This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I really, really wanted to like the SiriusXM Tour Satellite Radio Receiver. I have been a Sirius subscriber for a couple of years now, after it was built into a new vehicle purchase and I discovered how much I like having access to Sports and News no matter where I am.
This review is not a knock on the service at all. If you’ve been thinking about Sirius radio there’s likely a few reasons why already: you want to hear LOTS of sports coverage of more than just your local teams, you live in an area where radio is hard to get, or you drive a lot in ‘spotty’ cell and radio coverage areas. Sirius is fantastic for all of those uses, and for specific needs is a pretty great system. The sound is crystal clear, digital quality for both sports and music.
I wasn’t happy that I had to pay to activate a second radio when my car activation was free, so that’s a bad start right from the get-go. Also, service to a second radio is barely discounted. Cable companies figured out a long time ago that you should simply charge for a ‘second device’ and leave it at that. Hopefully Sirius figures that out soon, as double the cost for radio in both cars simply isn’t worth it to me.
The radio itself looks good. The box contains an antenna with a very strong magnet designed for mounting on the outside of the car (in my experience it does not move even the slightest no matter what the driving conditions are)—this has a really long wire, and there are several instructional videos out there to help you figure out the best way to hide it. There are clips for a vent and a very secure dashboard mount to provide a few different options to place the receiver in the most convenient spot. There’s a ‘bracket’ that holds the receiver itself, and a ‘lighter’ power cord that plugs into the mount (not the receiver). There are also screws for mounting the receiver to the bracket, an auxiliary cord for direct plug-in to a receiver, and an instruction guide that covers most everything and has directions on how to find more detailed instructions if necessary.
Overall set-up was frustrating but not awful. My 2013 Honda had some connection issues through Bluetooth, but once installation and activation of the radio were complete it hasn’t had any issues with connecting. It did take a good ten minutes of attempting to pair before I was finally able to connect (using the forced pairing method—scanning never did work). I also attempted to connect to the internet since my wi-fi hits the driveway, but it wouldn’t acknowledge the connection (even though my phone connected to the same network with no issues). You can set up your phone for a ‘mobile hotspot’ for the radio to connect, but there’s a lot of drawbacks to that system. One of the benefits to this system should be that you don’t need to use your phone, but it works best with an internet connection as well as the antenna and in my car that means using my phone, too—definitely a drawback.
The receiver itself looks very nice but is extremely prone to fingerprints. The picture attached is after a day of use. I’ve taken to having a cloth to wipe it off with in the car. It is also extremely slow to boot up, sometimes taking up to four minutes to be ready for use! In my car that’s a huge hassle since my car wants to pair with my phone first. Some cars let you pick the order of connection, but even those will require going into the menu system and making sure it tries to find the radio for several minutes before defaulting to whatever phone it typically connects with. To use the receiver over Bluetooth I must either sit in my driveway while it powers up, then manually over-ride the phone connection or turn off Bluetooth on my phone. Either way it’s not ideal.
Beyond that the radio simply isn’t very responsive. More often than not I found myself hitting the same button over and over until I got a response or I gave up. In theory there’s a lot of good things on here, and when it’s working correctly and responds at the speed it should it’s a nice system. There are good menu groups such as news and sports that make sense and are easy to use—when it works. Also I did notice some of my favorite channels weren’t in any of the groups and had to be searched for manually (I couldn’t find the Dave Ramsey channel in any of the menu options, for instance).
Being able to save favorite channels and access them quickly is a great feature Again, quickly is the operative word, and sometimes it worked great and took me straight to the channel, other times I hit the button four or five times before getting a response or giving up entirely.
If you’re not connected to the internet, then some aspects of the radio don’t update at all. I listened to a few live games and noticed the scores didn’t update (it just gave an ‘updating’ message the entire time, even though the audio played). Scores display and update on the vehicle that has the built in Sirius receiver so I don't know what the issue is here, but I did notice when I tested it with my hotspot on the scores were updated and accurate.
The biggest issue with already being a Sirius subscriber is that I can already do everything this receiver does with the Sirius app on my phone, at no additional cost aside from the price of a phone dash mount. I was hoping this receiver would eliminate the need to stream through my phone, but it’s simply more convenient to continue using the app than it is to use this receiver. The app can stream all the channels, play my favorites and display scores as they happen, so technically it works better, particularly when considering my phone is already on and connects much faster to my radio Bluetooth than the receiver does.
Unfortunately, that defeats the purpose of using this receiver for me. I think this receiver could fit much more specific needs—areas without cell phone reception, or if your phone plan is simply too expensive to stream all the time.
I could also see using this receiver as part of a much larger interior home system with great success…but you’d need a different version of the mount, and a different power adapter (both of which I think are available)—and again, the Sirius app already does all of this. I would have been better served with a ‘dual’ system in one box and a mount that can work with either power system. As it is I likely won’t’ be using this at all.
