Add Bluetooth to a Dock and Connect Almost Anything … Without Wires

Your old iPod dock was the greatest thing ever – stand up the iPod and get music that sounds quite fine and you can listen to anywhere. But then you got your new iPhone, and your iPad and then your new iPhone 5 with Lightning (never mind the Android phone) and you stopped using it. Well, get a 30-pin Bluetooth connector for $40 or so (maybe less) and the dock will work with anything and everything. Wirelessly. From 30 feet away.

My own experience was instructive. I found out about them, ordered one and plugged it right into the Bose Sounddock. Very disappointing – it was DOA, or so I thought. I plugged it into the 30-pin charging wire as a check, and it came right to life. How was that possible? I learned nothing from my Google searches, so I sadly emailed the vendor, Amazing Stuff, and asked to return it.

OK, they said, but do you have a 1st generation Sounddock, by any chance?

Why, yes, yes we do! (Daisy has always been an early adopter.)

OK then, go ahead and send it back to us, ’cause it won’t work with those old ones that supply Firewire power … unless maybe you want to use a Scosche adapter.

A Scosche adapter? What the heck was that? It’s the Scosche passPORT – costs about $10 or $15, about 1″ square and it solves that particular problem perfectly. It’s a 30-pin Firewire to USB adapter, and if that’s what you need, just get one.

After having it not work at all, it was nothing short of amazing how well it worked after that. Just one button and red and blue LEDs on top. Once it’s paired with a device (enter “0000”), it’s paired forever and you never have to touch it again. Said device can be anything with Bluetooth: laptop, iPhone, iPad or Android phone – all worked perfectly. If you want to stop using one and start using another, just disconnect it and connect the next one. It’s easier than plugging in headphones. Could be the perfect stocking stuffer for ANYONE who has a speaker with a 30-pin connector on top.

There are several brands available on Amazon, and I think they are all fairly similar.

 

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