iO Play Music Streaming & Hands Free Kit

[Desmo]

Thought I'd put this in here rather than motors as it's a bit more tech than just a hands free kit :)


I've been wanting a hands free kit for my car for a while and when I got the iPhone, also wanted something to stream the music to my car stereo. Used an FM transmitter for a while and whilst good, it's not perfect. I couldn't listen to the radio and still hear satnav instructions so made it's use quite limited.

The iO Play handles this perfectly. If your car has ISO standard connectors it's a simple plug and play job, just need to hide the cables and boxes behind the dash and run two cable for the control box and mic. If you don't have ISO connectors, you can buy and adaptor harness for about £10.

It connects to ANY phone via bluetooth and allows you to instantly switch between the car radio or your phone. If your car radio is playing and then phone sends a sound signal, it automatically switches to the phone, then back to the radio again. This makes it ideal for satnav where you can have the radio on but still get voice commands from the phone. It has it's own volume dial which works independently to the stereo volume so phone and car stereo can be set at different levels at any time. Not used it properly for hands free yet.

Halfords sell this for £150, most other places are £99 but if you check Amazon, you can pick it up brand new for £62 :D

[LeperousDust]

That actually sounds *incredible* and better than my bluetooth/ipod headset work now, which makes me UBER sad :(

As you say i have to chose between music/satnav from my phone or my iPod. Or if i use handsfree on my phone and choose the iPod on my headset i do get calls through fine and pausing and switching is perfect. But i then don't get any sound from my phone satnav because its sent to the headset and i'm technically "ignoring" it :( Hmmmm

[Desmo]

The only negative I've found so far is when using it for satnav. It auto switches to the phone but then obviously has to wait for a few seconds of silence which tells it to switch back to the radio. I think this is set slightly too long (only a few seconds) but can be a little annoying. It's a VERY minor gripe though. Well pleased with it :)

You can also activate the iPhone voice control by holding the button which is really handy as well.

[LeperousDust]

Bah, i'm thinking of selling my new head unit now grabbing what i can on ebay and getting a cheapo headunit that will do my iPoodle well enough to get by and grab an iO.... Hmmmmm.

Having seamless audio satnav in my car would be a really nice thing i thought i'd done as well as i could...

[Daz]

That is pretty epic, I'm in a similar position Des - didnt want to replace the head unit. Cheers for that, I'll have a dig to see how awkward it would be to use it in the Mondy (I have the monstrously big Sony 6 CD changer) :)

[Desmo]

Daz, think you'll need the ISO harness for a Ford but they're not expensive.

The iO Play will support multiple phones as well so you can have more than one handset linked to the hands free kit, although I think it will only handle one connection for A2DP/AVRCP.

I'm seriously thinking of grabbing another one for the beemer for our longer journeys.

[Daz]

Daz, think you'll need the ISO harness for a Ford but they're not expensive.

Oh I'll definitely need one - just want to make sure there's actually room for the bits (not looked at the dimensions yet)

[Desmo]

The two boxes are actually pretty small, biggest one being about 120mm x 80mm x 20mm (very rough guess) and the other smaller still.

www.ioplay.info