[driveanddrive]

I purchased a Used Honda Civic in October last year. The biggest and perhaps the only problem I had with the Car was there was no Bluetooth Audio Streaming or Calling.
There is an Aux, but somehow I never liked using Aux, as I think the quality goes for a toss(?). There is a USB inside the armrest, but again updating it every now and then is a pain. That, now is a permanent accessory to my Car.
What then? New stereo will be expensive, I certainly did not want to shell out that much money for 1 tooth.
Opened Amazon and started looking for a Bluetooth Receiver. There are a lot of cheap options, you can find one from as low as Rs. 399.
Some had a built in battery, which needed to be charged. I had almost finalised one with a rechargeable battery when I glanced on the "battery exploding inside a car" thread. How good can the battery inside a cheap bluetooth receiver be? I did not want that sutli bomb inside my car.
Searched a bit more and finally thought I found what I was looking for. The reviews for Tantra Fluke Pro sounded good enough.

Packing & Box
It came in a neat packing which included the Tantra Fluke Pro and few leaflets about the company Tantra.






Box

How it Works:
This is basically a bluetooth receiver which gives output through a 3.5mm connector, which you plug into your stereo. It gets power from the USB. It fires up from the USB on the Car as well. Once powered, press the telephone for 3-4 seconds and it goes into pairing mode. Once paired, it is pretty seamless. It auto connects the last paired device in a jiffy. One thing I have noticed though is, it starts automatically when I slot the key into On, switches off when I start the car (pretty normal) but then doesn't restart when the Car is on. It has to be switched on by clicking the Telephone button on the device.


Setup 1

Civic has a USB inside the armrest. At first, I had powered it from the USB under the armrest. The placement of Aux is below the AC controls. So, the wire was dangling all the time, from the armrest to the Aux, with the device lying there somewhere near the handbrake. No proper placement could be ascertained. Too messy for me.







As they say, Maja nahi aa raha tha.


Setup 2

The Lighter slot in Civic is just above the Aux. So, I thought why not get a Car Charger so that it becomes a compact little placement for the device.
Ordered a Tantra Car charger with 2 USB slots, one being a 2A one. Plugged in the device in the 1A slot, so that the 2A remains available for the phone charging duties.







Tada! Exactly how I wanted it. The device comes with a sticker on the back, so can place it wherever you like. Also comes with the extra stickers.


This placement allows me to pick up a call using my left thumb easily. Also, the device is round, and has a magnet. It attaches to the base, and revolves as well.


The magnet. Quite handy in case you want to move the mouthpiece closer to your mouth.


Performance:
I absolutely love this little thing. My Bass is crispier, clarity is superb and output has kind of amplified as well. I used to keep the volume at 10-11 earlier, and now 4-5 suffices. On the music front, this is total paisa vasool. It has back and forward buttons for changing tracks as well.

Clarity during calls is pretty clear, and inspite of the device being stuck near the steering column, the person on the other side hears me clearly without me having to raise my voice. It has got noice cancellation as well.
Full points on the calling part as well.

Cost:
Tantra Fluke PRO: Rs. 1,749
Tantra Car Charger: Rs. 299

All in all, a perfect buy and solution for not having a bluetooth stereo in your car.

Useful links:

Tantra Fluke Pro: https://goo.gl/mEpJ2D
Tantra Car Charger: https://goo.gl/izFwSD

Disclaimer: I am not associated with Tantra, Amazon, Bluetooth or Honda. Nobody invited me to buy the device. Expenses for the purchase were borne by me
Cheers!

[johannskaria]

Originally Posted by driveanddrive

There is an Aux, but somehow I never liked using Aux, as I think the quality goes for a toss(?).

The reviews for Tantra Fluke Pro sounded good enough.

Ordered a Tantra Car charger with 2 USB slots, one being a 2A one. Plugged in the device in the 1A slot, so that the 2A remains available for the phone charging duties.

The Aux quality depends on the money you invest in the Aux wire. Most of the times we make mistake of buying low cost, non gold plated aux wires and expect the same quality as the best ones.

Had looked into the Tantra before i settled on Roidmi 2s by Xiaomi.

The below listed swayed my decision in favour of the Roidmi
1. Tantra had wires dangling around the cabin while Roidmi was relatively clean looking.
2. Roidmi gave dual faster charging output at 2.4A, so power hungry devices topped up faster.
3. The costs were little lower.
4. Roidmi had a built in car Battery monitor too.
5. The adapter even gave an extra cigarette lighter port to plug in my laptop charger.

Roidmi 2s Tbhp thread

[izzikio_rage]

I got this one as well. No complaints till now. Have heard though that it tends to die if kept in a very hot vehicle.

Love the ease of use though.

[vsaravind007]

Originally Posted by driveanddrive

I never liked using Aux, as I think the quality goes for a toss(?).

Actually its the opposite, an AUX cable will always(A decent quality cable) produce a cleaner sound than a bluetooth audio streamer. Because a bluetooth streamer will have multiple signal converters, encoders and compressors to send the audio signal wirelessly to the stereo. Compressed audio and quality won't go well together! Read this for more info: http://bit.ly/2sGW3T9

Superb review!

[vikramvicky1984]

I have had the Tantra for 2.5 years ( in hibernation for past one year)
Used only for calls in the car.
HAve also used it to play music from phone to old music system in home ( which doesn't have USB etc., connected tantra to its Mic input)
Useful device for the price.

[Arjan]

Originally Posted by johannskaria

The Aux quality depends on the money you invest in the Aux wire. Most of the times we make mistake of buying low cost, non gold plated aux wires and expect the same quality as the best ones.
Roidmi 2s Tbhp thread

No Sir. Music quality depends on the input.
Wires are the least significant link in an audio chain.

The audio signal from an AUX port of a device (mobile/digital audio player) is Analog, has already been amplified by the device's inbuilt amp and has low voltage - insufficient to drive speakers. So, this audio signal is routed to the onboard amplifier of car's music player, which on double amplification gets distorted, thereby deteriorating the sound quality.

In case of a USB drive plugged into your music player directly, digital data is fed directly to the DAC of your car's music player, which converts it into analog signal with higher voltage for the onboard amplifier, resulting in much better sound quality.

The difference in above mentioned cases is that the signal from a mobile/DAP is already amplified (coming through AUX port) and undergoes double amplification, hence, resulting in poor sound quality.
The solution is feeding Line-level output (usually referred as "Line-Out") to the car's music system. The Line-out signal is a clean analog signal, direct from DAC (not amplified) and when it undergoes amplification, produces much better sound quality.
Nowadays, there are plenty of Digital Audio players (DAPs) available in market, which offer a Line-Out port (in addition to AUX), which is essentially much cleaner analog signal than the one from AUX port, for feeding directly to an amplifier.

The difference OP finds when using Bluetooth to pair his mobile phone to his Civic's music player, as against using AUX port, is because bluetooth transfers digital data to the music player, which is decoded by the onboard DAC and amplified once (by onboard amplifier), compared to feeding an already amplified audio signal from a mobile phone to another amplifier.

[rosh_aveo1.4]

Good review! I was so keen on buying this as the plus point was it comes on automatically without the need to press any button or charge the battery but it's the exposed wires that is the eyesore for me. I been using an adapter called EDUP for the past one year and despite the issues I mentioned above, I love it because it looks way more neater without any dangling wires like the Tantra. Was pretty impressed with it and bought them again for all my cars. However the device is not good for voice calling which I don't use it for anyway. Attaching some pics.
The roidmi was interesting but not confident on the quality of audio via FM although there are very good reviews of it abroad. And I read it might not fit and then have to buy that horrible looking dual barrel shotgun like adapter. :eek

[aamateen46]

Can this be connected via USB? My car doesn't have an Aux port. Is there any work around to connect to the USB port in absence of an Aux port?

[ShaileshHinge]

Originally Posted by driveanddrive

All in all, a perfect buy and solution for not having a bluetooth stereo in your car.

Useful links:

Tantra Fluke Pro: https://goo.gl/mEpJ2D
Tantra Car Charger: https://goo.gl/izFwSD

Cheers!

I have been using this on my car for last 3 months. works perfectly fine !
I just love it.

[ayankm]

I had bought the Tantra Fluke about an year back just to add the handsfree experience. However, there is one aspect of this device that annoys me a lot. Whenever I turn off and turn on the car, it loses connectivity with my mobile bluetooth. I had enquired with the Tantra team if they have any other version that houses a little battery or some kind of connection retaining mechanism. However, they do not have that.

As such I have stopped using it and bought the MPOW Bluetooth receiver after a bit of research and it works flawlessly. There is a small rechargeable battery inside that retains connection even when I turn off and on the car.

[izzikio_rage]

Update on my Tantra Fluke. The device is fine after two months of use. However the tape holding it to the dash has come off (it's still stuck to the dash, but it detached from the device)

It does disconnect if you turn off your car but reconnecting is just a matter of tapping the main button.

[driveanddrive]

Originally Posted by izzikio_rage

However the tape holding it to the dash has come off (it's still stuck to the dash, but it detached from the device)

Hi, mine came with an extra sticker. It is anyway a two side tape, so, that should do.

[dpaul]

I bought the tantra fluke after reading ablut it here. Although I knew about the product from googling about hands free kit, but reading about it hdre on team-bhp gave me the confidence to go ahead with the purchase.

The device disconnects when the vehicle restarts and then we have to tap the main button once to reconnect. This is not much of a hindrance. What bothers me is that the music doesn't restart playing. I have to take my phone and then resume playback by opening the music app on the phone. This is a tedious and unsafe option when on the move.
Does anyone know about an app which resumes playback on reconnection?

Regards
Debasish

[royalbeat]

Hi driveanddrive thanks for your detailed review. I bought Tantra over the weekend after reading your review. It works seamlessly between my phone and iPod. Since it connects with 2 devices simultaneously, I experimented extensively between my phone and iPod. The music cuts off when I get a call or make a call from my phone. It also comes back on itself as soon as the call gets disconnected. No problems whatsoever on that front. The best part was that it connects smoothly with all my devices. Only thing is the dangling wires but that's not a major problem for me personally.

[dpaul]

Hi guys. Sorry for posting my views on driveanddrive's thread, but then I thought that sharing here will be a good idea.

I got two freebies from Tantra. A car cellphone holder and a car USB charger.

As per the enclosed instruction, I had emailed a screen grab showing 10 likes to Tantra for a free car cellphone holder. I got an email asking me to share my review on Amazon from where I had made my purchase and send them a screen grab of my review for another freebie. I did as I was asked. To my send email I got a reply that they will dispatch my free gifts to be delivered to my stated address with 15-20 days.

However I got both my freebies nicely packed together within a week. They even made a follow up call after the goods were delivered. Quite impressed with their quality and marketing endeavors.

Attaching a pic of my freebies...

I'll also post how I have managed all my dangling cables from Tantra Fluke with just Rs 10/-. But that has to be for a later post since I have not clicked a pic of the setup.