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REVIEW - Wireless Bluetooth Adapter for 30 Pin apple Media-in connection.

Paul_W

Paul_W

Messages
184
Location
Altrincham
Vehicle
Cali now sold
Just thought I'd post a review of a wonderful little gadget purchased last week for our Cali, it's saved us a fortune by avoiding a potential upgrade from our standard RCD 310 stereo.

The problem, we wanted Bluetooth audio streaming from iPhone / iPad / Android Devices along with decent navigation with audio prompts. We looked at available upgrades to the likes of RCD 315 with Bluetooth / DAB etc. or the RNS 510 from eBay but with the newer faster units being upwards of £600 and that's before you look at installation and VAG-COM updates it was looking like a very expensive proposition circa £800.

We brought this for £95.00 and it does everything we wanted and more:

Bovee 1000 Wireless Bluetooth Music Interface Adapter for in Car iPod Integration.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00B52LLJ6/?tag=eliteelect-21

Really simple to install, simply connect it to your 30 pin iPod cable in the glove box, pair your iPhone / Tablet with it, select Media-in on your stereo and away you go. It supports multiple devices.

Plays all your music from your iPhone music library with full track information on the head unit and dash display and works with steering wheel controls if you have them. Sound quality is amazing and no issues with volume. Then I found when I launched Spotify that also worked seamlessly again with track information displayed and full control from steering wheel. Also tested with Radioplayer app that has every single UK radio station including all the DAB only ones and that also worked without issue displaying the radio station details on the head unit and dash display.

Then it got even better, I have my iPhone in a dash holder for using Google Maps for navigation, I had music streaming and I opened maps and set a route, the music volume is automatically reduced when it's giving you navigation instructions then automatically increased again once it's delivered the route instructions, the route instructions were played through the stereo system.

The only thing it won't do is play telephone call audio through the stereo, if the phone rings it automatically mutes the music audio but the audio remains with the phone. This isn't an issue for us as I don't really like using the phone when driving and in any case we already had an aftermarket Bluetooth hands free kit in the van and that still works as the iPhone will connect to multiple Bluetooth sources.

Also connected a Samsung Galaxy Tab and watched some downloaded iPlayer content, works great with super surround sound through the stereo rather than the rubbish on-board sound from the tablet.

So all in a all this is a 5 Star product and wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

A word of warning there are loads of generic Bluetooth 30 pin apple adapters available to buy out there for less than £30.00 - they don't work with the in-car interface only with older style apple speaker docks. Some listings specifically tell you they won't work in car, some don't mention this but if you read the reviews you will find loads where people say they brought to use in their car and they don't work.
 
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Before I enabled bluetooth on my RNS315, I used a cheap 3.5mm jack bluetooth adapter for a while. The battery life was about 6-10 hours so you generally had it plugged in to use it all the time. The cables for charging it meant there wasn't really much advantage over having an aux in cable instead.

The main advantage of this seems to be its powered via the actual stereo/MDI connector which is good and it can therefore be plugged in, hidden away and forgotten about. Combined with the display too its a nice solution. Thanks for the review.
 
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