Syncwire Car Bluetooth 5.4 Receiver 3.5mm Aux Adapter

Syncwire have really thought out their product range, and with a few exceptions this is a great little device.

First of all – check the cable lengths:
1) The USB and Jack sockets are both wired from the same coiled wire and have a maximum distance apart of around 35 to 38cm’s. If your sockets are farther apart, you will need a cable extension lead.
2) The length of the cable from the base of the unit to the USB plug is around 60cm. Anymore and the coiled cable comes into play.
Secondly: Check you have both USB and Aux In. this is a wired only unit (no radio connection via FM)
As with every Syncwire Bluetooth system, I found this to operate very well. The unit is small enough to attach discreetly to somewhere on your dash (but limited by the cable length)
Device control, Call Quality, Audio quality are all good – and sound better wired than the FM transmitter type.

It gives you a safe way of enjoying your music library on the go with ability to make and receive calls. Set up your phone properly for your car (voice activation) is the ideal way to go.

Other than the cables being a little restrictive – this is a great little Bluetooth adapter for your car.

This is a good little device, that lets you use your car stereo system for playing music from your phone or more importantly for phone calls. The device is for car stereos that don’t have Bluetooth, but do have a jack socket for audio in to the stereo, so my old ford mondeo works fine, but my citreon picassa doesn’t have the socket, so doesn’t work with that, although I guess that you could connect to a small wired speaker. It’s powered by a USB socket. It works fine and plays music/ audio books fine, and calls can kick in, you get much better quality than those devices that are fm transmitters that do the same (although they have the advantage of not needing a jack socket). This is useful, if you want the sound out of the stereo, so if you’re travelling as a family, and want to all listen to the same, otherwise, the other obvious alternative is a blue tooth headset. Given those limitations / alternatives if this device fits your requirements, it’s very good, good value and works well.

I requested this to use with my phone in the car as my car is over 10 years old and is not equipped with Bluetooth.

I had previously been using Bluetooth an FM transmitter to the radio which required tuning in a channel it worked OK but it suffered way too much interference when driving certain places and was annoying.

This one uses a phono lead allowing me direct connection to the car stereo via an aux input socket in the car.

It came in a nicely presented box complete with preinstalled leads, 2 x alcohol wipes, 2 x double sided stickers and instructions.

It’s looks nicely compact and well made and is extremely light.

I stuck it with the provided sticky pad on the centre console in the car underneath the handbrake and that works well for me.

It has multi coloured lights that are on continuously that can be turned off if found to be distracting. I don’t as its down out of my peripheral vision. But the options there.

In operation it worked really well. I linked my bluetooth to its name (SW-BR999) on my iPhone 13 and after plugging the phono lead into my car Aux input it worked perfectly with really good sound quality on my cars stereo system.

It has plenty of volume and I no longer need to turn my phone volume up to get a decent level of volume out of the car speakers . There is loads to spare.

I also got my wife to ring me on the phone and it was amazingly clear as though she was in the car. She told me I sounded loud and clear her end too. So the small mic on the front seems to do a really good job.

I must say I thought the small button for increased base on the side was going to be a bit of a gimmick, but it actually does work well at enhancing the base sound.

I wanted it for ‘bluetoothing’ my car and it did just that with aplomb. When I get in and start the car it’s ready to go.

I can now get uninterrupted audio clarity without interference. Plus the phones navigation now plays through the stereo too and lowers the music volume when giving directions, so really helpful .

The makers also offer a very generous 3 year warranty on any defects in material or workmanship

I think it’s a decent price for what it can do (14.99 at the time of the review). Very chuffed with it.

The size of the Syncwire Car Bluetooth 5.3 Receiver is nice and small. I loved the LED lights on in but found them annoying in day to day use, so I had to turn them off.
The receiver is 3M tape mounted, it does come with a spare piece of 3M tape.
The receiver was a bit of an issue to connect to my radio as the aux input and my usb jack are not close by.
My phone was simple to connect to the receiver and the receiver did a good job with the audio.
The receiver seems to be a good solution if you have an older car without Bluetooth or if like me the car radio Bluetooth can only connect to one phone and you have a work and personal phone.

For music the sound is reasonable to good. The B button on the side says it’s ‘extra bass’ but I think it adds an EQ curve that boosts both bass and treble. I found the sound with the B button on and off both acceptable. So it’s a matter of taste and how good your car audio is as to whether you would want to use it.

For calls, the incoming call sound is actually very good, but as you might expect, the mic in the device picks up quite a lot of background noise so make calls while parked up if you can as otherwise the person at the other end might struggle to hear you. When you engage the phone ready to make a call there is a kind of background electronic noise, but it’s not that noticeable when on a call and it might vary from car to car anyway.

When in use there is a multi-coloured LED which flashes when music is playing. A mini-car-disco perhaps? The controls (forward, back, pause, volume up and down) all worked perfectly with my Oppo phone.

I have a couple of criticisms, though to be fair, these are evident from the listing. The markings on the controls are barely visible and the LED light makes it worse if anything. You can of course learn where the controls are – they are all in the places you would expect them – but the swearbox might gain a few quid until you are familiar with them.

The other thing I didn’t really like is the cabling. The USB cable and the audio cable are joined for the first 1-2 feet (including the coil). As a result you only get 11″ of free audio cable and just over 7″ of USB cable. That might or might not suit the layout of your car connections. I would prefer the device just to have an 1/8″ socket, then you would be free to choose the cabling that suits you. Secondly, your car may have (like mine) phono sockets rather than the 1/8″ sockets. As a result, you could end up forking out for an adaptor or extension cable to be able to use it (as I had to).

If the cabling doesn’t bother you, you don’t mind fumbling for the controls in the dark and the outgoing call quality is not important to you, then I think you will not be disappointed with this device.

Nothing if not colourful!

I had this paired and working within seconds, it does just what you’d expect from a Bluetooth receiver.
The call control and volume buttons make it well suited to use with a phone and the other features are, interesting.

For a start it has a microphone, this shows up when paired as a headset and it might work well if it were on your head. Unfortunately the microphone has quite poor audio pickup at a distance and to make things worst only appears to record 16khz audio.

The lights, whilst cool to look at, dip whenever audio is played and the effect when playing music looks like there is a loose wire somewhere causing it the flicker. The lights can be turned off by holding the vol+ button.

Then there is the ‘b’ button… This is a new one on me, I’ve had plenty of devices with a “bass boost” but what we have in this device is a ‘treble cut’ button. It certainly makes the bass seem relatively louder by simply muffling the mid range and treble out. The resulting sound is terrible and I’d advise leaving that feature switched off.

I’m giving it four stars despite its quirks as I bought it to use as per the product description, “Bluetooth Receiver” and it performs that function just fine. However I have to dock it some points for the poorly implemented tacked on extra features.