Windows Phone Thoughts: Talking on the Wind -- the Helium Digital Bluetooth Communicator HDBT-110

In the Car
When I first started reading the promotional material on the Communicator (in advance of actually arriving), I was struck by the reference to a “unique magnetic mounting system”. I have to admit, my first thought was “How will this work?" As far I remember, practically everything on the dash of my car is either cloth or plastic! Well, I have to admit, I was very pleasantly surprised. The package comes with two very cool mounting attachments – one for the visor, and another which can be clipped into the ventilation grille.

The visor one is simply a U-shaped piece of springy metal (see package contents above) which slides onto the visor. There is an indentation built into the straight piece of metal which exactly fits the magnets on the bottom of the Communicator. Although the magnets are not super strong and don't give that satisfying 'clunk' when they've attached, everything seemed to stay in place well. I never got the feeling the Communicator was going to come flying off the mounting on a sudden stop.


Figure 7: The Communicator mounted on the Visor.

The ventilator grille mounting is pretty ingenious. It consists of a flat piece of metal with the same indentations to match the magnets, and a slot for a plastic clip. (You can see them on the far right of the package contents photo.) The plastic clip can be slid onto the metal in either of two orientations, depending upon whether your ventilation grilles go up-and-down or side-to-side. Once the clip is on the metal strip, the whole thing is clipped onto one of the louvers of the ventilation grille and voila... you how have a magnetic mount for the Communicator!


Figure 8: Here's the mounting system clipped into the ventilator grille.


Figure 9: Mounted on the ventilator grille. With the blinking LEDs, the kids think the van feels like a spaceship. :-)

The Communicator worked very well in my van. Noise reduction was very good. The people I talked to noted very clear reception, even with the radio on (albeit low), and I was able to hear them with no problem. There is easily sufficient volume in the unit to hear your callers, even with fairly noisy road surfaces. It might be a bit hard to hear though, with the windows open while traveling at high speed. :-) I didn't try responding to call from the 2nd or 3rd row of back seats in the van, but imagine it would work alright if the interior was fairly quiet (i.e. windows rolled up). The only downside was driving at night, when it was difficult to see where the buttons were located and I had to feel my way to the correct one. It would be great if the next version had luminescent or back-lit labels for the buttons.