Coocheer BT FM Transmitter Review, Right Device at the Right Price: $15
TL;DR; the Coocheer BT FM transmitter is an excellent and completely rational $15 purchase from Amazon that gets you great sound quality into your stereo and a good speakerphone in a quiet vehicle!
When I was reviewing the Coocheer BT FM Transmitter, I was remarking how much I was enjoying it with Paul in our editors chatroom. The thing is bloody amazing, particularly at getting sound into the stereo from your phone! The design is perfectly functional…. it’s obvious what end goes into what us “old folks” call the “cigarette lighter” aka the 12v plug in your dash.
My primary vehicle is a mid 2000s Subaru Forester, more ground clearance than the old cherokee, AWD, decent milage, plenty of grunt to pull whatever is needed, and spacer inside a plenty; also crashes amazingly well. Where did they skimp; well having had the car apart over the years, there is about 4 x 4 cm of sound deadening in the whole thing. That said, the stereo is great, and it had a CD player, but no BT or line-in/aux.
I had been using a very fidgety; I believe Logitech branded; headphone jack-FM transmitter; that I have since pitched. It was similar to the old iTrip universal, but not as “fancy;” likely as is the case today, they probably all came from the same factory with different shells, and it worked, sort of. If you draped the cable over the dash.
Well this is a HUGE Step up! The sound quality into the stereo is great. There are logically placed controls to fast forward, adjust volume, and FM station.
The magnetic mount serves two amazing purposes; one like the sadly lost MagSafe, when you whack the thing with your bag getting in the car, it doesn’t shatter, and second, the “head” unit of the device has battery in it; so you can remove the it to adjust the station at the wheel without looking down! They claim 2-3 hours, I don’t buy that, but it works fine at the gas station, etc.
As to the ODM (Original Device Manufacturer) aspect of life as we know it; it’s BT name is “OKiT-F33”. And here is the “lovely” but fully functional and truly frustration-free packaging it comes in:
The box doesn’t win a beauty contest, but it works just fine for it’s purposes, and probably saves everyone at all aspects of the supply chain a bit of money; including you the buyer!
And now we get to why I mentioned the ODM part and the discussion with Paul earlier; he reviewed this device as well in 2015! His was the “iClever IC-F33 Bluetooth FM Transmitter” and here was his “syndicated blurb”
TL;DR it’s good, too pricey
Well in 2015, iClever was looking for $32 for this product, and Paul closed out the article:
it should be closer to the $20 mark.
Overall it works, and the sound is almost as good as when a line in is plugged in as long as you can locate a dead radio space.
Welcome to my 2016/2017 Coocheer unit and your completely rational $15 purchase from Amazon!
I agree the sound is amazing from this unit, and in a quiet car the speakerphone is quite good as well! It only has one microphone so no noise cancelling; hence the definite need for a quiet car with the windows up!
If you’re looking to get some sound from your phone or tablet into a the car, this is the way to go. At $15 this thing is a steal for the amazing sound quality; decent build quality, battery backup in the FM unit. And while it has a couple quirky design issues, like the length of the stem, though I found this to be fine as it happily adjust to a 90 degree angle; and the volume goes to “16“! Why they didn’t choose “11” or “15” I don’t know. I would heartily recommend this to anyone in the market!
