Unless you’ve been a smart person and have been ignoring the press recently, one of the big “controversies” over the iPhone 7 announcement has been the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack. Although Apple includes Lightning-based EarPods and a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter in every iPhone 7 box, people are still griping. Well, Inateck has a little product that makes it easy to take your existing headphones with that ancient 3.5mm technology and bring it up to the 21st Century using Bluetooth. The $31.99 (on Amazon) Inateck BR1003 Bluetooth transmitter and receiver might be small in size, but it can be a big help to iPhone 7 users or other who might want to go wireless.
When I say “small”, I mean it. It’s 1.69 inches (43mm) on a side and .43 inches (11mm) thick, and weighs just .6 ounce (17 grams). On one edge is the 3.5mm audio jack where you’ll plug in your headphones or a connector to a car audio system (included) and a micro-USB port for charging the BR1003 (USB to micro-USB cable included). On an adjacent edge is a TX/RX (transmit/receive) toggle and a power/pairing button. On the front is a small hexagon with a logo on it. That logo flashes blue and white when pairing, displays blue when the device is in use, and glows white when charging.
The BR1003 supports Bluetooth 4.1 and the aptX audio codec for excellent sound quality. One charge of the little box is good for about 12 to 13 hours of use, although if you’re using it in a car as a Bluetooth receiver for an “old” car audio system, you might just want to keep it plugged in for those long road trips. The BR1003 can pair with two devices, perfect for those times when two people might want to share their music to one car stereo.
As both a transmitter and receiver, the BR1003 has a lot of uses. In transmit mode, it can be used to take music from an older audio device without stereo and transmit it to a Bluetooth headset. In receiver mode, it is perfect for taking your old 3.5mm jack-equipped headphones and making them wireless.
I found the BR1003 — like most Inateck products I’ve reviewed — to be well-built, simple to set up and use, and the sound quality received by the device was as good as most of the better Bluetooth headphones I’ve used. It’s a bit more expensive than the $21.99 BR1002 (see our review here), but I found that the BR1003 has better range and sound clarity. In addition, the multi-point feature for pairing more than one device is a winner.
Apple World Today Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★★
