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TMO at Macworld - Belkin Announces Bluetooth iPod Dock Adapter

Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 4:30 PM - by

Belkin announced its Bluetooth Dock Adapter for iPod on Monday. The adapter lets you use iPods with a Dock connector to stream audio to the Belkin stereo dock. It does not require any additional software or batteries, and supports ranges up to 30 feet. The Bluetooth Dock Adapter will be available in March for US$129.99, and is being demonstrated at Macworld Expo.


Belkin's Bluetooth Dock Adapter.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:29 pm

Can you use it to sync wirelessly?

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:16 pm

Does it charge your iPod wirelessly as well? <snicker>

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:49 pm

Guest wrote:
Can you use it to sync wirelessly?

Perhaps, but, why would you want to? Bluetooth is excruciatingly slow compared to USB 2. I have a Palm TX that can sync via Bluetooth or USB 2. Bluetooth takes about 4-8 times as long. Bluetooth was designed for input/output devices--keyboard, mice, headsets, etc., where the data rate is more like USB 1.1. Bluetooth 2 (EDR-Enhanced Data Rate) runs at a max of 3 mbps (that's megaBITS per second) according to one source I checked, but another said that it was a max of 2.1 mbps. USB 1.1 could run at 12 mbps, USB 2.0 runs at up to 480 mbps. That's at least 160 times as fast as Bluetooth 2. (Yes, I know that USB 2 doesn't really run that fast, but it's still a LOT faster than Bluetooth.)

As an example, if you have a song that's 3 MB. Assuming that Bluetooth could actually hit 2.1 mbps, that would be 268 kBps (kilo BYTES per second). Just the data transmission would take nearly 12 seconds. (The process would take a bit longer, as there is the iPod HD to contend with.) Doesn't sound like much, but multiply that by 10 or 20 songs--20 songs would take at least 4 minutes to sync. (This is slower than downloading iTunes Store songs via a cable modem.)

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