I'd highly recommend getting a tiny mp3 player (say Clip Zip, though they are now discontinued...) and a short light headphone cable. Why send audio wirelessly when the tech to play it is as small as the receiver?
There are also headphones with built in players, I don't know how the quality of those is though.
Why send audio wirelessly when the tech to play it is as small as the receiver?
Because you might want to stream audio from the Internet, or you don't want to waste time converting newer audio formats to MP3 and then copying them over, or you'd rather not have cables around you when you work out, or you might want to track what you've listen (particularly useful for audiobooks and long podcasts), etc.
Yes, these are not indispensable life necessities nor anything like that, but given the choice, I'd rather beam the audio from my tablet than carry an extra player.
Pretty much all the decent dedicated MP3 players have been discontinued. The last really great one for me was the Samsung's range (nee Yepp). But unfortunately the last one was the YP-U7 back in 2012 and it's very obvious they aren't going to make any more, even though they never announced it.
Sony still does players but they're not very good.
I hate wires with a passion. I don't what's wrong with me but I manage to tie, bust, wrap, tangle them in every most ridiculous possible wrong way all the time. I'm always sniping for multipairing mp3 capable headphones.
Typically, but not always. I've belonged to gyms that have had a metal mesh (along the lines of a stiffer chain-link fence), flat metal (like a high school locker), and wood cabinets for their lockers.
Sure, bluetooth had media controls for ages. I have a bluetooth waterproof speaker that I just take with me in the shower - and I leave my phone outside of the bathroom so it doesn't get wet. I can change songs and pause with buttons on the speaker, with the phone safely on the other side of the wall.
And bodies. Had to move my laptop dock to the other side of my desk when I switched headphones from a pair that had the transmitter in the left ear to the right.
Yeah that is perhaps the most problematic aspect of Bluetooth. The radio interface is designed with the presumption of the signal bouncing off nearby surfaces. Thus it is sensitive to line of sight issues.
Mind you, i have also been able to connect to a USB dongle through solid wood walls, so mileage may vary.
Never mind that you can get two classes of radios, on top of the LE stuff. With each class having different transmission strengths.
Both use the 2.4 ghz spectrum, so that makes sense - especially for bad microwaves.
I had an old microwave that completely tanked my 2.4 ghz Wifi back in the days (very poorly shielded).
The problem though is the Sun will negatively affect Bluetooth range. If you're inside it's great and you can go into multiple rooms depending on the materials / wall thickness between you and the device. Once you go outside on a sunny day if the phone isn't directly in the line-of-sight (and even then) you'll get constant disconnects. Using multiple headsets / headphones and phones (including iPhone and multiple Androids) and I have yet to have one that DIDN'T do this.
More range may help thing. Well I can hope anyway.
The Sun is quite a noisy radio transmitter across a very wide range of frequencies. Downside of having a big, hot unshielded fusion reactor in the sky.
Not sure. I remember reading an article some time ago that stated the Sun's electromagnetic radiation could interfere with Bluetooth and it's always worked with my observations. I've used multiple Plantronics headsets, Motorola headphones and an off brand of headphones all with an iPhone 5S, iPhone 6+, Nexus 6P, Moto X and a Note 3 and in all of these devices they work great indoors and going outside on a sunny day it would break up (but cloudy always seemed to work better).
It's entirely possible this is some crazy bullshit but my observations are real. So if it ends up being that the Sun does NOT provide interfere then it must be SOMETHING. I just had this issue this past week when I was working outside and had to grab my wired headphones.
Another, as likely, aspect, is that Bluetooth is designed around signals bouncing off surfaces. Try moving your phone from one side of the body to the other while outside. It may well be that your surroundings do not provide enough signal reflection. Keep in mind that most mobile bluetooth radios do not transmit with the same strength as wifi. Best i can tell, only USB dongles use a wifi equivalent radio class.
I guess it could be possible. But the thing about range is that is most often reported under ideal conditions. Meaning clear line of sight between antennas and little to no other transmissions in that frequency range.
And likely your best results will be if both devices are v5 devices.
>Once you go outside on a sunny day if the phone isn't directly in the line-of-sight (and even then) you'll get constant disconnects. Using multiple headsets / headphones and phones (including iPhone and multiple Androids) and I have yet to have one that DIDN'T do this.
Well, I've used wireless keyboards (Apple compact) and wireless headphones (Parrot Zik 2.0), and had zero disconnects under the hottest of Suns in several different countries.
What do you mean "line of sight"? How far were you? Was it behind some wall or something? With the iPad/phone on my pocket/bag I never had any issue.
> What do you mean "line of sight"? How far were you? Was it behind some wall or something? With the iPad/phone on my pocket/bag I never had any issue.
Basically if the BT hardware itself was on the right side of my head then my phone had to be in my right pocket or I'd get semi frequent disconnects outside. So not really line-of-sight in visual spectrum terms but I have had so many observations with so many bluetooth headsets and headphones and different phones that I always believed the original article I read a long time ago about sun interference (which, of course, I can't find today).
It could certainly be something else but I most certainly have reproducible issues with using bluetooth outside versus inside my house or even car.
Could be that it's not the sun being the problem, but not having walls. Inside, the radio waves can bounce of the walls, around your body. Outside, they have to go through your body.
