In Praise of Boring Technology
Have you ever come across a really useful peice of boring technology that just works? And keeps on working without fuss year after year. It seems that we’ve kind of forgotten how to make stuff this reliable but it is worth pointing it out when you come across such a mythical device.
The top candidate for this amongst the dozens of devices in my house is the Logitech Bluetooth Audio adapter or rather the four of them — all of which were bought so long ago I’ve entirely forgotten when we got them. I would not be surprised if the oldest of them was more than 15 years old.
They serve a single purpose — to connect a bluetooth device to a stereo that has line-level RCA or 3.5mm jack inputs. This is quite important to me as I have a lot of very old audio equipment. My main office stereo is built around a Harmon/Kardon amp that I’ve had for nearly 30 years. Although I have a full stack consisting of tape deck, minidisc, turnable, tuner and CD player, for 95% of my music, I just want to play Apple Music from my iPad.
And over the last 15 years, across countless Microsoft, Android, and Apple phones, tablets and laptops, the boring old Logitech adapter has never once failed to make this connection. With 100% stability every single time. I’ve never needed to delete Bluetooth profiles and start again. It ain’t flashy. The audio quality would bring tears to an audiophile’s eyes.
It Just Works. And long may it continue.
