No cable, Bluetooth life

(tags hardware, ipod)

I've been recently in a Bluetooth mood (because of my new computer, but that's for another post). I bought a Bluetooth keyboard, a Filco mechanical touch keyboard (which again I should talk about in another post). Before that, I already had a Bluetooth-capable mouse, the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. I bought another USB-to-Bluetooth transceiver just for my desktop machine by "PCI". And now, I've really caught Bluetooth fever because I bought a headphone receiver and a iPod-to-Bluetooth transceiver.

First off, my "home" Bluetooth network looks like this:

headphones <-> Sony receiver <-> Bluetooth transceiver <-> Project Sugar PC running iTunes

First off, the Sony receiver is the Sony DRC-BT15 (white) "for music". Basically its a Bluetooth audio sink supporting A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) and AVRCP (Audio Video Remote Control Profile) with some cell phone integration capabilities such HFP (Hands-free profile) and HSP (Headset Profile). There was another series with the model number DRC-BT15P (P?!?) which is aimed at only cell phones but I couldn't tell the difference between the plain and the P version. In any case, I had to charge it up (1 hour), then connected it to my stereo buds. I tried it out with my Project Sugar desktop PC with no problems. Just remember to press the power button 7 seconds from cold start to start the pairing process. It comes with this white-violet LED that looks really cool. Anyway, Bluetooth is mainly line of sight, so I had to move the PC based USB-to-Bluetooth transceiver "nub" to a fairly central position. It's great, I can move to my kitchen or even the bathroom without any interruption. If there is interruption, the music just cuts off digitally, not like the only weak analog signal of old. Other than that, I really like the relative lightness of this headphone set.

My iPod Bluetooth network looks like this:

headphones <-> Sony receiver <-> Sanwa transceiver <-> iPod 5G (with video)

Second, I tried out the Sanwa Supply ipod-to-Bluetooth receiver (MM-BTAD10, white). Stupid Sofmap store only had black, so I had to run to Yodobashi Camera to get the white version. Pairing consists of connecting it to the iPod and pressing play. Pretty straightforward. Aah, my iPod is now wireless. It feels like a remote control now. Unfortuately I had to cut my iPod skin in order to snugly fit the tranceiver to the body. I worry that this will break off the dock connector.

So I have these wireless audio headphone set. I binded the headphone wires with that reusable hollow electric cable wrap (only 4.1mm in diameter) so my neck doesn't look too wired, and I clip the Sony reciever to it. It's not too heavy but it looks like crap. Oh, did I mention that I only use 2000 yen in-ear buds, with the wire wrapped up and over my ear cartilige so that it hangs over the top of the ear? Totally sweet. Only that the receiver has a battery life of 6 hours. Damn Sony.