Sunday, September 28, 2014

Scosche motorMOUTH Plug and Play Bluetooth Handsfree and Streaming Audio Car Kit

Scosche motorMOUTH Plug and Play Bluetooth Handsfree and Streaming Audio Car KitI have a Droid X and I was getting tired of plugging my audio jack cable into the phone and the receiver on a daily basis. I bought this so I can just plug it into my head unit, then stream audio over the bluetooth connection. This part works well and haven't had any issues with it.

The microphone thing, eh, not so good. When talking on it, I hear that people tell me that it sounds like I'm going through a wind tunnel. Maybe it's where the microphone is positioned, or maybe it's just the product. I thought the noise cancelling part of this device (dsp?) would fix the wind noises. Guess not.

The other thing is that it is true that you have to charge this before you use it. I have it wired into my car so that it's constantly charging. I always have it plugged in, so I never have to worry about it. Before being able to use it, I have to turn it on by hitting the button. My complaint here is that it would be nice to have it automatically turn on when it receives power. Then, have it automatically turn off when the power source is removed.

I originally bought it to stream audio to the head unit over bluetooth. Does it do it? Yes, and it does it well. The other things, I'm not so sure about, but it's not a huge issue for me.

I bought this to replace the usual in-car cable which I was using to pipe podcats, audiobooks and music from my Iphone to the dash stereo through the latter's AUX input. I didn't really care about the calls aspect, since I never make or answer calls while I'm driving ("Dude, I'm busy *driving*, OK? If it's that important, leave a frakkin' message!")

This unit *should* work for my purpose: It pairs easily, stays paired, and streams consistently, with no fuzz or breakups. The audio *quality* is comparable to the cable. Only problem: I have to crank up the in-dash unit's volume setting to the max just to hear the stream at a normal volume! I don't have anything like this problem with the cable. Using the cable, I can put the volume at 25 and listen comfortably; with the motorMouth, I have to pin it at 50 (that's the top end on my dash unit) to hear it at the same general level as the cable. And it's not like I'm testing the Bluetooth range; the Iphone is in a (Schosche!) plastic dash mount not 4 inches above the AUX input jack. Unless there's some kind of wild impedance mismatch between the mMouth and my AUX jack, I have no idea why the audio signal coming from the mMouth is attenuated so badly I have to jack up the volume so far. This is a total deal killer for me, since I don't dare use it; if I forget to crank it back down to a regular level before switching to the dash unit's FM tuner or a CD, I practically get blasted out of the car! $52.99 wasted; I'm back on the cable.

Buy Scosche motorMOUTH Plug and Play Bluetooth Handsfree and Streaming Audio Car Kit Now

This was a gift I received, and i was stoked abut hooking it up, since my primary use for it would to streaming my tunes from my cell phone. Hook up was simple for me, then came the testing of the motormouth II. Pairing it with my cell phone was seamless, no issues, once paired it remained paired. Streaming music pretty simple, worked lovely. Using the motormouth II to make and received phone calls was pretty good, not bad. Haven't got any complaints about noise while driving and talking.

Now for the cons, the battery charge doesn't seem to last very long at all, on light use, the USB style charger cable, is way to short, making placement options limited. The cable itself seems a bit cheap for a device price @ $70+.

All in all, this handy little device can solved some of your Bluetooth, music woes. On a chart from 1 5, five being the highest I would give this device a 4 star rating. Why?

1. Design/size could be better

2. Materials could be better for the price

3. Battery life could be much better

Read Best Reviews of Scosche motorMOUTH Plug and Play Bluetooth Handsfree and Streaming Audio Car Kit Here

I was initially happy with my Motormouth II, but I soon found it was fragile. Simply plugging it in caused the plastic case to split apart. A little superglue fixed it, but weeks later, it ceased taking a charge through the supplied cable. A quick call to Scosche later, they sent a replacement cable free of charge. But THEN, the Motormouth would randomly drop the Bluetooth connection while in use. When you have to take your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road to re-establish the connection with your phone, it kinda defeats the purpose of Bluetooth, doesn't it? To complicate things, the little red and blue lights that are supposed to tell you what it's up to are invisible in daylight, making it that much more frustrating to try to diagnose why it wasn't working half the time. Was the battery dead, or did it just have a random failure?

On the plus side, when it worked, it worked well, with good call sound quality and seamless switching from streaming audio to phone calls. However, some basic weaknesses with this setup are that you need to turn it on when you get in the car and turn it off when you get out (or the battery will die more quickly). Also, it will work only when your stereo is in the AUX input mode. If you want to listen to FM radio and automatically receive a Bluetooth call, no dice. In other words, if you're looking for the hands-off and forget-about-it convenience of a factory-installed Bluetooth system, you'll have to spend a bit more for a system that interfaces directly with your car's stereo and not just with the input jack.

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It depends on what your intended use for this product is. I have a 2008 Chevy Avalanche LTZ with an AUX input jack. So this device is perfect as it is small, lightweight and out of sight, all while streaming my audio from my phone to my Bose sound system. Audio quality is awesome. I wasn't expecting much in terms of quality, but was pleasently surprised.

If you want this for a bluetooth calling adapter to patch phone calls into your stereo, you will be greatly disappointed. I can hear my callers perfectly, but have not received great feedback from those I have called. I get comments like "huh? What? Say that again? I can hear you, but can't make out what you are saying? Are you in a tunnel? etc etc. I have tried multiple calls, while driving, parked, parked with engine off.... Call quality is horrible!!

Pros: Bluetooth audio streaming, lightweight, easy to connect.

Cons: Call quality, battery life

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