Customer Reviews

Iogear Bluetooth to USB Adapter

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I find this a very usefull device. I am able to reach my PC with my Tungsten T in most of my house. Initially there were some things to work through. The drivers on the CD did not work. After talking to service, I downloaded the new drivers and installed them. Palm just came out with the patch required to connect to the internet through a PC via Bluetooth. Now I am sharing the connection throughout the house with BT, which is really nice.

I bought this product just to work with Plantoronics Bluetooth Headset and Sony T610 cell phone. Both worked fine, no problem. But there is a pitfall during the installation on my Windows XP (SP1). After the installation of softwares, the bluetooth icon in the system tray did not turn white though I plugged the adaptor into a USB port. I wrote how I could fix it below.
1. In the device manager, "update" the driver named "Cambridge Silion Radio Ltd. Bluetooth adaptor" in the category of "Bluetooth Products."
2. In this wizard, select "do not search" then choose "driver from the list."
3. From the list, select "IOGEAR Bluetooth USB device."
The expression on the screen may be different since my Windows is not English version. I hope this will help someone with the installation.

Laptop: Toshiba P25-S408
OS: XP PRO with Service Pack 1

Installed smoothly. Small 'quarks' exists. some times
Windows throws "New Hardware Found" multiple times though you have installed the drivers.

Reboot and I was all set.

As my Bluetooth Devices (cellphones and PDAs) are still being shipped the only bluetooth device I had is my car with Integrated Bluetooth based "Hands Free Link"(HFL) system.
Went into the garage and initiate "pairing sequence" and my laptop readily recognises the HFL device.

Not yet tested the range though. My car was about (30-40)feet behind 3 walls.

Most of the frustration that other reviewers seem to have appear to due to installation of drivers and other related problems.Not necessarily related to the integrity of the device itself.

Additional Pros:
1. The "glowing florescent carrying band" so that one can easily find their device.

2. USB Extension cable (though the device is thin enough)is helpful when u have a lot of usb devices connected at the same time.

Cons:
1. This one is minor though. I wish there were "power on" and "data transmitting" LEDs on the device. However the taskbar icon mitigates the absence of "Power On" LED.

Hope this review is helpful in making a decision.

I was initially hesitant about purchasing a USB Bluetooth adaptor for my HP Pavillion Notebook runnig Windows XP: the numerous mixed reviews for this product and other similiar products gave me nightmares of messing around for hours with a touchy device.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised when I got this thing up and running within 10 minutes on the 1st try. No problems whatsoever. Better still, it easily allowed me to sync with my Nokia N-gage using PC-Suite - another piece of software that alot of people seem to have trouble with.

The software that installs with it seems pretty comprehensive and gives me confindence with trying other Bluetooth peripherals. Good job Iogear! Perhaps because I was running a relatively new computer and that I keep Windows updated, made this a pain-free experience!

Jason

Jason

I was iffy as to wether I should purchase this adapter after having read some of the reviews and looking over the ratings. I decided to take a chance, seeing that most negative reviews showed some for of misunderstanding on the buyer's behalf. Either it seemed like they did not know how to properly install it, or did not bother to check the compatibility list. I'm glad I took that chance. This device is great! It works great, it has a slick, compact, and low-profile look. It definetely works within a typical apartment/house. I have taken this as far out as 210 feet with no problems whatsoever. It DEFINETELY works with your typical HP/COMPAQ dekstop and it is compatible with all Blutetooth enabled Pocket PC's from HP/COMPAQ. My wife has a 1945, it works. I have a 3975, it works. My buddy has a 5555, it works. My mother has a 3870, it works. Don't be fooled by others mistakes. I have yet to test it with a cell phone. I myself don't own a bluetooth enabled phone, and I don't know many people who do. Notebooks work too. My COMPAQ Evo worked great (you need to adapter's for this) The range is great, and the price is even better. You get what you pay for ladies and gentlemen. You won't regret this purchase. Enjoy!!

I bought this USB bluetooth from B&H. The sales person recommended me this and I took his word for it since he seems knowledgeable.I also like him for not pushing the more expensive ones. Thankfully he was correct I couldn't be happier with his recommendation. I used this with my Belkin GPS and the connection was much stronger and more constant then Belkin's own FlashCard Bluetooth even at a great distance.It was rated at 330 ft but I had never tried it at that distance so far. Works pretty good at 100 ft. I returned Belkin's CF blue tooth because its a CF2 and my pda cannot accept CF2. I like the form factor of the Iogear USB Bluetooth best it's so small my thumb is bigger then it and it's MAC compatible too. I can now share this between my PC and MAC. I am very pleased with it and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Incidentally I am glad I did not read the 1st review before buying as I would have swayed. I installed the driver without a hitch and I am also using Window 2000 on my laptop. Probably the 1st user didn't know how to install it properly. It works like a clock so far. I have 7 days to try out but so far everything has been going on rosy!

Bought it to sync a Sony Ericsson T616 cell phone with my laptop running XP and it worked great. Very easy to install and use - the software provided works even better than the cell phone's. Have not tested at long range yet but I don't really see the need to do file transfer or Outlook sync from other than the computer room...

I bought this adapter 4 months ago. It took me almost an hour to pair it with my SE T68i, and I was naively suspecting that it was because of the phone. I was using it rarely, so I could afford 30 min struggle of establishing the connection. But recently I got a 3Com adapter from a friend, and it worked flawlessly. In fact you just need to pair the devices for the first time, and you can reconnect any time after that. I called tech support and told them my story, they said that I have a defective unit. I got a replacement unit, and apparently this one is defective too, because I can not pair it with my other devices AT ALL. Stay away from this adapter, apparently all units are defective.

I bought this without ever having used any Bluetooth devices at all. My intention was to use a wireless earpiece and VoIP service.

The install went well and I was able to discover and pair the device. The range is good. The earpiece is not class 1, so the range shouldn't be as quoted, but I could wander all around the house with no problem.

The only issues I have is using this with XP (SP1) and switching between user accounts. When I switched out of my account to another and then back again, I couldn't connected the card to the earpiece. Worse though, I couldn't get to card to rescan for devices. I found that sometimes I could shutdown the BT card, remove it and restart it. Then I could get it to rescan. Alternatively, logging out and logging back in fixed the problem, but that's not really what I was looking for. It's possible that there is some forced reset/rescan option I missed, but if so, it should be more obvious!

If you don't intend to change user accounts, then this is fine. Otherwise be warned.

I was able to connect to my T610 on XP without any extra software installation. But the Belkin bluetooth GPS is problematic, had no luck with that yet. The software that comes with this device does not work with later service packs of XP, which have built-in bluetooth support.

Edit: ou can download the latest driver from iogear's site. Just replace the windows default driver with the one in that package, youre ready to go with the GPS too!

The coolest part is that you don't have to hold your phone in position, or even near your computer to connect to internet through it (I use Tmobile).

It has a neon blue light inside the plastic, but it's impossible to see that blink in daylight. I guess that's why other people haven't noticed it.

If you have a a nice bluetooth phone, this is a good choice. I like the sleek plastic case too. Many other brands have ugly looking rectangular cases for bluetooth dongles.