Jupiter Jack offers to turn your car radio into a cellphone's speakerphone but it does not always work
We had high expectations for the Jupiter Jack. It’s promise was to turn your car radio radio into a speakerphone for your cell phone and it promised to do it for $20. $20 for a full stereo speakerphone is a frugal tech’s dream so we scoffed up the cheap device, so nicely pitched by the now deceased star pitchman, Billy Mays.
Using it was a snap as advertised. Simply unpackage it, plug it into the headphone jack on your cell phone, then tune your radio to 99.3Fm and voila! Hands free, high fidelity driving. While driving while using your mobile isn’t a terrific idea, hands free is preferred over using your handset certainly and Jupiter Jack promised a remarkable opportunity to make our chatting lives on our mobile easier.
We tested the Jupiter Jack first, from our Beck’s Cafe parking lot. It worked incredibly well. My Blackberry Curve on Verizon Wireless was clear sounding and static free. The receiver caller in our tests had a Samsung clam shell type phone on Verizon Wireless. I had placed the phone down on the passenger seat, turned on my phone then tuned in 99.3 and Jupiter Jack supplied the link to our car stereo to create a clear stereo sound on my receiving calls and clear sounding calls on the sending side. It was that easy.
But before we continued our test we noticed some annoyances. The Jupiter Jack seemed to require us to play around too much with the radio and phone so that we were listening to the radio, then getting a call, then shifting back to 99.3. Easy enough of course but it felt awkward and just as much a distraction while driving as any other method. But for $20 whose to argue?
We then gave it a road test and this is where Jupiter Jack failed for us. We were driving down a major highway in the Boston Area and the Jupiter Jack transmission was garbled and static filled on the sending end and the receiving end. Our call receiving tester was using a Blackberry Curve on Verizon Wireless as well, so we could reasonably limit the variables in our testing. Once we did the math of having to muck around tuning in channels when receiving a call plus poor call reception and the Jupiter Jack was less a Frugal Tech’s dream and more a hassle to use; plus we’re out $20. Jupiter Jack is a nifty idea but for The Frugal Tech an idea can’t just be cheap it has to work well; it has to be a good value for the consumer. Jupiter Jack, unfortunately, is not. You can read more reviews of Jupiter Jack at Amazon and at Does The Product Work.
Hieeeeeeee and enjoying a good laugh …
How many clues does it take to figure out this or any product sold by a dead guy and all those other Carnival Hawkers is not going to work.
Gee did you buy a Ginsu with a limetime warrenty … dahhhhhhh who’s lifetime yours or theirs … lol.
And if I hear that guy say “Your going to love my nuts” one more time I am going to scream.
The world already things we are stupid and buying anything from a TV add is even better proff that we are also as gullible as all heck.
You bought something from a dead guy ????? Rebecca hon, I have lost a bit of respect for a friend I always thought was incredibly intelligent … lmao.
Talk soon.
Sigh I know. The Frugal Tech is truly an eternal optimist about good stuff being cheap. Alot of what we review has been super. Like Fax Zero for example. That service rocks whether the free version or the pay version. And Remember The Milk is such a good service too, in either free or pay versions. And hey for $10 the George Forman Grille is knockout superstar in our kitchen now.
So we sometimes get it right and then sometimes….well sometimes we pick up a Jupiter Jack and hey Billy was SO convincing on the infomercial; calling to me spookily from the great Infomercial Beyond to try the Jupiter Jack and find hands free mobile phone chatty nirvana. I had dreams of chatting with our readers in stereo whilst I sipped a chilled espresso and hurtled down the highway. But, it’s spotty at best really. So it’s true Nikki….The Frugal Tech is both eternal optimist and, umm, gullible. But in a sweet kinda way
I also take in stray cats and down on their luck inventors. And yes, I did buy a Ginsu knife…I couldn’t help myself it seemed so good. Amazingly, I actually did cut a muffler off an old car with it and then slice up a tomato for my lunch time salad.
Happy New Years
~*Becki*~
can you turn a regular radio into a phone some how
Hi Tara,
Thanks for visiting Beck’s Cafe and leaving a comment! That’s a good question, I don’t know any other technology that might transmit your cell phone through your car stereo. I’ve finally given up and purchased Motorola’s T215 Bluetooth In Car Speakerphone. So far so good. It sounds great for both the person I am calling and for me listening. And they were on sale at Verizon Wireless so I saved some money and can drive safer now.
I hope this helps,
Becki
How did you get the Jupiter Jack to work with your BB Curve? I can’t figure out how to use the speakerphone when the JJ is plugged into the phone, it seems to think I have headphones in so the speakerphone doesn’t work. Is there a setting to change? Hmmm…thanks for any help.
Rachel
Hi Rachel – Thank you for visiting Beck’s Cafe and leaving your comment. We didn’t have to fiddle with it at all actually, we just plugged it in and it worked smoothly. That was the nice part for us anyway, the setup was easy but the rest of our testing is where it didn’t really hold up. I’m sorry we couldn’t be more helpful!
Becki