Its refreshing to review a product that makes a modest claim on what it can do and then delivers completely. Thats exactly what happened with our flight tests of the Pilot Communications USA BluLink Bluetooth headset adapter.
Plug and Play
BluLink adds Bluetooth connectivity to any headset. You simply plug your headset into the BluLink unit and then plug that unit into the intercom. It can be ordered with cables for traditional two-plug intercoms, helicopter plugs or Lemo-powered plugs used in many Bose X headsets. If you fly more than one setup, the same BluLink controller can use any of the cables interchangeably.
The cabling for BluLink is the most cumbersome part of the whole setup as it makes your headset cords even longer. This annoyance is about our only beef with the system.
Once you find a way to stash the extra cable yet still have access to the BluLink controller, its pretty straightforward (the complete manual is all of eight pages long). After turning on the unit, push the pairing button and enter any necessary codes on the cell phone. Your headset is now a Bluetooth headset just like the cyborg ear thingies people keep forgetting theyre wearing. The fine print says your cell phone must support A2DP Bluetooth, but most do.
There’s an answer/end call button on the BluLink that works with most every Bluetooth cell phone. There’s also a voice-dial/redial button in case your phone and service supports those options. We asked people we called about the audio quality of our test calls and found the better the headset we used the better it sounded on both ends.
Tunes for Traveling
Connecting to the iPod was much more fun. If your iPod (or iPhone or other AVRCP device) has built-in Bluetooth, Bluelink can pair directly. We didnt have any of those, so we used the iLuv Bluetooth adaptor, which is also available from Pilot Communications USA. This plugs directly into the iPod and lets you control the iPod volume, pause songs or skip forward and back. That means you can start a playlist on the iPod and then toss it in a compartment and forget about it. All the control is off the BluLink. As an aside, the forward and back buttons for music wont work with an iPhone. Volume and play/pause do work.
The disadvantage of this setup is the iLuv adapter gets its power directly from the iPod and drains the iPod battery faster