Review: MPOW Streambot Mini Bluetooth Receiver

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The MPOW Streambot Mini Bluetooth Receiver uses Bluetooth 4.1 with A2DP technology to control and stream high quality audio from Bluetooth enabled devices to a non-Bluetooth enabled audio player. In addition to the promised crystal clear sound, the receiver is a low power consumption device. That means you can listen to your music for up to 8 hours without having to charge your device. It only takes about an hour and half to charge it back to life.

You can control everything from the device. To answer,end, reject, or redial a call and to play/pause music just hit the round play/pause button the face of the device. To control the sound level there are “+”/ “-” buttons to do that. Just do a long press on those buttons to turn it up or down.

If you want to skip songs, use those same “+”/ “-” buttons but do a short press to skip forward and backwards.

Package Contents

1x Portable Bluetooth Receiver;
1x Micro USB charging cable;
1x 3.5mm audio Cable;
1x User Manual;

Warranty

Every MPOW product  comes with a  45 day money back & a 18 month worry-free warranty.

Review: MPOW Streambot Mini Bluetooth Receiver

After opening the packaging, I realized that this was a small light weight plastic receiver with a aluminum male-to-male audio plug. This is what I was looking for. But it feels cheap in my hand. But I kept an open mind because after all its plastic and some well built receivers are plastic and feel cheap but they have great sound.

After looking over the device and understanding how it functioned, I plugged it in to my USB Charging Hub.  Since it was mostly charged it took only about an hour to charge.

It easily synced to my LG G4 and iPhone 4. I plugged the receiver into my car’s audio port. I found the receiver doesn’t have the greatest length. I found that the receiver doesn’t do well if my phones were not very close to the receiver. If my phone is my pocket or sitting in my lap away from the receiver it gets choppy. This shouldn’t be an issue. My other receivers work through pockets, seats, and center console plastics without issue.

To resolve this issue, I decided it will be a car only device and my phones needed to be in the cell phone holder. Which sits directly in front of the receiver only a foot or two away.

As to using this device with other devices, I never really tried it. If I can’t use it when my phone is in a pocket, then it isn’t going to work for me when I want to turn my wired headset into a wireless device and keep my phone in my pocket as I work.

Listening to music and audiobooks sounds good. However, every once in a while it would loose connection (even a few feet in direct line of site of the receiver) or the sound starts popping and cutting in and out. If I reset the receiver it works fine again. Sometimes I had to restart the phone to clear up issues.

Charging while listening can’t be done. When plugged in, you can hear a humming sound. I think that comes from a poor design or the charging part of the receiver isn’t shielded enough to block that noise. other users say that you can. I have a hard time believing that it sounds good. On June 6th, 2017 I charged the device while listening music using an Anker power cord and it worked better. The humming sound was there when their wasn’t music playing.

So I use the receiver for up to eight hours and then disconnected it and listened using the audio cable while I charged the receiver over the next hour and half. On long road trips this isn’t ideal.

Also, many Bluetooth audio devices show a connected icon on a phone with battery life status for the Bluetooth device. The MPOW Streambot does not (just a connected icon) show the battery status unless your are using an iPhone. I noticed Android devices do not have the battery status icon. You have to track how often you use it or plug it in when you aren’t using it.

Overall, for the price its a decent little receiver and sounds good when its working. But, with reception issues, can’t charge while listening, and the no charging icon,  I can only recommend this for an entry / budge level device. If you have a little more money to spend, I would look some of the higher end devices.

If you want to give this receiver a try, it is currently listed for $12.99 ( listed as of 5/27/2017)

Below are 4 other options for MPAW. Check them out and see if these might work for you. I believe these may be newer and more advance version of this receiver. I haven’t had the chance to test these. But they look they might be a better option than this one.

A few weeks ago, Mpow read one of my reviews on Amazon about my disappointment on their Bluetooth Receiver and reached out to me to resolve the issue. To resolve the issue they offered to send me out another product to replace my Bluetooth Receiver. They gave me three great options to choose from. After some research I ended up going with the Mpow Bluetooth Receiver, Hands-Free Car Kit / Bluetooth Audio Music Receiver with Dual USB Car Charger & Ground Loop Noise Isolator for Car Audio System.