Jabra announces iPod Bluetooth adapter

Since Apple's still showing no sign of caving into consumer demand and releasing a Bluetooth-equipped iPod (even a proprietary solution would be a good start -- anything to get rid of that annoying white cord), more and more manufacturers are looking to fill the void with their own workarounds, and now headset giant Jabra has announced plans to throw its own hat into the ring as well. Jabra's "hat" will come in the form of a dock connector-compatible adapter called the A125s, which will work with both the video and nano versions of the iPod, and promises 10 hours of playback or 250 hours of standby time before recharging becomes an issue. Unfortunately for exercise enthusiasts, these won't work at the same time as your Nike+iPod kit, so runners won't be able to cut the cord unless Nike releases its own pair of headphones. You can expect this adapter -- which will join the likes of the D.Muse, icombi, and naviPlay -- to retail for around $75 once it hits stores sometime this August.

[georgedakota @ Jul 2nd 2006 12:50PM]

ok great and all but there still isnt any great bluetooth headphones out. the logitechs look horribly geeky, and then you got naviplay from ten tech. they look ok i guess but they are a little big. and what if we only have a gigabeat or a zen vision m. we need more choices!!!

[i.p.freely @ Jul 2nd 2006 1:24PM]

Where is the consumer demand for Bluetooth headphone? You mean your demand for the it.

I run the headphone cord behind my back, so I don't get tangled with it. but hey what do I know,

[Michael @ Jul 2nd 2006 1:31PM]

Honestly I haven't heard of consumer demand for bluetooth headphones either. How good can they possible be compared to regular headphones? I may be wrong but all I can imagine is static telephone quality.

[Eli @ Jul 2nd 2006 2:22PM]

Yeah really, stop screwing around and give me some bluetooth headphones. I hate how my corded ones sound great, don't require recharging, and never cut out when I'm around a microwave, cordless phone, or other bluetooth device.

[Pat @ Jul 2nd 2006 3:50PM]

It would be nice if they could get one of these iPod bluetooth things to work with the bluetooth in an upperclass sedan like a BMW or a Merc. It would be nice to just walk into the car and have your music all ready to go instead of using the tape thing or even worse the iTrip.

[Marlo Miller @ Jun 9th 2007 4:46PM]

I went to a car stereo shop and they installed a gadget that turns off my car antenna and allows me to play my ipod through my auto Bose stereo. It cost me $140. Call a lot of shops not all of them carry the one that is stronger and is able to shut down the antenna. I just flip a switch when I want to listen to my ipod.

[Ryan @ Jul 2nd 2006 4:11PM]

>static telephone quality?

You have no clue do you? Why don't you try listening to A2DP headphones before you judge. They sound pretty darn good.

Plus, most of you are missing the point completely. Once you have an A2DP enabled source, you can feed it to any A2DP enabled output device. Imagine getting in to your car and you get seamless hand-off from your iPod to your car stereo. Imagine letting your friends sitting near by listen to a track quick without having to swap plugs around. Imagine multiple headphones connected to a single iPod without splitters.

[sdsdv10 @ Jul 2nd 2006 7:33PM]

Here is a quote from the D.Muse link in the article.

Talk time is limited to 4 hours and (we assume) is the listening time as well - meaning, your headphone batteries are gonna die before your iPod.

Ryan, don't you think this is a significant issue that needs to be addressed before these take a major share of the market? I agree, the wireless connection in a car would be great, but it will also be some time before BT is standard in Ford, GM, Toyota, etc. Not everyone drives a BMW, M-B, Audi, etc.

[G-Unit @ Jul 2nd 2006 8:06PM]

Actually there are some really nice Bluetooth headphones. BlueAnt makes a great pair called the X5, and Plantronics have the 590A....also Jabra has a great looking pair. They are actually really nice because they can pair with a mp3 player and a cell phone, so you get both the great mobility options....there is a larger and growing demand...

[Kowalski @ Jul 3rd 2006 1:35AM]

i, for one welcome our ipod bluetooth adapter overlords.

[prOn* @ Jul 3rd 2006 2:04AM]

has anyone heard of the plantronics pulsar 590?
I've had this stereo bt headset for months, and the quality is astounding. the range is awesome. and i've never had any problems with it. it hooks to my ipod via an audio dongle, which i'd prefer to lose. if this jabra could pair with my headset ( which has A2DP obviously, and AVRCP) i'd be sold
check it out
http://plantronics.com/north_america/en_US/products/cat1150057/cat1150057/prod29780013

[Galley @ Jul 3rd 2006 8:20AM]

AFAIK, Bluetooth 2.0 would be required for full-fidelity stereo audio transmissions.

[mike @ Jul 3rd 2006 11:00AM]

Will the Jabra set allow us to finally stream live radio onto our iPods from our internet-connected bluetooth computers?! Do they have a wi-fi adapter?

That sounds exciting. Bluetooth headphone? Not so interesting.

[i.p.freely @ Jul 3rd 2006 11:17AM]

pr0n

You'd actually wear one of those outside? You look like an airtraffic controller?!?!?

Ryan said:
"Plus, most of you are missing the point completely. Once you have an A2DP enabled source, you can feed it to any A2DP enabled output device. Imagine getting in to your car and you get seamless hand-off from your iPod to your car stereo."

I think I would have my iPod charging in my car while I play music. And it's awfully lot of money to pay for that little conveniences. I've always said Bluetooth is a 3rd party add-on. Not something Apple should do. The market for use like this is so small it's not worth creating a new device or adding this to all High end iPods.

"Imagine letting your friends sitting near by listen to a track quick without having to swap plugs around. Imagine multiple headphones connected to a single iPod without splitters.""

How many time does this really happen? By the time you get your friend to hear the song you were listening to, it will be over. You have to put it in discovery mode, wait for it to handshake. become on the trusted devices. After listening to your song, they have to reestablish connection to their iPod.

And we all know that Bluetooth is the most reliable device connection...

If you are going to go thru all that trouble, might as well, give them the iPod so they can listen.

And think about the cost of doing this? You have assume that all of the people in the room will have bluetooth headphones. At $250 a pop, not likely, people balk at $99 headphone which are better sounding than any of these BT headphone, so people will pay for that?

Sorry to burst your bubbles, but this is waste of resources for Apple as far as I can see. As long as Jabbra feels they can make money from this it's okay, but if Apple tries to push this BT stuff on rest of us, forget it, I wouldn't pay more money for it.

[Gordy @ Jul 3rd 2006 12:57PM]

I agree, I know of no mass-market demand for BT headphones; however, if that dongle was about an inch shorter, I'd consider it.

[Tom @ Jul 3rd 2006 7:04PM]

Nice writing guys. Like anybody goes running with their power/transfer cable plugged in.

[toon @ Apr 5th 2007 7:50AM]

seriously, if you guys are so afraid of technology, take your cords and go watch your vcr tapes of magnum PI. pop KC and the sunshine band in the 8-track and relax

my bluetooth headset pairs with my phone, my computer, my mp3 player, AND my ps3, seamlessly, and i am not tethered to any of them, seamlessly switch from gaming on your ps3, to chatting on your IM (MSN for me) and answer a phone call, head out the door, and start jamming on your i-pod, all from 1 headset. no cord that wont let you turn your head, and whoever says the quality is bad, is just speculating.
the quality is fine, i have no trouble, i love bluetooth. i use bluetooth keyboard/mouse too, which lest me sit far away and type... WAY better reception than a laser wireless setup. i want everything to be bluetooth.

please stop telling everyone bluetooth's "faults" when you clearly dont even own a bluetooth device, and dont really belong in the topic.

[Fonda @ May 20th 2007 7:46PM]

"toon"
What type of BT headphones do you have?
I am trying to find some BT headphones that will connect with my mac, ipod, and cell.

[Frito @ Aug 20th 2007 6:48PM]

ha ha, so you walk around with headphones attached to your ears all day. That's hot.

[Trevor `` @ May 28th 2007 1:43AM]

Apple will never put bluetooth in an ipod, sure it would be amazing! no wires for headphones, no wires for syncing music to your ipod (if you own a .mac with built in bluetooth)...but then again if you can trasfer music from your computer to your ipod with out wires, why not your ipod to a friends ipod....they would lose alot of business in the itunes store. think about it, the music industry would not allow that! if there was a way to fix this problem then putting bluetooth in an ipod would be the smart thing to do!

[Frito @ Aug 20th 2007 6:53PM]

Actually, Zune has a wireless transfer feature on their devices and it's just controlled by DRM. So if a label doesn't want their songs to be transferred, they just don't allow that service in their agreement. Then the ones that are part of it, can only be played on a trial basis (3 plays or 3 days). So, it can be controlled. That shouldn't keep Apple from adding bluetooth to their devices. I'm sure there are other reasons for it.

[Madiggity @ Aug 2nd 2007 12:14PM]

Has anyone tried the Motorola S9? I've been using them for about 3 months now and they work great, clear sound (A2DP profile) and their much smaller than other comparable bluetooth headsets.

[Owen @ Aug 16th 2007 3:14AM]

I am thinking more for the Bluetooth connection to my iMac.

I have a bluetooth keyboard/mouse & wireless internet. Not counting the iPod I have ONE cable plugged into my computer (the power cable) then the ugly white cord for the iPod. Doesn't fit the iMac...

[Frito @ Aug 20th 2007 6:40PM]

I want to imagine using my iPod as a remote control to my speaker system rather than having to plug it in to the speakers and use some other remote to try to navigate. Personally, I have no use for BlueTooth headphones, but being able to walk around my house with my iPod (or Zune) and be able to use the device to change songs playing out of my home stereo, would be swell.

[Krazr K1 @ Sep 7th 2007 2:28AM]

Why all the BT bashing? I have been using the Southwing SA505 BT headphones for about 6 mo now, and I wouldn't trade them for anything! Awesome clarity, and volume, track skip, and play/pause buttons located on the left earpiece. And a retractable mic, so if a call comes in while listening to the Mp3 player on your phone, you just pop down the mic and it pauses the music and conects to the phone line. Works great!!

[Websun @ Oct 15th 2007 10:18PM]

I just got a Motorola KRSR with a BT headphone.
Now I am playing my MP3 on my cell! Cool man! Fantastic clarity. I can't believe the quality! The only limitation is the memory ltd to 2 Gb in the cell. So, now I need a BT for my iPod, which can handle 60 GB of stuff, so I can listen to anything I have stored.
See, there is use for BT and BT headphones :)
Liberty! I can call someone by merely saying the name of the person. We are getting there :)

[H.K.Ramadan @ Nov 2nd 2007 12:02PM]

I wear Oticon hearing aids that comes with a small streaming remote (shirt pocket)and they recommend the Jabra 125s for my video ipod. It will also connect to any BT TV, or BT Cell Phone. This is a very easy way to get sterophonic sound to the hearing aids without any other wired items to carry around.

[User2501 @ Dec 11th 2007 3:29PM]

I seem to be in a niche category of people that's interested in low-
quality BT audio. I have an iPod that I use exclusively for listening
to talk radio podcasts, and I could care less about high-quality
stereo audio delivered over A2DP - I'd just like to listen to it using
my plain old Bluetooth 2.0 headset. Unfortunately, almost all of the
products and information online is oriented toward A2DP support.

I'm wondering if this BT transmitter (or others like it)
that plug into a 3.5mm headphone jack or iPod dock connector can
deliver audio from my iPod to a standard, non-A2DP Bluetooth 2.0 headset.

[Lance @ Jan 15th 2008 2:46AM]

Does anyone know if this is compatible with iPhone? I bought a nice and expensive BT stereo headset before I knew that the iPhone's BT didn't broadcast any non-phone audio.

[Jungle @ Jan 24th 2008 12:51PM]

I have a Plantronics 590e. Works great! Battery lasts a long time. No problems connecting with my pocket pc phone. Listen to my music, videos, take calls and walk around microwaves all day long with no problem. Going to purchase Jabra's bluetooth adapter for ipod. Lovin' wireless!!

[chinawholesale @ Jun 19th 2008 2:41AM]

There are Serial Bluetooth Adapters bring wireless Bluetooth technology to your RS-232 serial equipment, allowing you to eliminate messy cables. With a range of up to 330 ft (100 meters), you can communicate with serial devices beyond the reach of conventional cables. Simply plug the wireless adapter into your serial equipment and transfer data to and from
Bluetooth-enabled devices.
With no software required, the Serial Bluetooth Adapter is a true plug-n-play solution. All you need to do is plug in the serial adapter to serial RS-232 equipment with a DB-9 connection and enjoy the freedom of wireless Bluetooth technology. In addition, the unit features external DIP switches allowing you to easily configure the baud rate with the simple flip of a switch. It is also fully compliant with Bluetooth 1.1 specifications and supports authentication and encryption.Hurry to get bluetooth adapters from Sourcinggate.com
http://www.sourcinggate.com/Bluetooth-Bluetooth-Adapter/c11_18/index.html

[Mikel1965 @ Jul 18th 2008 7:48AM]

also another place to look for http://www.wholesale-star.com/bluetooth-bluetooth-adapters-c-40_42.html