iClever Himbox HB01 Bluetooth Car Kit Review | Digital Trends

Posted: 21 Oct 2015 05:11 AM PDT

Out on the road today, the average car is generally around 10 years old. The rusty dinosaurs from the '70s, '80s, and even '90s are dying out, but modern vehicles will fly past the 100,000 mile marker without slowing down. While the performance and reliability of your trusty transportation may be enough to keep you from buying new, there are some modern technologies you are living without. With the Himbox HB01 Bluetooth kit you can add hands-free calling and Bluetooth audio streaming to AUX-equipped machine. Could this be the $40 solution to keep the love alive between you and your older car?

Plugging In

Out of the packaging, the system comes with a 12 volt car charging plug featuring dual USB ports – a 1 amp and 2 amp plug for charging your devices while the system is plugged in. One of the ports is where you will need to plug the USB cable for the Himbox Bluetooth controller disk and 3.5mm AUX connector. Measuring just over a foot, the cable should be long enough to span from the 12-volt charger in mosts cars to an area where the driver can mount the control disk.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Mounting the disk to a place where the driver can access the controls is easy with the magnetic mounting disk included with the Himbox HB01. The disk adheres to any part of your vehicle with 3M adhesive and allows you to magnetically attach the controller and remove it when needed.

Connect Your Device

With your car on and the system plugged in, the Himbox ring will flash blue lights as it is waits for your device to pair. On your phone or Bluetooth device you can search for "HB01" and attempt to connect. The system connected to both my iPhone 6 and Moto X (2014) without any issues and gives you a vocal prompt over the car stereo to let you know that a device is connected. Generally a device in this price range will only give you LED queues to let you know it is connected and the vocal sounds help give a more premium feel to the Himbox HB01.

You can even pair multiple devices if you or anyone else you share your car with wants to use the device seamlessly.

The controls on the device itself are fairly simple to understand and to navigate on the control disk. The disk features a large round center button that can be pressed for playing or pausing the current track on your device. Long pressing this button for 1-2 seconds will prompt Siri voice search on an iPhone device without any issues, Cortana on Windows Phone, and also bring up Google Voice Dialer on an Android. The device would open the full Google Now search only when the screen on my phone was already on once the button was pressed. This is common on many Bluetooth devices connecting to Android. The center button also answers a call when the device is ringing and can redial the last call when double pressing the device. The only other buttons are for skipping tracks back and forward with a single press and turning the volume up and down with a long press.

Driving With Himbox

Operation for use every day is rather simple once the device is plugged in and your phone is paired. You can even pair multiple devices if you or anyone else you share your car with wants to use the device seamlessly. When your vehicle stereo is in the "AUX" or auxiliary mode, you will hear the voice prompt to notify you that your Bluetooth paired device is connected and ready to stream media. You can then press the large play center play/pause button once the connection is made and the music on your device will play.

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Using the HB01 to answer a call is easy as you simply press the large round button to answer once the phone is ringing. The voice quality is good coming from the incoming call, but sound quality can be faint on the other end depending on where you've placed the control disc that contains the microphone. In the 2005 Honda Element we used for the test, we had it originally mounted closer to the passenger side and moved it closer to the drive to improve call quality. Overall, the sound quality was as good as many of the newer in-car systems when the mic in an ideal position.

Conclusion

The iClever Himbox HB01 system may be the most functional way to add both Bluetooth audio streaming and hands-free calling to your older car. The AUX and 12 volt charging port on the Honda Element we tested the system in is not as ideal for hiding the cords and can seem cluttered. But for many, with the AUX port hidden in a glove compartment or center console, the Himbox HB01 will be a great hidden solution to connect your car to your phone. Feel free to ditch any aftermarket Bluetooth hands-free systems and separate Bluetooth audio dongles as the Himbox is the best combination to handle both worlds.

Highs

Simple controls and operation
Helpful voice and tonal prompts
Phone, Media, and Siri capabilities

Lows

Call sound quality can be quiet

iClever Himbox HB01 Bluetooth 4.0 Hands-Free Car Kit Competitors

Car Seat Headrest – Teens Of Style | Album Reviews ...

Posted: 21 Oct 2015 09:01 PM PDT

car seat headrest - teens of style album matador

B-

Will Toledo is a 23-year-old songwriter who sometimes sounds like he's 30 and sometimes sounds like he's 17. At all times, he sounds like he needs to unplug his computer and get out of the bedroom in which he presumably wrote most of the songs on Teens of Style, the Matador debut from his solo project-turned-band, Car Seat Headrest. Under that moniker, Toledo has released 11 albums on Bandcamp over the last four years, building up a passionate fanbase even as it became apparent that he was still learning from his mistakes.

Now that he's signed to Matador, you'd think that Toledo would want to wipe the slate clean and start fresh as the label's next surefire indie success. But he's kept the old Bandcamp for posterity, even going so far as to tag it with a self-effacing plea to the music press: "DO NOT LINK THE NUMBERED ALBUMS BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT VERY GOOD." In an online world in which everyone is trying to control every single aspect of their image, there's something refreshing about a guy who's willing to leave the uglier parts of his story on the table for scrutiny. Then again, that same ugliness is a big part of what got him here in the first place.

Those who are coming to Car Seat Headrest with a fresh set of ears will have no trouble spotting the influences that fueled the creation of Teens of Style. The album is a compilation that repackages the best of Toledo's bedroom indie rock from over the years, but it could just as easily be mistaken for a compilation of artists that once appeared on Matador themselves. There's the droll, meandering vocal delivery of Pavement's Stephen Malkmus, a dense whirlpool of guitars à la Guided by Voices, and a strange kind of intimacy that's reminiscent of early Modest Mouse. Even though he's got a full band to back him now, Toledo still sing-slurs like he just tossed back a bottle of wine and stumbled into a confessional booth by himself. The results are inspired and cringe-worthy by turns, with enough lightning flashes of wisdom to balance out the rolling thunder of narcissism, teen angst, and 21st century trivialities.

On Teens of Style, Toledo often comes across as a teen who still needs to do some growing up, but his keen sense of wordplay and penchant for profundity suggest that growing up is not a prerequisite for genius. He seems to delight in subverting expectations mid-line, twisting one sentiment around to mean another thing entirely. "I haven't looked at the sun for so long," he croons on opening track "Sunburned Shirts", all while banging out a chord progression that registers as anthemic and even hopeful. It's all very uplifting, at least until he follows that up with, "I'd forgotten how much it hurt to."

These tiny gut punches show up everywhere on the album, as does the theme of being suffocated by expanding possibilities. The subject of "Sunburned Shirts" sounds almost afraid to leave his room, like an abused animal who has learned to distrust everything outside his cage. "Something Soon" also evokes feelings of suffocation, albeit with far more urgency. "Heavy boots on my throat/ I need, I need something soon," Toledo practically screams in the chorus, and each repetition of that vague plea — "I need something" — only underscores how the most desperate desires are oftentimes the least defined.

With that being said, Teens of Style really seems to find itself as soon as "Something Soon" kicks in. The song's dominant mode is catharsis, and it uses the language of punk to maximum efficiency. Power chords, a huge sing-along chorus, and the general sense of being misunderstood — they're all there, and they show how effective Toledo can be when he steps out of the bedroom and fully embraces the tropes of rock music. "Times to Die" may go over the deep end by equating the music industry to a mystical religious order, but at least it does so with the right kinds of sonic flourishes. The overlapping vocals in the song's chorus are truly inspired, and they represent all the voices in Toledo's head that are just now getting the chance to spill out into the world.

"Spill" is the key word here, because Teens of Style can also be a bit of a mess. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it surely jives with the band's aesthetic, but a bit more editing might have made the album's highs feel higher. Several songs overstay their welcome by at least a couple of minutes, with "Strangers" slowly meandering its way into a coda that should have been the central hook and "Los Borrachos (I Don't Have Any Hope Left, But the Weather Is Nice)" proving nearly as bloated as its title. The one exception is the slow-burning "Maud Gone", a six-minute heartbreaker that revolves around a single catchy synth line that will stay in your head for days. This tune really warrants the space it gets to unfold, while the others risk leaving the listener exhausted. "I want to talk like Raymond Carver," Toledo sings at one point, and he'd do well to take that storyteller's lessons to heart and just get to the point.

Of course, maybe this lack of tidiness is the point. The early 20s are a weird time in anyone's life, a kind of purgatorial state that seems made for mistakes and experimentation. Teens of Style has plenty of both, but it's somehow all the more charming for it. This is an album that will grow on you and frustrate you, probably within the span of the same day. The best approach is simply to take it for what it is: a document, like Toledo's persistent Bandcamp page, of change in its rawest and purest form.

Essential Tracks: "Something Soon", "Times To Die", and "Maud Gone"

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Thursday 22 October 2015