Nextar Solar Charging Bluetooth Hands Free Car Kit

There used to be a time you couldn’t put one of these devices with a certain kind of wireless technology up around here without a Sea Shanty. I refuse to buy this until the pirate tells me to.

Product Website

Reviews at Milo

iTech News Net

ubergizmo

Here’s the manual.

Only six reviews on Amazon, but those six are not very good.

So it’s suggested to put it out where it can absorb the most sunshine through the day?

That means close to or right on the windshield?

And leave it there to keep on charging?

That’s like putting a neon sign on top of your car - BREAK A WINDOW IN THIS CAR AND STEAL ME! At least that’s how it works in many parts of New York City… They even suggest to remove your GPS suction mounts and hiding them when parked on the streets, because it may suggest that there’s a GPS in the glove box… Now we’re offered a gadget that would just stay on the windshield in the open?

I would not be upset about $20 gadget missing… but having to replace a broken window is a pain…

Amazon reviews not very good,sample below.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Not usable with highway noise, August 4, 2009
By Mutts202 (Boston) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Nextar NXBT-002 Solar Powered Bluetooth Cellular Hands Free Kit (Electronics)
This speakerphone has the potential for being a very neat little unit, but it fails in its ultimate purpose: being a CAR speakerphone. While it may have good sound quality to the person you are calling if there is no background noise (in other words, if you’re NOT DRIVING IN A CAR), once you introduce the whoosh of a moving car, you are rendered incomprehensible to the person listening to you.


PROS:
Solar powered - how incredibly awesome it is to not need to plug it in! No wires hanging from visors or windshields.

On/Off switch - unlike bluetooth headsets where it is questionable whether it is on or off, this has a slider switch on the side where you can quickly and easily turn it on/off without holding buttons, etc…

Windshield or visor mount - lets you choose where you want it.

Text display - most bluetooth devices don’t show you who is calling or what the status of the device is. This one displays it right in front of you!


CONS:
Made in China - apparently Nextar is a Chinese company. Kinda shows in the quality and feel.

Text display - very hard to read if you’re wearing polarized sunglasses. The kind you would wear WHILE DRIVING. Also, it only flashes information on the screen rather than keeping it there (to conserve power?), so it’s easy to miss what it says.

Speaker - at max volume (the kind you need on the highway) makes the holster vibrate (buzz) when the other person is speaking. The package comes with a scrap of sticky foam rubber that I think you are supposed to wedge into the holster somehow to dampen the vibrations.

Status LED - the phone button is lighted from behind when the unit is on. Red for charging, blue for active. But it is VERY dim, so basically not viewable during the daytime.

Microphone - With highway noise, although you may be able to hear the person you’re calling, they can barely understand you. My wife said “You sound like you’re in a tunnel and I can barely understand you”, even if I tried to talk loudly.

Somebody’s going to ask eventually; might as well be me… Will it work with an iPhone?

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-gadget-nextars-solar-powered-bluetooth-car-kits/

Decent review, confirms this bad boy supports A2DP

Includes a car charger so you can still take phone calls on rainy days!

Push once to talk, twice to ignore the call? I’m sure that won’t lead to the occasional tragically funny situation.

Too bad the reviews are terrible :frowning:

I really wish this worked. I hate earpieces and I hate charging things. And…I’m one of those drivers who really, really likes my cellphone.

If this worked it would totally rock my world.

Doubly scary review (on Amazon) about it melting in the Florida sun. I live in Arizona…yipes!

Also…O.M.G. on the Toyota Yaris. The rental company stuck me with one of those nasty things just last week. I have never met a car with a bigger blind spot (or spots…basically anything that isn’t a windshield is a blind spot) or a worse heads up display (middle of the dash, low resolution meters, cryptic symbols, wtf?). As if a mere phone could make that thing more of a road hazard than it already is? Ick.

As long as everyone walks away, one less Yaris in the world would not be something to cry over in my opinion. I think it’s seriously Toyota’s way of saying “don’t you wish you’d paid enough to upgrade to a Camry?”

They did the “review” based on Nextars specifications. They never actually used the device to discover how it actually functions in actual real world use.A lot of links here on woot are to sites which simply report the release of new gadgets and regurgitate the company spiel about the item. They may not even have seen the actual product so no testing is done and the “review” is really not very useful.

Of the 6 reviewers on Amazon who used this device 4 gave it only 1 star, 1 gave it 2 stars and one gave it 4 stars.

5 star: (0)
4 star:
(1)
3 star: (0)
2 star:
(1)
1 star:
(4

I own one, and can vouch that it is awesome when not moving. But once you start using it for its intended purpose it becomes just a pretty flashing light show. I sometimes carry it as a portable speaker-phone that I can pass around instead of my phone.

Previous Woot for model NXBT-001

Thank you SIXYEARS!

Uh…Move?

Found a video

This comes with a universal USB car charger plus cable? I believe that is worth $20 alone right there but does anyone know if the charger will work with any usb cable for any device?

used that code to. athough i did not win the boc. it was worth the codes…

I bought two… If the one that I use does not work well, I will gift the other one to my worst enemy this Christmas. I will probably also give the one I used to my dog for a chew toy if it is that bad… Though I am not sure the dog would get a lot of satisfaction either…