Customer Reviews

Belkin F8Z343 TuneCast Auto 4 for iPod and iPhone

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I recently got this after upgrading to an iPhone 3GS. It works as expected. That means ...

- It charges the iPhone without any incompatibility alerts on the iPhone
- When you find a clear station there's little static
- The auto-scan feature is helpful but not perfect
- The station display is large and easy to read

I just got through with a 2,000+ mile roadtrip, so I had some time to use this product extensively. I had no issues. When I was out in the sticks and could easily find an open station there was no interference. When I'd enter in to an area that had was using the station I was on, I would start to hear interference so I'd use the auto-scan feature and switch. Sometimes I had to try it a couple times, but it was much easier than just hunting and pecking for a clear station.

So why not 5 stars? To me a 5 star product has to blow my mind. This just does its job - nothing special, but terrible either. I had one "issue" early on but it was more user error than anything. I didn't realize at first that the iPhone has to be connected before this transmitter starts transmitting. I thought the thing had gone dead. My previous transmitter was always on whenever it was connected to power. Once I got past this I was all set.

First off, you can't have high expectations when using an FM transmitter with your iPod or iPhone. I've been through many FM transmitters, so I didn't really have high hopes for this. But I needed something that would charge my phone and play sound through my car so I can better use my GPS navigation app.

I was surprised that this little device actually performs really well. Please note that I have a vent mount for my iPhone, so I'm able to place the transmitter right next to my radio receiver. This may have improved my experience with the device when compared to the other reviewers.

The TuneCast quickly found an empty station which I tuned to on my car stereo. The sound came through clear most of the time, but there was the occasional static which is expected. If I traveled a significant distance, I did need to find a new station, but one press of the ClearScan button fixed that. I like the sound enhancement options, which boost bass and volume, but the setting doesn't "stick" when you turn the transmitter off, so you need to set it each time.

I used this with the iPhone 3GS and did not receive any incompatibility warnings like another reviewer did. Overall, it works great for streaming Pandora, listening to my local iPod music, and using navigation apps.

This works great. There are a lot of wires though. Although it works better, especially as finding the right station to us, it is not a cool looking as the iCandy unit that attaches directly to the phone an looks part of the phone

I don't recommend ANY of these FM transmitter gadgets, because the FM radio band is just about filled up, wherever you go.

However, the Belkin F8Z343 that I purchased seems to do what it claims it can do. However, in my experience, the scarcity of unused radio frequencies makes any of these FM transmitter gadgets impractical.

(UPDATE: As an alternative, I recently discovered that there are electronic kits that claim to make it possible to connect an iPhone to any car radio, with a direct wire. See the end of this review.)

I purchased one of these Belkin F8Z343 FM transmitters while on a long cross country road trip, to use map navigation software with a new iPhone 4. I was immediately disappointed in the scarcity of free FM channels. When I got back home, I was stunned to find that depending on atmospheric conditions, and time of day, there is NO single, usable FM frequency where I live. And I am not in a very densely populated area.

Worse, when traveling cross country, it is a real bother to constantly need to change FM frequencies. It became additional workload for me, the driver. Potentially, a safety hazard, when turn by turn directions are suddenly cut off by yet another interfering FM radio station, and I need to decide to either switch to wired headphones, or search for a different unused FM frequency.

I found it doable, but complicated to keep several interacting pieces of hardware and software working together-- an iPhone4, several map navigation software apps, a Pandora music app, combined with this Belkin F8Z343 FM transmitter, and a car radio. Please note, it's another review, altogether, but in my experience, no single map navigation software app will guide you safely, from coast to coast. All of the nav apps have gaps, in coverage and accuracy. You gotta' use your wetware, constantly flipping between software apps, and cross-checking your position, whether you are out west in sparsely populated areas, or in the densely populated megalopolis, of the northeast corridor.

The particular Belkin F8Z343 that I purchased seems to work OK, so far. I have used it for less than a month, so I cannot comment on its durability. It took awhile to learn how to use it, but this Belkin F8Z343 does seem to do all that Belkin says it should do-- scan for an open FM frequency, tell you on its tiny screen what number to select on your radio, and then broadcast the sound coming out of your iPhone to your car radio. However, ALL sound coming out of the iPhone goes through the car radio. You need to unplug the cable, to stop that. There is no switch, as far as I can determine. So, this Belkin F8Z343 is not practical as charging cable. It effectively mutes the iPhone. If you get a call, you gotta unplug the phone, or get the radio working! More hardware to juggle, while driving. My traveling companion could not learn how to work this bewildering collection of hardware and software.

So, I WAS able to listen to music on Pandora, through the car's FM radio, and hear turn by turn directions. BUT-- only when I could find a free FM radio frequency.

Another possibility is perhaps, to plug in a degraded, stubby antenna, to eliminate reception of commercial broadcasts from outside of the car? That may or may not be possible, depending on whether you can reach the radio, from behind the dashboard.

I tried a bluetooth headset paired to my iPhone, but that was troublesome to operate while driving. Bluetooth is easy, when sitting in a chair, at home. But near impossible while driving a car in traffic, with a manual transmission! Additionally, Unless music is played constantly in the background, a bluetooth headset will drop the first second or so of each set of spoken directions. This seems to be a means of conserving the headset's battery power.

So far, the only practical solution that I have found has been headphones plugged directly into the iPhone, with a long extension cord.

Can anyone share any other possible solutions? Such as an audio amplifier, powered by 12volts?

UPDATE: As an alternative, I recently discovered that there are electronic kits that claim to make it possible to tap into a car radio's antenna, for a clear and reliable connection, using a wire, without removing the option to operate the radio as a conventional radio. One example is the Audiovox FM100A FM Modulator, sold by Amazon.com, at
Audiovox FM100A FM Modulator with IST2 Isolation Transformer (Grey)

Of course, installing a kit like this not easy. The device more or less permanently connects between the car radio and the car's externa antenna, but provides an optional wired connection, from your iPod or iPhone, directly to the radio, without the complication of finding an unused radio frequency. Disadvantage is that you must install one of these $40 kits in each of your vehicles.

I had the Belkin Autocast for about 2 weeks and it worked great. Good sound quality, and the auto tune was nice. Then it just stopped working. It would still charge, but it wouldn't display a station either auto or manual and wouldn't broadcast. Sending it back and getting a different brand.

I have tried many different types of ipod/iphone connectors and this is the only one that did not have static and works. The sound quality is great

This product worked great for me, for 7 months. It broke on a recent trip I took. It will still charge my iPhone but the radio feature no longer works - so I can't listen to my music through my car radio. If I jiggle the cable just right it will work for a second and then die again. It appears Belkin has a good warranty program. I'm in the progress of sending it back for a new one now.

I wouldn't recommend this product because it definitely should have lasted longer than 7 months. I don't use it very much, maybe once or twice a month when I go on long trips, so it wasn't abused by any means. It wouldn't have been as big a deal if it was a $20 component, but it was almost $100 when I first bought it, so I definitely expected it to last longer.