Belkin F8Z343 TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone

by Belkin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 5.1 x 1.7 inches ; 5.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001ILDK6G
• Item model number: F8Z343
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Belkin TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone ensures optimal transmission of your iPhone or iPod music to your car's FM stereo while you're traveling. With ClearScan technology, the Belkin TuneCast Auto 4 automatically scans the radio and finds the best FM frequency for transmitting your music. It also simultaneously charges your iPod or iPhone so you can take it on longer commutes or road trips.

TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone (Black) At a Glance: iPod and iPhone compatible ClearScan technology automatically finds best FM frequencies Charges through car's 12-volt outlet PRO setting optimizes audio Backed by a 1-year limited warranty

Finds the clearest FM frequency so your iPod's music sounds superb on the road. View larger.

ClearScan Technology Finds the Best Frequency
At the touch of the ClearScan button, the Belkin TuneCast Auto 4 automatically scans FM frequencies to find the clearest station for transmitting your music. Once the best frequency is established by the TuneCast, simply tune your stereo to the identified station, and your music will broadcast clearly through the stereo speakers. For further convenience, the Belkin TuneCast Auto 4 features its own high-contrast backlit display and large tactile buttons for easy use.

ClearScan Technology Finds the Best Frequency
At the touch of the ClearScan button, the Belkin TuneCast Auto 4 automatically scans FM frequencies to find the clearest station for transmitting your music. Once the best frequency is established by the TuneCast, simply tune your stereo to the identified station, and your music will broadcast clearly through the stereo speakers. In addition, the TuneCast features its own high-contrast backlit display and large tactile buttons for easy use.

Programmable Stations and Charging Capability
The TuneCast features two preset, programmable buttons that allow you to store your preferred FM stations for frequently traveled routes. The device also features a connector for charging your iPhone or iPod, so you can keep your tunes playing without interruption on even the longest road trip. The charging connector draws power from the 12-volt outlet in your vehicle.

Optimize Audio
The TuneCast features PRO settings that help optimize the audio quality of your music. Although the TuneCast will automatically adjust the volume for your iPod model, you may want to adjust this average volume to your preference, or switch to mono for podcasts and audio books.

Move Your Music from Car to Car
Take your favorite music along with you, even when you aren't in your own car. Since the TuneCast doesn't require you to make any permanent connections in your car, it's easy to swap between vehicles. This makes the device a great choice for when you want to enjoy your digital music player in a leased or friend's automobile.

About Belkin International, Inc.
Belkin offers a diverse product mix that provides people with seamless electronics integration in their homes, cars, and on the go. Founded in California in 1983, Belkin is a privately held company and the recognized leader in connectivity solutions, in addition to accessories for MP3 devices, computers, and more. We provide extensive solutions for networking, home theater--with our PureAV line of cables, power, and digital wireless accessories--and many more categories. Belkin's phenomenal growth has led to our expanding global presence. In addition to corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, we now have offices throughout Europe--in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany, among others--and in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Shanghai, and our regional headquarters in Hong Kong.

The Belkin TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone is backed by a one-year limited warranty.

What's in the Box
Belkin TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone.

Belkin iPod Accessories - Car
	F8Z136	F8Z184	F8Z343	F8V3080
Charges	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Compatibility	iPod Nano 2G	iPhone and iPod	iPhone and iPod	iPod and all MP3 players with a 3.5mm port
Line Out	No	No	No	No
ClearScan	No	No	Yes	No

Product Description

TuneCast Auto lets you listen to your iPhone or iPod in the car, while it charges. Cut through the static with ClearScan. Avoid the frustration of manually finding a clear FM station. ClearScan technology quickly scans and finds the best FM frequency - all with one push of a button.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good -- best so far for touch and iphone, March 14, 2009

By 

Robert "Robert" (Milwaukee WI USA) - See all my reviews

I was looking for an FM transmitter which charges my iPod Touch and broadcasts over FM in a convenient, usable way. Many don't transmit well, or limit you to a range of the FM spectrum which may not work for your area.
This item is the best I've found, but still not perfect.
For my Video Ipod, I used a Kensington FM transmitter (white one), which was the best. Strong transmitter, easy to use, could dial in any frequency. The only reason I stopped using it was because it doesn't charge the iPod Touch, which is a pain for long drives and days where I commute in and then listen to music at work. The battery gets low and the commute is too long to go without.

Pros:
The scan feature lets you find an empty station quickly. It discovered a new empty station for me, after a lame music station took over my old favorite freqency...jerks.

The display is nice, and there are two preset buttons, so you can set presets you like.

It charges all Ipod Touch/IPhones. My iPod Touch was bought in Jan, 2009.

Cons:

The FM transmitter isn't very strong. Its usable most of the time, but I get interference sometimes, which is annoying, but fairly rare.
I could quickly find a different station if I needed to with the search button. The transmitter is not as strong as my Kensington, but if it gets too bad, I can search for another frequency.


The button you press to search for other stations is rather large. I've had that part of the controller swing over to the driver's side and hit it with my leg a few times, which changes the frequency. It probably more how my car is set up, but its still annoying. You have to have the thing somewhere and there is only so much room in a car. I should probably get some tape and mount it somewhere on the dash.

One thing to look out for with the search button is that when you hold the unit, you are acting as part of the antenna and affecting the reception, which messes up its ability to find a clean station. You need to leave the unit where it is and just press the button and take your hand away. Not a big deal, just a heads-up.

Otherwise, its a good transmitter. Not the greatest possible, but I haven't seen anything better from Kensington. The Kensington RDS FM Transmitter does charge the ipod touch as well, but I tried it and its got some quirks that made it too annoying to use. It does seem to transmit stronger, but it doesn't have a display, so you don't know which frequency it is tuned to. On the older ipods, the freq showed on the Ipod screen, but with the Touch, it doesn't show. This makes it unusable.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Listen to Poor Reviews-Make sure you get the 4th Generation, April 30, 2009

By 

Russell Lawrence (Fort Worth, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Belkin F8Z343 TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone (Electronics)

I have tried the Griffin iTrip Auto, iTrip Autopilot with RDS, and this transmitter with my iphone 3G. I tried them in that order based on reviews. For me, this transmitter performed the best by far. The Autopilot and iTrip Auto would both shut off after a minute or so with any music source other than the IPOD. So, Pandora, Slacker, iHeart Radio would not work with the Griffin Autopilot or iTrip Auto. The Belkin does not have this shutdown feature, so it plays any music source. Belkin instead shuts the transmitter off when there is nothing connected to the dock connector.

The audio quality between the 3 seems to be equivalent to me. That is, if you find a good station, it sounds as good as FM radio. I did find that the Belkin's output level is closer to that of other FM radio stations, so you don't have to adjust the volume when switching from the transmitter to other radio stations.

Oh, I also tried one of the generic transmitters sold here on Amazon and it transmitted very well, but it clipped any audio source with a high output level and when you are playing audio through the dock, you can't adjust the output level from the iPhone. I did have some luck with turning on the Soundcheck, but even that didn't work for all songs. So, what you end up with is a really static filled song.

I didn't have much luck with the auto station search feature on any of the transmitters, but for me it was easy enough to find an empty frequency and set it as one of the memory stations.

If you have an iPhone 3G, then this is the only transmitter I would recommend if you want to be able to charge your phone while you listen to any music source.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Poor performance in crowded spectrums, December 21, 2009

By 

Sheldon Chang "freelance web developer" (Campbell, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Belkin F8Z343 TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone (Electronics)

I wasn't impressed with my Tunecast and it's going back to the store, but I'm still giving it 3 stars. It's not terrible, but its qualities were not well suited for what I needed it for. First, the performance is not very good in crowded spectrums. If you live in an area where there's a lot of empty static on the FM dial, it'll probably work just fine, but if you live somewhere in which an unoccupied frequency may suddenly get a signal if you just drive down the highway a few minutes, you'll be pulling your hair out.

The autotune feature is supposed to help you quickly find another clear station if you can't get a clear frequency. It's a nice feature and it worked ok, but it'll still take some experimenting before you find an ideal frequency to leave the Tunecast on because what autotune locks in on may be a station that is only temporarily weak and so within a minute or two you'll be getting interference again. Autotune may sound like an ideal feature to use while you're driving so you can switch to clearer frequencies while you're driving, but don't even think about that unless you want to get killed or kill someone else while you're constantly changing your FM station to match the next best frequency autotune is finding for you. Autotune works fine and is helpful, but just use it to help you find your two favorite preset stations and leave it as one of your two memory stored frequencies.

There's also several audio boost modes that make the TuneCast work better for stereo, low volume stereo recordings, and mono recordings. The stereo modes caused a lot of noise. If you've lost all of the high end of your hearing you won't notice the high pitched hum that's ever present even when you're totally free of interference. This could have been just a flaw of the technology or mine may have been defective. Mine actually was defective (more on that later), but I've had an FM transmitter built into a CD changer in my trunk before and while it sounded a lot better than this tiny device, it too emitted a high pitched hum. If you're listening to loud music, the hum is a non-issue. You won't be able to hear it. Also if you primarily want to listen to audio books or don't mind listening to your music in mono, the hum is also a non-issue because in mono mode, the hum goes away and the signal appears to become considerably more robust.

Now about the defect in mine. Either the audio plug was defective or there was some loose wiring. I could only get the left stereo channel when I plugged it into an iPod touch, an iPod Shuffle, and a Blackberry 8900. If I jiggled the plug while it was plugged in, I could get the right channel to come in. The hum continued to be audible even when I got the right channel to come in. In mono mode, there was no problem with left and right channels and there was no hum.

Assuming the plug defect I ran into was just an exception, I don't have any hesitation to recommend this as an acceptable solution if you have no other way of getting music from your MP3 player while in your car. I still have a cassette player in mine and I'm going back to just using a cassette adapter to plug into my players.