iLuv I701 Digital FM Radio Transmitter (White)

We used this to broadcast our drive-in church. It worked for about two rows of 10 cars spaced 6 feet apart. We went online and found the quietest spot we could on the FM dial, which helped a great deal on the range and interference. We change the battery every time just to be sure. For $20 it was a lifesaver during COVID-19. We put this outside on a shelf as close to the cars as we could with a 15' audio 3.5mm extension cable from a small soundboard's tape out RCA jack to 3.5mm adapter cable. I would not try to run this inside and expect the cars to hear the signal. It is advertised to be an around the house broadcaster and that is the performance we got out of ours.

Just by the radio

I wished I hadn't wasted my money buying this. I used to have a nice radio transmitter for my mp3 player where it was like a dial on the radio and when the station came in, it was in nice. I lost that one. So I bought this, but this, you have to go through clicking on ALL the stations before getting a signal and even THEN, it's staticy. Any station that my songs would play--they would all turn out staticy! Forget this piece of TRASH and maybe pick up some speakers, that's what I did.

Arrived within a few days in an original package. Works fine with 2 AAA batteries, consuming 50mA at 1.5 Volts (good for about 20 hours). When the voltage drops, the current increase. With external power supply it works fine if the voltage is exactly 3V. If it is slightly higher, you get a fine whistling noise in the background of the received music. The spec says "transmitting range: 50 ft". I get it in my car at up to about 200ft. The transmitter circuit runs internally on 5 volts, provided by an up-converter circuit, running of the 3 volts batteries or the external power. I use my iLuv to deliver music from my computer to my FM radios and receiver around the house. I connected 5 volts (from my computer through a USB connector) directly to the output points of the up-converter and the unit sends hi-fi stereo music without the whistling noise. It is running 24/7 for the last 5 weeks.

I use this for drive-in movie nights in my yard, and was impressed with the range. Broadcasts clearly to a car 150 feet or more away (unobstructed). Much further than similar products. Great sound, and very simple to use.

I have used a few of these devices over the years and this one works the best. Good range and battery life. Unrestricted choice of frequencies.

i returned this piece of junk, its not anything like the product description. barely works and i tried every channel and still doesnt work. music is very unclear and static-distorted. i got this thing for my 2002 civic becuase i wanted to plug my iPod in. save the money and hassle of buying it (and most likely returning it) and go get you another car stereo installed that has an mp3 jack, thats what i did, you can get an affordable one and not have to spend a fortune.

iLuv is relatively small and thin. Easy to carry around, will fit almost anywhere. Uses standard 3.5mm stereo audio connector. It is in no way iPod specific. I guess it has "i" in the name because every cool device these days has "i" in the name. You can use iLuv with anything. Laptops, MP3 players, Walkmans, CD players, anything standard. And with iPod too. Of course, if your device has non-standard connector (most mobile phones for example) you are out of luck. It uses AAA batteries, which is not really a good thing. However, given that device is too thin for AA batteries, I'm not going to hold it against it. BTW, may I suggest rechargeables to everybody who bitches about price of AAA batteries. There is a 3V connector on it, so you don't need batteries if you have 12V to 3V adapter for car. I just got iLuv today, so can't really comment on battery life. It's been turned on for the whole afternoon with used batteries (that I pulled out of my old FM transmitter), and it still works. It covers the full FM frequency range in 0.1 MHz increments. You can set it to virtually any unused FM slot. As far as I can tell, it stays at the dialed frequency and doesn't "pollute" reception of nearby stations (translated, your neighbors will not hate you). However, the range is very limited. You probably want to keep it no more than 10 feet or so from the antenna of your radio. If you are looking into buying it for use in car, this is not a problem. Tested. I placed it at the worst position in car, furthers away from antenna, and the sound quality was still good. If you want to transmit to the room on the other end of a house, you'll be very disappointed. It simply doesn't have enough juice for that. There's some audible white noise when there's no input signal, but not any worse than some other devices I had in my hands. Don't expect miracles from something in this price range. If you'll be using it in a car (use most folks are buying this devices for), don't worry about it at all. Even if you have very quiet car, you won't notice this at all. On the other hand, if you are audio perfectionist, you'll probably have to spend much more money for something better. Conclusion. iLuv is no worse then what I read in reviews for most other FM transmitters. It is way better then my old Radio Shack branded one.