Well, I'll start my review by saying that purchasing this was a bit of a mistake on my part, for the particular use case I was interested in.
Aside from that, it does what it says on the tin (well, sort of). I don't use Bluetooth headphones with my PC any longer, so I can't comment on sound quality, but other devices (keyboards, cell phones, etc.) pair easily enough, don't drop connections, and appear to have the expected 30m range. Additionally, I've enjoyed Kinivo products I've used in the past and thought their build quality to be fair enough for the pricing.
This is the third desktop PC Bluetooth adapter I've owned. Over time, I've had to swap them out as the Bluetooth standard changes and devices improve. The first set of Bluetooth headphones I ever owned (despite being a rather uh, well-known brand) had horrendous audio quality and constant dropouts in the days of the older tech. I've been satisfied with the performance of the newer Bluetooth audio devices and the chips in my newer phones; I think we've really reached the point where 'cord cutting' headphones and data transfer between mobile/IoT/etc. is no longer an exercise in frustration (mostly).
Onto my issue: I purchased this dongle because it was Bluetooth 4.0 and says everywhere that it supports Low Energy or BLE. I use Windows Insider builds, and the 'Your Phone' app has been rolling out screen mirroring for Android devices. My phone is not compatible yet, but since it's a Pixel I imagined it was only a matter of time. The second requirement is a BLE capable adapter.
Well...the way Windows defines that and the marketing terms start to get a bit confusing there. As you can see from my screenshot, this does not support the BLE role, and is therefore not compatible. I imagine perhaps a BLE 4.1 or 4.2 device is required--unfortunately information is a bit slim as it seems most Windows Insiders able to use the feature are doing just fine with their Surface devices.
Also, if you visit the Broadcom website it assures you that there are no drivers required for Windows 10, it is indeed plug and play and you have Bluetooth. However, the drivers installed by default were version .750 from 2015. Windows Update didn't really do much about this, as much as it loves overwriting drivers for my other devices. The Windows Driver Catalog has version .1010 which are a full year newer and seem to offer a bit better performance, but I don't have any real metric of that. Updating drivers in this way (via extracting a .cab, installing a .inf, and manually loading them through Device Manager) isn't a major headache but probably not super intuitive for the average user.
TL;DR: Bluetooth Low Energy doesn't mean the same thing on a 4.0 device vs. 4.1 or 4.2. It appears some newer devices will begin to require 4.2 for full functionality, yet there doesn't seem to be much of a selection available at the moment. I wouldn't discourage you from buying this dongle if you need Bluetooth and it's not really a big expense anyway. It's just likely that you'll need something different before too long.
| Wireless Type | Bluetooth |
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