First look: Galaxy S21 and everything else announced at Samsung Unpacked [in pictures]
Browse all the products and highlights from Samsung's January 2021 Unpacked event.
I enjoy listening to podcasts and music in my car, but don't have Bluetooth and am tired of having a cable lying around and limiting where I can rest my smartphone. HTC has a slick accessory for audiophiles, but it is priced about twice as much as it should be.
I spent a couple days meeting with HTC last fall in New York and a couple weeks after that meeting they sent along one of their HTC StereoClip accessories to test out. I finally had a chance to test out the StereoClip in my truck and have been enjoying podcasts and music from several smartphones over the past couple of weeks.
Many new vehicles have integrated Bluetooth radios so you can enjoy music, podcasts, and calls wirelessly. However, there are still millions of us with older vehicles that do not have Bluetooth and yet do not have cassette players for those adapters either. My 2007 Dodge Ram truck has a 3.5mm auxiliary port and in the past I have connected my smartphones via cable to enjoy podcasts and music. However, it is not the "cleanest" solution and my phone often ends up sliding around the seat or console area or I have to prop open my console storage compartment as my phone rests in there to charge while a cable connects it to my stereo. The HTC StereoClip is a small Bluetooth adapter that plugs directly into your 3.5mm audio jack (in your car or home stereo system) and provides Bluetooth connectivity to these older audio systems.
In the past I used Nokia devices with FM transmitters to listen to podcasts in the car, but it was always tough to find a station that was clear enough to provide decent audio quality. The benefit here is that no station has to be found and you simply switch to auxiliary mode and enjoy the audio from your smartphone. The HTC StereoClip is a small device, the same size as many USB thumb drives, that comes with a cap that protects the 3.5mm male end. The cap has an opening so you can store it on your keychain, but I just take it off and put it in my center console compartment.
Caption by: Matthew Miller
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