It's hard to imagine a time before Bluetooth was everywhere, but when it came to cars I've only been able to take advantage of that wireless connection to my phone quite recently — every other vehicle I've owned has been remarkably old school in that respect. Cars don't get replaced nearly as often as phones or any other electronic gadgets we employ every day, and I suspect Bluetooth in cars isn't nearly as ubiquitous as it is everywhere else.
There have been a lot of different ways to connect your phone to your car over the years, usually via the aux cable, but in a world where the 3.5mm headphone jack is deader than a dodo, that's not always a viable option.
FM transmitters used to be awful
I remember back when I first started driving, all I had was a then-10-year-old Fiat that was about as basic as cars could get. It had an FM radio with a tape deck, and nothing else. No CD player, no Bluetooth, no screen, and not even a 3.5mm plug.
The most advanced thing about it was that the stereo controls were built into the dashboard, rather than one of those pop-out units people used to have to rely on. Needless to say, hooking up to my iPod (and later iPhone) was something of a challenge.
Thankfully, this was in the late '00s, back when European governments were starting to realize that it was pointless to ban personal FM transmitters, so long as their range was no more than a few feet. So my first port of call was to employ one of those in my own car. It was a clunky, battery-powered unit that could only transmit on 3 different wavelengths.
Unfortunately, it was terrible, offering scratchy audio quality and running through AAA batteries far faster than it had any right to. A replacement proved to be no better, and I ended up scrapping the idea of listening to my music via the car's radio. It was just easier and far less frustrating to listen to commercial radio stations — non-stop ad-breaks be damned.
It really soured my enthusiasm for FM transmitters, which is a shame because they're honestly pretty cool. But since I moved on to an adapter that plugged into my cassette deck, I never really had to consider another method for the rest of my car's lifespan.
I was shocked at how good this one actually is
It's been a long time since I first started driving, roughly 16 years if I'm counting it right, and technology has improved a lot in that time. Still, I didn't have particularly high hopes for the Lencent FM transmitter, especially when you remember that it's meant to connect to other devices via Bluetooth. It's essentially converting one wireless signal to another, and I was sure that would ruin the quality.
I'm not afraid to admit that I was completely wrong. Spectacularly so. Because this transmitter is good to the point where I couldn't even tell the difference between it and a regular Bluetooth connection.
I was expecting some kind of static or crackling in the background of any sound coming through, especially at higher volumes. But not, you don't hear anything of the sort unless you turn all the volume dials all the way up — at which point trying to play any music will likely do some serious damage to your ears.
I'm not afraid to admit that I was completely wrong. Spectacularly so.
The transmitter itself is nice and compact, though it does need to be plugged into your car's 12V plug. Luckily, it does come with two USB ports that can recharge your phone and whatever other devices that may need power. There's also a microSD card slot, for those of you that prefer to play music the old-fashioned way with your own curated playlist rather than some kind of streaming service.
For the record, audio played from the microSD card sounds exactly the same as songs beamed in from my phone. Or at least it did to my ears. Weirdly, though, the back button was able to activate Google Gemini on my phone. How? I have no idea, but that could prove useful if you don't have the "Hey Google" wake command set up.
Bottom line
If you have a car that doesn't have Bluetooth, then don't dismiss the FM transmitter without giving it a try first. Especially considering they seem to be relatively cheap — Lencent's has an MSRP of $19, and is currently on sale for $14. It sure beats having wires covering your dashboard or USB-C to 3.5mm adapters that can easily break or get lost.
Lencent's FM Transmitter isn't the only one I've tested recently, and I found that the Sumind Bluetooth FM Transmitter offered a similar level of audio quality. In other words, FM transmitters have apparently come a long way since my initial run-in with them.
Sure, maybe a Bluetooth adapter with an aux cable of some kind might seem more sensible. But it's never a bad thing to have more options available to you — especially if they don't need batteries.
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