Review: Kensington’s LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link, Its (Weak) Microphone
2:18 pm, November 4th, 2009, Eli Milchman
Seems like a no-brainer: Take two different concepts that work great separately, Frankenstein them together and — viola! Instant more amazingness!
Except we all know how the Frankenstein story ended. The LiquidAUX story isn’t as ugly as that. But it isn’t pretty either.
Bash the jump for the full review.
Company: Kensington
Model: LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit
List Price: $99.00
Compatible: Phone functions work with all iPhone models; music streaming works with 3G, 3GS.
Buy Now: The LiquidAUX Bluetooth Car Kit is available from Amazon for $24.99 with free shipping.
Kensington took their standard LiquidAUX Car Kit — which reroutes your iPhone’s music to your car’s speakers through an auxiliary input jack — and combined it with a Bluetooth connection, with the idea of adding hands-free phone functionality. Unfortunately, the concept’s nuts and bolts don’t work as well as I’d hoped.
For starters, the microphone’s placement in the cigarette lighter adapter means that the less-than-ideally-sensitive mic has a hard time picking up speech. in our Honda Element test vehicle, the lighter is way over on the passenger side, which made it nearly impossible for callers to hear my inane chatter properly; the problem was only somewhat overcome with my mouth only a foot or so away from the mic. Compounding the issue was a fairly common complaint that I sounded like I was in a tunnel. Unfortunate, because voices on the other end sounded great through the car’s speakers.
In line with the quality of other Bluetooth devices we’ve tested that stream music, my prodigious collection of electronica sounded pretty good streamed through the LiquidAUX, but not as good when compared with running tunes through a cable from my iPhone to the aux port.
And since Apple still hasn’t given the iPhone support for the AVRCP Bluetooth protocol, which means the skip/review track buttons on the remote are just pretty buttons.
The remote stays fixed to the steering wheel with the tenacity of a remora.
With a crippled microphone, no support for skip/review and music quality that’s almost-but-not-quite as good as just using a cable, the only absolutely clear advantage to using this setup is gaining a play/pause button on the steering wheel.
The silver lining here is that the Bluetooth LiquidAUX is about — get ready for the double-take — $25 at Amazon.com, a heck of a bargain. In fact, the opportunity to vehemently disagree with me has never been cheaper.
The Bluetooth lighter-adapter. Simple, clean interface just has power and answer-call buttons. The USB port above where the cable attaches can be used to charge/power the iPhone.
Posted by Eli Milchman in Music, Reviews | Comment on this article
When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of 
Kennsingtons regular liquidaux is da bomb. I have the remote placed strategically on the stick shift and can forward, play, reverse my tunes by just lifting a finger.
speck, on November 4th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I’ve had one of these since the 3GS was released (before Apple documented that their AVRCP implementation was incomplete). The microphone is adequate for my car. Barely. I mostly use it for playing music and my only complaints in that regard are entirely Apple’s fault.
Bryce, on November 4th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
(And I’ll add that the Previous / Next buttons work just fine with the Palm Pre that my work provides for on-call duties).
Bryce, on November 4th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I use the Griffin TuneFlex AUX SmartClick. It’s great if you have bluetooth already in your car (does not have integrated mic). The wireless controller lets you skip/rewind, play/pause, shuffle on/off and most importantly turn the screen dimmer on or off. No more getting blinded by the iphone at night.
JB, on November 5th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
When i receive a call while music playing, the music don’t resume and the iphone crash and restart : (
Iphone 3gs 3.1.2
Bob, on November 12th, 2009 at 6:24 am