Customer Ratings & Reviews

Key Features GPS Tracking Vehicle Diagnostics Wi-Fi Mobile Hotspot Gas Buddy Fuel Station Finder INITIAL SET-UP The Harman Spark promises a convenient way to communicate with your vehicle and understand what is going on in an easy-to-use mobile phone-based app. The theory behind the Harman Spark is solid and ambitious, but the actual execution falls short, as the degree of usefulness really depends upon the age of your vehicle. The Spark combines several features into one device, that tries to make vehicle ownership and maintenance much more convenient. The Spark has a lot of features packed into its relatively small package, including: 4G LTE Connectivity & Mobile Hotspot, GPS, WiFi, etc. The Spark is designed to work with vehicles, 1996 and newer that have an OBD-II diagnostics port under the dash. Once you download the Harman Spark app to your phone of choice, you plug the Spark into the diagnostics port of your vehicle. The Spark draws power from the constant 12V pin that is in all OBD-II ports. Once, plugged in and that app opened, you turn your car on and the Spark begins its communications with the vehicles computer system. I tried the Spark on several different vehicles and it never failed to accurately identify my vehicle, not only by make and model, but also by VIN. Initial switching of my vehicles seemed to trip up the device, but come to find out, it appears the device takes a few minutes to successfully communicate with the vehicle, phone home, and then download the data it needs to communicate successfully with the car. USE Other than plugging the Spark into your car’s OBD-II port, there is not anything else mechanically to do. Everything else is handled via the Spark app. That is great feature, as it makes this an easy mission for even the most technically challenged individuals. The Spark app is really a driving nanny & potentially a tattle tale that has a bunch of nice features. Not only will the Spark serve as a mobile vehicle Wi-Fi hotspot, but it also has many other practical uses too. The app will send you notifications if the device is removed from the car’s diagnostics port, if you are running low on fuel, if it detects that the vehicle is being towed, or if there is some sort of measured disturbance (usually a door opening or jostling of the vehicle) to name a few. Those are great features. In addition to the instant notifications, the Spark can be set to notify you if your car enters or leaves a preset boundary (great if your teenager does not let you know they are “borrowing” the car). The app can be set to notify you if it is operated outside of user defined curfew hours (again awesome with teen drivers). It will log all trips and if the Spark detects an impact, the app and device can be configured to automatically notify your user defined emergency contacts. AWESOME!! NEGATIVES I have also observed several noteworthy negatives about this unit while I’ve been testing it. First. The most obvious negative, is that this cannot be considered a real theft deterrent device. Any thief with an ounce of sense would check the OBD-II port and given the size of this device, it is easily visible in all my vehicles. So, it isn’t like installing it will make it a hidden gem for car owners or parents. While you would get a notification the device was detached, that last spot would be the last spot you would see on the app. Second. The parameters that the Spark and Spark app record are not configurable. For example, if you make a turn, the Spark determines if you made a hard turn or a good turn. The Spark determines if you make a hard stop or hard acceleration. These parameters are not configurable, nor is the low fuel notification. Add to that, the level of fuel reported by the spark app was inconsistent as to what was displayed on the fuel gauge of my vehicles. The worst part is the disturbances feature. There is no way to adjust the sensitivity of this. I got several disturbances detected false alarms while my Tundra was parked in the garage and no one else was home. Hmmmmm… Third. For this device to function as intended, you must buy a mobile data plan. This unit came with an AT&T sim that always worked excellently in our urban environment. But, this tech also significantly increases the overall cost of ownership, as you are basically buying an additional cellular plan for the device. That can be quite expensive, as most plans are at least $30/month, especially if you want unlimited hotspot data. The last and most significant negative of this unit is that it flat out does not work correctly with every vehicle manufactured after 1996. This unit worked as advertised on a 2000 era Jeep and on a 2014 Tundra. It added features to the vehicles that were not available when they were produced. However, on my new Acura, it was a different story. This device literally locked me out of my vehicle and if it wasn’t for the backup key inside the fob, would have rendered me stranded. My keyfob failed to work with my car and my touch sensitive door handles failed to unlock my door. I could not get in the vehicle. Luckily, Acura gives you a backup key and I was able to get in and unplug the Spark. I know the first thing Harman is going to do is blame the driver or vehicle. But this was not a one-time occurrence. I was able to repeat these same traits a couple of weeks later. This device interrupts communications with my car. It rendered many systems inoperable. This was indeed vehicle specific, as the Jeep and Tundra didn’t have any issues, but it totally interrupts vehicle communications on my Acura. This was proven in at least 3 separate instances and 3 separate times, even with the most recent firmware installed on the device. CONCLUSIONS Based on my experience with this device, your level of success will largely depend upon the year of your vehicle. From what I can tell, owners of vehicles manufactured between 1996 and 2015 will likely see the biggest benefits of the device, as it brings technology that wasn’t readily available to those vehicles. However, many, if not all, the features that the Spark offers are currently available in cars today. Most new cars have hotspots built-in, impact detection and emergency services notifications, etc. If not, most cell phones have this built-in and if they don’t, these features can be added with a free app, or an app provided by your insurance company. Why spend the extra money for a data plan for the Spark? Lastly, based on the issues this device causes with my newest vehicle, I can’t recommend it. Many manufacturers don’t include the spare key like Acura does. If not, I’m not sure what would have happened. Shame on me for not testing the device more thoroughly before installing it and driving to test it, but I won’t be keeping it around after the evaluation period. If I want the features this device offers, I’ll download a free app for my phone and use its unlimited data plan. The same goes for my new vehicle, I’ll either use a free phone app & its unlimited data tethering or use the vehicle’s fully integrated and factory installed technology that works 100% of the time every time. Plus, I will still be able to actually get in my car and drive. What a concept. Not recommended.

My Jeep Gladiator Sport is basic (I didn't need every option) and this device seemed like a great way to add Wi-Fi, while also getting some pretty cool vehicle data via a phone app. I have to park it in a garage a few blocks away from my building downtown, so the disturbance and impact detection give me some peace of mind (especially having a soft top). When my oldest daughter starts driving in a few years I could also see the driving behavior information and alerts it provides being very useful; it also confirmed that I am a pretty good driver (despite what my wife claims). Pros - Wi-Fi works well. My wife and daughters use it often to stream videos while I use it for navigation and streaming music. My younger daughter has an older iPad with no data service, so this allows her to watch videos and play games in my Jeep. I even had to connect my work phone to it on one trip, when I could not get a signal (different carrier). - Easily access real time vehicle location data, current speed, status. - Provides some basic vehicle health data and ability to read codes in the event of check engine light (my vehicle is newer, so I didn't get to test reading codes and compare it to a traditional scanner). - Driving behavior scoring and trip data. - You can set vehicle status alerts like curfew violations, location boundaries, impact and disturbance detection, vehicle being towed, vehicle left idling (see my note below). - Impacts alerts can be sent via text to a preset emergency contact list. Things to Consider - The size is not bad, but it must stay plugged in to the car's OBD port and it may stick into the footwell depending on your car. It was tolerable in my Jeep and I forgot it was there after a few days. - This device requires an ATT data or telematics plan to work, which adds to the overall cost of ownership. - Wi-Fi only works when you are driving the car - it eventually times out if parked (this really limits its overall usefulness compared to a normal hotspot). - Vehicle status alerts work, but I did experience a few issues. I could not get the vehicle speed alert to work. Impact detected alerts are often delayed by 5 minutes or so. Occasionally I have gotten vehicle idling or being towed false alerts (seems it sometimes missed the ignition being cycled on/off or was confused by placing the vehicle in accessory to listen to the radio). - Setting up some alerts (like a curfew) required turning on the ignition, but the app didn't explain this - I had to figure it out thru trial and error. - I contacted Harman support about a question on setup. The experience was less than ideal. They only provide a contact email and there is limited support in the app. They are available for support only during normal business hours. After waiting about 24hrs the response I received was a canned email. It is not perfect, but I would still recommend considering it due to the combination of Wi-Fi and telematics it offers. I could see it being useful on a family car where Wi-Fi is a benefit and you need to keep an eye on certain drivers. Since my daughters have a few years before they start driving, I am not sure if I will continue to use this device due to the delayed alerts and monthly cost.

Wifi hotspot works great in the car. 100% signal strength and fast.

Bought the Spark because we travel a lot and most of the time it’s hard to get connected to hot spots. I’m hoping that our next trip will be great.

This product – the Harman Spark 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot – is the second generation Spark made for the AT&T network. The Spark is made to plug into your car’s OBD2 port (usually located under the dash below the steering wheel) – a port common on cars made after 1996. I tested the Spark out on several cars over the last month and a half. I want to note that I do not have a phone with AT&T – my plan is through T-Mobile and my partner’s is through Verizon. To start the main difference I can see between the 1st gen Spark and the V2 is the use of a removable SIM card. Apparently, the 1st gen had an imbedded SIM – if it became corrupted or needing replacement the entire device would be taken offline. With the V2 to SIM card is removable so if you ever encounter SIM issues its as easy as swapping the SIM out on your phone. The Harman Spark is carrier locked to AT&T, so it will only work on their network under an AT&T mobile hotspot device plan. This can be under its own standalone plan or added to an existing plan. The Spark plugs into your car’s diagnostic port, which powers the hotspot and provides a Wi-Fi connection for up to 8 devices. The Spark remains active 15 min after your car has been turned off or after 30 min of your vehicle being stationary. You have no way to change these times. The Spark offers features like vehicle status and diagnostics, telematics (GPS location, speed), trip tracking, geofencing/boundary areas, and some physical alerts (car getting bumped or moved while parked). I tried the Spark out in 4 different vehicles: 2014 Mazda CX-5, 2020 Nissan Armada, 2004 Ford Ranger, and 2021 Nissan Altima. As you can see I tried it across a range of years and manufacturers with half of the vehicles having manual transmissions – I wanted to see if this changed any of the info the Spark reported, but it didn’t. I had no issue installing the Spark into any one of these cars. The Armada was the only vehicle with any onboard GPS and remote services already built into the vehicle – no built in hot spot though. I live in the St. Louis metro area which has pretty good AT&T coverage throughout. I had no issue getting signal on the Spark and maintaining a solid data connection with fast speeds. This is what I expected to a certain extent. I made sure to travel outside of the metro area where historically AT&T gets a little spotty. I traveled up to Chicago (I-55 and I-57) for a little trip as well as to Kansas City (I-70). On both trips the Spark held a consistent connection with only a few spotty areas in each. In both cases my partner and I had better thoughput on our respective networks in those areas – just the way it goes sometimes. The trip to Chicago also included our kids and their devices. We had a couple of tablets, a Chromebook, and a Nintendo DS connected to the hotspot without any issues. In Chicago we maintained a good connection throughout with a few exceptions. I had to restart/unplug the Spark a couple of times after we did underground parking at the museums. It happened twice and both times the Spark refused to reconnect the Wi-Fi or work with the app. I unplugged the device and plugged it back in and it came back on. There were the only 3 times that this happened, and 2 of them came after underground parking. Using the Harman Spark+ app is pretty straightforward. The app shows your cars location on a map as well as some other items – fuel level, speed, trip counter, and vehicle health. Within the app you can define a number of things. You can set up boundary zones, enact notifications for crashes, if a certain speed is exceeded, and a curfew. These are mostly nanny features that would allow a parent or whomever to monitor the vehicle. For parents, this allows you to check your child’s whereabouts, make sure they aren’t driving recklessly (speeding, hard turning, hard braking), and that they arrived at the destination. Some of these can be a little overbearing, but it can give the owner of the car some piece of mind. I setup a boundary zone around my house and office as well as a curfew, and speed limit just to see what the app would do. Surprisingly the boundaries are really accurate and consistent with the notifications. I got used to hearing my phone ding at a particular intersection that my defined boundary passed through. Curfew worked as well and was easy to report. The speed limit one was a bit trickier. I had to exceed my limit by a few MPH for about 30 seconds before it would report that I went over. Overall these features worked pretty well for me. Use cases for this would be someone who travels for work in their car. They might need the hotspot to connect a laptop or any other device. I found that having my (and my partner’s) phones on different networks from the Spark gave us plenty of redundancy in case we were in an area with poor signal strength. The main groups I feel this device targets are families travelling with kids and all of their connected devices. That is the biggest use I got out of the Spark, The other big use I can see is for a parent that wants to monitor their child’s driving. This use case starts floating into helicopter/overbearing parent stage. I think the features can absolutely be used in the right way – don’t want your kid speeding you can set a limit; they are supposed to be somewhere at a certain time you can create a boundary that checks them in to you. I really only had one criticism with the Spark and that was with the Wi-Fi hot spot – specifically its timeout times. I have a compact enough property that my car being in the garage allows me to stay connected to the Spark even after I have parked it and gone about my business inside. So many times have I had to manually change to my home network because I was still connected to the Spark – it takes 15 min to turn off the hotspot after you have turned off your car. I would love a geofencing feature that turned off the hotspot once you get home. Overall the Spark is a good little device that provide a little extra life to older cars without built in Wi-Fi. It worked well for 99% of the time with only a few issues, which were pretty minor. I liked the Spark a lot and can definitely see its usefulness.

I have been using this interesting product for almost two months. It is shaped somewhat like a fat thumb drive and plugs into the OBD-II port on your car. The OBD port, you say, where is that? It is usually underneath your dashboard, and sometimes hard to find. The Spark device plugs into it and receives both voltage to power it as well as the diagnostic data from your car. One problem I have had during its usage is getting the Spark to stay in place. Because of the position of the OBD-2 port on my Honda Accord, it was easy to knock the device out of the port an onto the floor of the car as I got out of the car. This happened four or five times and was probably unique to my vehicle. I did not feel the contact with the unit or hear anything when this happened. The included software immediately sent me a phone message, alerting me to plug the unit back in. What does the Spark do? Lots. It contains an LTE 4G SIM from AT&T and provides an in-vehicle hotspot for both your devices and those of your passengers to keep a constant connection to the internet. This is a great convenience on the road, and the quality of the connection depends on the distance between your car and AT&T towers offering service. Speed was more than serviceable in our area, and more than adequate for mobile devices, usually averaging about 30mps for downloads and 10 to 15gbs for uploads. You can connect up to 8 devices. The Spark records every aspect of your vehicle’s performance and notifies you of a problem or an issue that needs to be serviced. I have not had any major problems with my car during my testing but would have been notified had they arisen. The alerts are issued to your smartphone by the Harmon software. You are reminded of the status of your fuel, whether the device has been removed, whether you have exceeded the speed limit, whether your vehicle is being towed, running idle for an inordinate amount of time, and whether there has been any disturbance while the vehicle is parked. When you go to your car and open the door, you may get a notice that there has been a disturbance. This warning would certainly be triggered if someone tried to break into your car. As I type this, the software tells me my fuel level is at 23 per cent and normal, battery is at 13.1 volts and normal, engine coolant temperature is 190 degrees and normal, and air intake temperature was recorded at 125 degrees and normal. The software also provides navigation services and tells you from your office or your home the exact location of your vehicle. I am sitting in my office, and the software now shows my car parked with a map of its location. It does without saying that if you had a small fleet of vehicles, you would be able to monitor their location at all times using this software. You can also set up boundaries for usage and be alerted if the driver exceeds the defined area. The software records the driving habits of the operator and makes recommendations for safety. If you must know, I scored well and was never reprimanded or told to slow down. You can also summon roadside assistance and make parking reservations and pay for both inside the app. The monthly charge to use this service may be a small premium to pay for the great utility, convenience and safety it offers to the users of the protected vehicles.

I hope this note sparks your interest (see what I did there?) and that you and your household find value in this Harman Spark! At first glance it looks like another gimicky item that might add value to your car but does it really? I'm here to say that this is the first car item I have gotten in a while that is legit a game changer. The Wi-Fi hotspot is amazing. I'll say that again, AMAZING! I have a few in car items that require internet connection and becuase I had to manually use my phone before I just gave up. Now I hop in my car and streaming radio, tech assistants, and more are set to go. Alerts are always great, and my phone gives them to me but now my car can talk to me! With Spark's vehicle notifications anytime someone goes to my car just to grab something i'm alerted that there is a distrubance. It doesn't sound flashy but we alwasy want something when we can't have it and i'm appreciative that in the event my car is hit or broken into when i'm not around i'll have a notice. The driving notes are neat because I know that my insurance might provide a discount for having a good driving score, the geo fences are great for that one family member you want to ensure doesn't leave a certain radius, and the virtual mechanice measures: battery, coolant, and aire intake. I expected more and especially something that deciphers those dark dashboard lights more closely but i'm sure it will evolve. Overall, I am imensely pleased and will be looking into getting some for our small business.

I had difficulty finding a 4g carrier/att also put up they no longer worked with “Spark” and the reason was they only lifted 5g or better. They quoted “we can’t sign up a 3g or even 4g ever again, everything will be 5g only”! Crazy Stuff Potatoe/sign off

Unfortunately after 2 hours on the phone with AT&T, despite being a long time customer with 6 active unlimited lines, I went through half a dozen AT&T tech folks, who sent me to Harman Spark tech support, which sent me back to AT&T.. Who tried to send me back again.. I bounced around several departments at AT&T and none of them even knew what this product was (even though they sell it, and it’s livened FOR AT&T). So after hours wasted just trying to activate the device, I gave up. I’d already escalated the issue to the most inept AT&T manager possible, who just tried every single thing the techies before him had been doing over and over for two hours.. No, the connected car department cannot help.. No the mobile activation department cannot help. Literally all I needed was a monthly service to Harman Spark.” That’s it.. I could even see it on the AT&T website. Yet nobody had a clue, and I had to activate over the phone and not the internet for some dumb security reason. At this point I’ve given up on this. I have a dual sim iPhone. I’ll just continue with the already good service I get in my car over iOS. I had high hopes though.. I really did.

This was pretty inexpensive and works well to provide in-vehicle wifi. Now my after-market screen connects on its own line.

Good value for the price, was the cheepest one I could find in store. However it is a payed subscription to use.

Never used the unit because the plans advertised for this product no longer exist through AT&T. Went into AT&T store as advised by the web instructions. 1. No more $25 plan for up to 22GB 2. No pre-paid plan as one would think because of advertised data caps. 3. New plans are $40 per 10GB

Great product for the price yet to activate all the “cool” features (GPS, Hotspot, Diagnostics, Car Health, Geo Fencing) you need to pay 40 dollars a month with AT&T. It’s 10 dollars just to run car diagnostics.

Works - sometimes. Definately need to activate with AT&T on its own; can't just pop in an already activated sim card. Check with Harmon customer service BEORE you buy - not guaranteed to work on all cars. Some newer models haven't been vetted yet. For example, works great in my 2018 Subaru. All funtions work - location, speed, and speed fuel level, hotspot. It does not work on my 2021 Hyundai. Location, fuel, speed are totally wrong. Wifi hotspot doesnt wsork at all in this car.

I drive an older vehicle, a 2003 Jetta. The Harman Spark provides features that weren't available when I bought this car - WiFi hotspot, vehicle diagnostics, trip recording, and driving score among other things. Those are the features I used most, you can set some driving parameters, which I guess are for parents who want to monitor/control their kids driving to some extent. The device is simple to use, just plug it into your car's ODB port. That's the plug-in port that dealers and other car services use to plug in diagnostic tools, usually found under the dash on the driver's side. So far the device hasn't reported any vehicle issues and I haven't had any issues so I don't know how accurate or reliable it might be in that regard. You can review your driving scores to see what aspects it thinks you can improve. The wifi hotspot enables you to turn off mobile data on your phone while in the car. If you have kids it would be good to use for their tablets or also turn off and save mobile data use on their phones. When I've used the WiFi, I haven't had any issues with connectivity or speed on my phone. It works just fine and my phone connects automatically when I start the car. Of course the negative is you have to sign up for an AT&T mobile data plan or add it to an existing plan to use the wifi feature which adds to the already somewhat high price. I don't think newer vehicle owners would benefit much from this device and if you have your insurance company's monitoring device installed then you already have trip information and driving score. And there are other plug-in devices available for less that have some of the same features. Unless you're considering this device specifically for the WiFi hotspot, you can save some money by getting another device for the functions you specifically want. That being said, if you're going to use the WiFi and you don't have any of these other features on any other device in your car then I would recommend it.

Previously reviewed underMSB1126 Activation took one week Have not used the device enough to evaluate If it works as advertised I will be happy. 3G Turndown necessitated this purchase

Harman Technology - Harman Spark 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot - Black is sparky.

Did not work and put check engine light on car even though it should have worked based on my vehicles year make and model. I ended up needing to take my car to shop just to clear check engine light. nothing was wrong with my vehicle other than plugging in this device. I even went to AT&T for their assistance with it but still did not work. Ended up having to return device. It was more of a headache/hassle than anything. Buyer Beware!

I have to return . ATT was not able to assist with enabling this device so I was not able to use this on my vacation.

Easy install. get best buy to set it up cause the people at at&t don't have a clue.