I’ve always been slightly jealous of the Apple ecosystem’s ability to easily stream content around between devices. A friend of mine uses his MacBook Air to stream Spotify to his Apple TV via Airplay so that it comes out of his regular stereo system in his lounge room. I have always been very impressed at how easy it was and is what I view as the killer application of Spotify. Sadly, as a Windows and Android user, I couldn’t find any way of achieving this audio nirvana without taking the plunge and handing over my soul, and my credit card, to Apple.
Then I read Fred Wilson’s article about using Bluetooth to achieve much of the same thing. Go read it (and the rest of his blog) – it’s great. In it, he recommends the Logitech Wireless Speaker Adapter. It’s a tiny box that plugs in to your amplifier and pairs with any Bluetooth device that supports audio streaming (e.g. your laptop or your phone). I checked out the price on Amazon.co.uk, found that it was less than £25 and immediately ordered one.
All I can say is “wow”. I love it. It is the best £25 I have ever spent. It’s super-easy to set up and it just works. It has completely changed my relationship with not only Spotify, but with music as a whole. I was totally on the fence about the usefulness of Spotify before I got this, but now I’m hooked. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you love music on your computer and want it to come through your stereo with minimum fuss.
Fred Wilson posted a follow-up article about a month later in which he comes to the same conclusion. It seems that he had trouble making it pair with more than one device, but I haven’t had that problem – I’ve got two computers and a phone all paired (although obviously you can only connect one at a time!).
Buy one now. You won’t regret it.