It’s rare, today, to find a car without a Bluetooth music system. It’s rare, but not impossible… and for people stuck with those old-timey automobiles, the only real way to connect to a diverse universe of music, is to switch on the radio. Now I’m not entirely familiar with how great the radio is these days, but here’s a question worth asking – what if you could have your OWN radio station? One with songs of your choice?
Well, that’s what the Nulaxy Bluetooth FM Transmitter does! It uses Bluetooth and radio waves to turn music apps on your phone into a bona fide FM radio station! Pair your phone with the device via Bluetooth, create a frequency for your car’s radio antenna to catch, and then tune your car’s radio to that frequency and voila, Spotify now becomes Spotify FM! The Nulaxy Bluetooth FM Transmitter plugs right into your car’s lighter port, and also works as a charger thanks to USB ports on it. Neat, huh?
Designer: Nulaxy
As complex as it may sound, the underlying tech is pretty simple. Think of the Nulaxy Bluetooth FM Transmitter as a wireless speaker – but instead of playing the music in audio waves, it plays it in radio waves. The radio waves can now be picked up by your car’s radio receiver, and now you’ve got your favorite music or pretty much any audio from your phone playing through your car’s radio. And this doesn’t work with just cars, it’ll work with those compact handheld radios too, like the ones your granddad or your father listened to the news on.
But you aren’t limited to music, and you aren’t limited to your phone either. A central knob on the transmitter lets you do things like answer calls, and two buttons on the side let you skip between tracks. But just in case you want to ditch your phone, the transmitter packs a USB port for plugging in drives with your favorite audio files. It has support for all popular formats like MP3, WAV, WMA, even FLAC… and as an alternative, there’s a MicroSD card slot too, for people who love options!
The transmitter works as a standard car charger too, with QC3.0 built into one of the two USB ports on the top. The other port (which works for reading thumb drives) charges devices too, via a standard 5V protocol. If you’re ever in a bind and you know your car from the 1990s doesn’t come with its own charging setup for your phone, this one helps do the job of two gadgets – a music transmitter, as well as a phone charger!
Bluetooth 5.0 ensures your device connection is seamless as well as lag-free. Music sounds pristine, voice clarity during calls is impressive, and the device also packs noise cancelling, thanks to a tiny mic built into the top of it. An RGB LED ring around the periphery of the transmitter glows to tell you the device is powered and running, and although not my most preferred feature, you can apparently change the RGB color too, thanks to the rotating knob on the top.
At $9.99 on Amazon, the thing is a no-brainer purchase. It costs less than your average Starbucks order – heck, even more so than the now dead Spotify Car Thing. Buy it, plug it into your car, and forget about it. Perfect for old-style cars without Bluetooth-based systems, and even for backseat deejays who want to play music on your car’s stereo system without leaning forward to mash icons on your dashboard!
The post This $10 Car Gadget Turns Spotify and Apple Music Into Their Own FM Radio Stations first appeared on Yanko Design.