the speakers give a couple of soft beeps to signal that its connected (once paired it auto connects). Works just how you would want it to. Couldnt get out of range from one end of the house to the other so range is good.
All in all I would recommend these.

Car Dock disassembly - adding a LINE OUT

So I got my car dock, I knew it didn't come with a line out, but figured I could add one. You all know how aewsome it would be to have a line out jack on this thing rather than the stock "speakers". Well good news, I am going to make myself a line out and will post pictures about how I am doing it.
I have the thing taken apart right now, and just need to go buy a 3.5mm audio jack.
So, my plan will be to still use the cardock for phone and stereo profiles, just using my car stereo's aux in rather than the dock's weak speakers. I'll leave the microphones on the dock intact, just not the speakers. The good news is the speakers are removable, making room for a 3.5mm audio jack. the bad news? the jack will have to be on the dock body, not base. I'm sure if you try hard enough, one of yoiu will find a place in the base for a jack, but for now, I'm going to add one to the body, on the bottom (in portrait mode).
There you have it, I'll be able to make the dock a semi-permanent fixture in my car and never have to plug in an audio cable to get my music through my car speakers.
Pictures to follow soon, I just couldn't wait to start this project, and get some reactions / moral support.

Someone else looked at doing the same thing a while back. I seem to recall they came up against several hurdles. It is not as clear cut as it seems.
On the face of it- it would seem the approach you are taking will necessitate you having your car stereo ON and AUX selected any time you need to take a phone call. Might be a bit of a pain when you are for example, listening to the car radio and your phone rings. Or if the phone rings and your stereo happens to be turned off.
I find the inbuilt speakers totally adequate for Phone Audio. This arrangement has the benefit it being standalone and means N1 Phone Audio works regardless of current car stereo state. I send the Media Audio to my car stereo via BT though, as it sure benefits from the better speakers quality and auto pauses the Media when the phone is in use.
Good luck with it and do a search for the other thread as there is some good info info in there.
PS take a look through this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6427057&postcount=39
Might save you some heart ache

I only found that thread, after i had my dock quite disassembled and did a google search for the chipset under the RF shield. :/
I don't use my car's head unit for anything but aux audio, radio is dead to me, so I shouldn't have any problems. The hurdle is the audio being fed to the speakers do NOT share a common ground. They utilize an active-balanced system. both leads are hot, common to themselves.
Now it seems as I will have to choose which channel gets full audio and just bum 'common' from the dominant channel. or i come up with some way to convert two independent balanced audio feeds to a common ground.
I have had no luck looking up the NF2301 daughter board. I was hoping to find a schematic detailing the line level outputs, but no go. I did think it was interesting that the car dock and desktop dock share the same PCB, too bad there is no detailed schematic yet...

FAILURE - giving up
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality

Alternatively, at the point you have a desktop dock.... Instead of butchering it for the board, Just install it somewhere out of site in your car and connect it to your cars Aux-in with a 3.5mm lead. Thats what I have done. Works well. Only downside is I still have to manually connect the desktop. It does not autoconnect to deskdock when N1 is placed in cardock obviously.
Too bad your set up did not work for now.

kajer said:
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's using a low bitrate A2DP bluetooth transfer. Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.

khaytsus said:
Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.
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Click to collapse
I believe this is the likely reason why Google didn't include an audio out port on the dock. Yes, it's on the desktop dock, but that's really all the desktop dock handles, whereas the car dock has a mic as well, etc.

I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.

wonkotron said:
I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.
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Click to collapse
detail isn't really necessary, it's pretty straightforward.
-get a knife and use it to peel off the black rectangular sticker on the front of the dock. it's right where the battery on the phone is when it's docked.
-undo the 4 screws behind the sticker
-pop the two halves of the phone-holder part of the dock apart. if you can't get them apart with a bit of pulling get your thumb nail or a knife in between the two halves.
that's about as far as you need to go to get to the useful bits.

jamezracer said:
Stuff
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I'll see if I can figure anything out.

I had this same idea when I first got my car dock, but I couldn't convince myself to hack my new dock. Instead I hacked an old stereo Bluetooth headset with the same mod and it works perfectly.

Don't ignore this post...
Ok So I took a dive in to it. I disassembled my dock (yes even after reading all that I could find on the internet, including this thread), but in disbelief I wanted to find out for my self. I soldered a head phone jack to the speaker wires, and thought I had something good when connected to my computer speakers. (it worked and I was surprised). But after hooking it all up in the car and actually hearing the quality, I was sorrily disappointed.
Major failure, the sound is terrible. Not tolerable at all. Comparable to scratching fingernails across a chalk board and trying to listen to some good tunes at the same time from an FM radio with very poor reception.
Heed my warning, do not attempt to mod the dock for an FM out, it will not work.

[Q] Bluetooth-> Car Aux Device (A2DP)

I want to listen to music in my car via bluetooth A2DP. My car's stereo system only has AUX in. So, I am looking for a device to pair with my phone and plug into the aux port for my car's stereo. I don't really care about hands free calling. That'd be a plus, but not necessary.
I've been doing some research and found two that look reasonable.
BlackBerry Remote Stereo Bluetooth Gateway (would require yet another charger)
Kensington LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit
Does anyone here have any experience with these or any recommendations?

If I were you, I would get something like this:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665801276
The reason being that it gets pretty good reviews and you would be able to also use it outside of the car if you wanted to.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Ericsson...1DCM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288590977&sr=8-1
I am probably going to buy this thing soon, as I have been eying it for a few days now.

If you don't want to charge there are plenty of wire in kits. Check out parrot. They might have a kit that fit s what you want.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

I bought a LiquidAUX and would advise staying away from it unless you like sub par sound quality. The volume is about 75% compared to being plugged directly into my aux port and the quality is like streaming a low quality radio station. For calls I would say it gets the job done "acceptably" but music requires much better fidelity than you'll get from it.

I use the LiquidAUX. I use it to listen to podcasts and have no problem with the sound quality. I did have to buy a ground loop noise filter.

I have the blackberry stero gateway and I use it in my living room, it works fantastic for music.

Just as a follow-up to my original post, I ended up deciding on Satechi Bluetooth Hands-free Car Stereo Fm Transmitter for iPhone 4, 3Gs & 3G and Bluetooth Stereo A2DP supported Devices (available on amazon).
The Satechi device works great! It pairs with the phone quickly and the sound quality is great. This device is exactly what I was looking for. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and has AUX out which I plugged into the stereo in my car. I was a bit worried about noise from the car's engine, but that wasn't a problem. The volume is very slightly lower than plugging the phone directly into the AUX in on my car's stereo. Realistically, that may just be my ears playing tricks on me. It also has a USB port which puts out 5V @ 1000mA for charging USB devices (my Epic).
I didn't use the FM transmitter or the call feature since the only thing I really wanted was the A2DP to AUX.

davidb_ said:
I want to listen to music in my car via bluetooth A2DP. My car's stereo system only has AUX in. So, I am looking for a device to pair with my phone and plug into the aux port for my car's stereo. I don't really care about hands free calling. That'd be a plus, but not necessary.
I've been doing some research and found two that look reasonable.
BlackBerry Remote Stereo Bluetooth Gateway (would require yet another charger)
Kensington LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit
Does anyone here have any experience with these or any recommendations?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What kind of car? I know GM and several others have aftermarket adapters that plug into the factory harness that allow the addition of A2DP in an almost factory style addon.

done12many2 said:
What kind of car? I know GM and several others have aftermarket adapters that plug into the factory harness that allow the addition of A2DP in an almost factory style addon.
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Click to collapse
Subaru. I'm actually planning on switching out the factory stereo for a carputer-type thing in the spring. This is just hold me out until nicer weather.

davidb_, why are you opposed to using the Aux port? Seems like a simpler yet more robust solution.

http://www.scosche.com/products/productID/1919

I was just about to post something about that Scosche one. After doing a bit of searching, it seems to be rated fairly well. I'm considering buying one for my wife's car, so if anyone has any experience with it, I'm curious to hear about some more first hand experience.

I have now used both the Kensington LiquidAUX and the Scosche BTAXS motorMOUTH II and I am wishing there was something that had the best of both. Here are my thoughts on both:
Kensington LiquidAUX
I really like the overall feature set of this solution. The remote is handy to skip past ads in podcasts and to jump back a few seconds when the navigation interrupts what I'm listening to. I also like that it is powered.
What I didn't like is that I had to get a ground loop noise filter (although once I did, the sound was perfect.) Also, there were some connection issues if I was listening with the car off and then started the car due to the interruption of power to the device. The phone never seemed to reconnect in that situation. I would have to turn off the LiquidAUX and turn it back on and wait for it to reconnect. I liked that it has an extra USB port so I could charge the phone if it was low on juice without a separate power adapter but it only charges at 500 mA so really it just kept the phone from dying without really adding extra charge during the drive. The one huge drawback to the LiquidAUX was that people found it difficult to hear me during calls. I usually had to switch the call to speakerphone to have any success. I think the location of the microphone (due to the location of my power port) was the cause of this issue. This is what led me to purchase the Scosche BTAXS.​
Scosche BTAXS
There were several things that impressed me with the Scosche BTAXS. I loved the fact that there was no mess of cables. The position of the microphone was much better because it was up at the AUX port of the head unit so I never had any complaints on calls. The sound was great and since it wasn't drawing power from the car I no longer needed the noise filter. Also, Scosche provided many great accessories in the box that other companies might have sold separately.
What I don't like about the Scosche BTAXS is the terrible battery life. I drive about 40 min to work. I cannot use the Scosche BTAXS on both my drive to and from work and leave it in the car overnight and expect it to work the next day. If I drive around on my lunch break, it may not last all day, even when I turn it off when not in use. Scosche does provide a charging cable and car adapter so I can power it during use but that takes away the coolness of not having any cables. It also introduces a little bit of ground loop noise. If I was to run it through the filter I would not be able to position the microphone where I would get the best call quality.​
In conclusion, neither of these devices is perfect. The call quality issue of the LiquidAUX is a big drawback that I wish there was a way to overcome. Since there isn’t, I will most likely stick with the Scosche and just make sure I recharge it whenever I am not in the car.

I got this from Buy.com for $20 a few months back. Hopefully you'll find a good deal like that again.
http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-Li..._1_1?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1293177894&sr=1-1

Any update on products for this. I am looking to do this in my 09 jetta through the Aux in, and none of the solutions seem that stellar. Just wanted to see if anyone had found something recently that works great.

I keep looking for a simple BT solution that can give me the best of both worlds. I'm surprised there is no simple BT receiver that can sit behind the dash plugged in to power and aux with a mic out and corded dual mic I can route myself. Liquidaux and motormouth II come close yet miss the mark. A quality mic on the kensington would make for a perfect setup. A remote mic on the motormouth II would be great. Makes zero sense at this stage of the game.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

nice thing
http://www.belkin.com/au/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=530115

[Q] Motorbike BT Headset

Hi Guys, does anyone have experience of riding a motorbike using the Sensation XE as a satnav? I am currently planning to ride a few 2-3 hour trips. I would like to ideally have some battery left at the end of it, and be using a Bluetooth headset to listen to the directions.
Got anything in mind? That doesn't break the bank please. I have the caberg konda helmet, with a place available for inserting the BT module.
Please let me know if this would drain the battery too much, and if there is a way to save a bit of battery with tweaks. Thanks!

plasmafire said:
Hi Guys, does anyone have experience of riding a motorbike using the Sensation XE as a satnav? I am currently planning to ride a few 2-3 hour trips. I would like to ideally have some battery left at the end of it, and be using a Bluetooth headset to listen to the directions.
Got anything in mind? That doesn't break the bank please. I have the caberg konda helmet, with a place available for inserting the BT module.
Please let me know if this would drain the battery too much, and if there is a way to save a bit of battery with tweaks. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For a 2-3 hour trip, I suggest another device to do a satnav nav. If you do not have a way to mount your device securely and have it powered, then after a 2-3 hour trip your battery will be at 20-30% (on stock battery). I mean you can try the mugen's extended battery that comes with a back cover to compensate for the brick lol, but I say if you want to use it, I think Parrot makes a bt device for motorbikes/helmets. And what you can do for the battery is to get a couple of Anker batteries or an external battery charger to slap in after your sat nav trips.

you can rig your bike to have that lighter charger for less than USD12. too easy to do it yourself. you don't need soldering if you don't have solder. just twist the connector and use that 30 cent electrical tape. i'll upload the circuit diagram later.
if you just want to listen to audio, make sure to set your navigation app to always on audio and never turn off gps.
some app will turn off gps and audio when not in focus or screen off.
if you use battery, it will last about 4 hours, with everything on (music, sync, im), and the phone keep keep changing form 2G to 3G, and few incoming sms and phone call along the way (yes can talk at 100kmph on bike using bluetooth, but don't ever try to read incoming sms), but screen should be off.

SE MW600, Sony Ericsson Bluetooth headset, which is incredible, and Anker power bank 5000 Mah for charging. You can buy them for around 70 euros. I'm sure you'll be not disappointed. Greetings from Finland.
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e using Tapatalk

I can help, I've got a bluetooth headset setup that is cheap.
Helmet - I have a over the head Sony bass headset that i brought from Tesco and glued them in. If you don't have a pair look for one that has a wire to both speakers not just to the one and able to unscrew the head rest thingy at the top of the headphones (mine attached to each speaker with screws). I'm aware that your Caberg is a open faced helmet. There's a large space in the helmet where the speakers can be fitted near the neck strap, make sure when you glue them the strap is aligned in front of them though. sides in the helmet should pull away with poppers so before you glue open up the side where the poppers are and slide the speaker throw a hole in the plastic, once you open it up youll see what i mean make larger if necessary. Move the cables so that they go to the back part of the helmet til there is a lip on the neck support and leave them there and reapply the poppers.
Bluetooth dongle - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Sony-...e_Phones_Bluetooth_Acc_ET&hash=item2a19155952 buy one of these (Sony Ericsson HBH-DS205) or a SE MW600
case - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170685660129 it has a selection of sized bolts but look at the thickness before you buy as it goes into the handlebars on a ball. Case attachment has plasic pins though so take into account if you want to keep it permanently on or not but it can be removed. mine snapped so just applied nuts and all good again.
go to your local bike dealer and ask if they have any cigarette chargers that attach to the battery, find a usb cigarette dongle and should be all set.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Motorcycl...rcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1c2375474f
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Car-Motor...rcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item5ae41c98fb
Hope this helps
sirec

I have a scala rider bt in my helmet and I can go ride all day listening to google music through my Bluetooth and have telenav telling me directions .. no problem.. just lock the screen off that's your big drain ..
sent from seti-alpha 5

+1 for the MW600 - should be about £25 on Amazon. Can't see how you would control the volume etc though.
Charging is the big issue. You'll need a 1amp charger if you want to keep your phone charged up and have the screen on during navigation.
Look on Amazon at the Ultimate Addons store (similar to the EBay link already posted : ). They have several different mounts available as well as a wired micro USB charger. I haven't taken the plunge with any of these yet as my tank bag will probably get in the way. Not a lot of space on my bike.
The only issue I have with audio on my bike is the huge difference in volume needed, and that's with a fairly quiet full face lid too....
Finally, I use Co-pilot which does NOT work with the screen off....

Options for external warning chime speaker?

So I finally connected my new GM-specific Eonon-branded MTCE_WWW (GA9180A - made by Klyde, I believe) Android 8 unit in-car (was testing "on the bench") and oh my god - that little external warning chime speaker is absolutely horrible! I don't understand how they can spend so much time getting these things to work in car and then do such a piss-poor job on the little speaker that produces warning chimes and turn-signal sounds! Typically, these sounds come out of the cars speakers (with stock or higher-quality plug-and-play units).
Surely, there is some way to improve upon this?? Does anyone know if this little speaker is amplified or of it's just a simple speaker in a plastic case? I don't want to tear it apart just in case I decide to return the unit (I really don't want to, but this little speaker may be a deal-breaker). Not only does it sound absolutley horrible, but I'm also getting some sort of interference noice on it - even when the car isn't running. I think the interference noise is coming from the FM antenna adapter, the wifi antenna or CANBUS box - they are all in the same general area, so it's hard to tell which one is causing it.
Anyone have any info on these little speakers? I would love to use a higher-quality speaker if that would help (maybe even with a volume dial to control the volume of the chimes?). Only 2 wires going to the speaker, so I'm assuming it's just a regular un-amplified speaker. Will see if I can hook up another speaker to see what happens.
I did a few searches and didn't find much, but will keep searching - just figured I'd ask at the same time.
Thanks in advance.

Thanks for sharing.
Yes, the sound from chime speaker is horrible especially for turn-signal. But I don't think it is speaker fault and indeed it is caused by CanBox code. I used some good quality speaker to test chime sound and I got the same horrible sound.
And for noise, in my case it is from WIFI activity I believe and I will live with it because it is hard to notice when music is on.

Had the same experience with a unit I just installed in my girlfriend's mini cooper which is a shame because mini/bmw has some pretty cool and iconic door chimes, notifications, and blinker noises.
I ordered an Axcess branded wire harness adapter box that I will wire up just the can-bus and power leads to to retain the sounds from its little speaker but I had another idea. The dash has plenty of available space inside, I may install the factory head unit single-din component to the can-bus wires and power and then a decent PA loudspeaker under the dash to the unit's driver door output to make up for the lack of those tones.

I installed my unit but I did not install this speaker at first
I think I do not need it

Quick fix
The speaker seemed distorted in my (px6, android, dasaita, Chevy Cruze 2011). After some testing I landed on a 8ohm resistor on the positive speaker cable between the speaker and the connector to the head-unit. The resistor wil consume the power and transfer it into head. And the speaker sounds way better now. For obvious reasons the volume is also lower now. And so far I like it.

Has anyone figured how how to change the door chime / blinker signal/ warning sounds ?