Nokia Wireless Audio Gateway AD-42W gets real

This doesn't come as a real surprise, given that the FCC approved it last month, but Nokia is getting official about its Wireless Audio Gateway, a Bluetooth device designed to stream audio from any A2DP device to a set of speakers. The unit comes with standard RCA jacks, and can be connected to a home stereo or powered speakers. Nokia expects to ship the AD-42W during the second quarter of this year; pricing has yet to be announced.

[Artur Kulczynski @ Mar 8th 2006 5:34PM]

Nokia seems to expect to ship a lot of things it seems but just is not managing to ship anything at all to this continent lately. They do seem to be shipping at least a portion of their operations out of here though. It will be glorious day here when they actually ship something to here for a change. By the way, do they actually update anything on their US website anymore? It seems that it hasn't changed in months.

[Curry @ Mar 8th 2006 6:29PM]

Unfortunately, there are no optical or coaxial digital audio outputs.

[Karl Viklund @ Mar 8th 2006 6:35PM]

What are you going to do with this? :)

[Allan @ Mar 8th 2006 7:11PM]

The function of this, I have reason to believe, will become much more apparent later down the road. Certain corporations known for their secrecy, naming no names, are working closely with Nokia. Nokia has probably been developing this for said certain company, and they have no reason not to drop their version on the market before said company becomes dominant. I guess I mean to say, think different-ly about what this could be for.

[sr @ Jun 30th 2007 2:11AM]

I doubt it, but thanks for correcting "Think Different."

[Clint @ Mar 8th 2006 7:17PM]

I can see myself buying this. My main computer is a laptop. I have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. The only periphreals I connect are power and my speakers.

With this device, when I don't need to recharge I don't have to hook anything up.

[Dennis @ Mar 8th 2006 7:58PM]

#4 was hilarious.

That looks like more than two speakers to me.

Maybe they threw in some RCA/optical thingie in there, but if they didn't do that on version one (available suspiciously in white), that wouldn't be too surprising.

The Nokia 770 launch was without much fanfare, even on the blogs. Nokia seems to be being careful about not hyping any of these new, non-phone devices.

A brief historical overview:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/09/apple-still-at-work-on-true-video-ipod/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/08/nokia-bluetooth-audio-adapter-coming/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/08/portal-player-adds-wifi-and-bluetooth-spurring-new-round-of-ipo/

[Pinkerton @ Mar 8th 2006 8:08PM]

OK, so you go over to your bud's place and take your media capable phone with you. The host has one of these Nokia Wireless Audio Gateways (N-WAG?). You take turns playing tunes off your phones. Your phone stays inside your pocket while playing tunes on an amplified system. Meanwhile, you dance by yourself and argue about light-sabers with your friends.

[Morten @ Mar 9th 2006 4:56PM]

Hmmm. Very nice device, but I got one question. How will I be able to pair this with my Bluespoon Spider headphones. Neither of them have a display or a way to input the pairing code...