Physical Overview

The headset has a bulky design that is clunky when compared to other Bluetooth headsets on the market. At first look - one wonders how the heck you can manage to place this thing around your ear. More on this later on!

The headset has two buttons on the backside that act as both the power buttons as well as volume control buttons. There is a small LED on one end and a power jack on the other end of the row. The LED shows the current state of the handset. When paired with a Bluetooth phone or dongle, the LED will flicker a short green light.

The headset is useable on either ear without any modification. The boom microphone extends from the ear a few inches but is strong enough to pick up your voice.

The BT07 dongle connects to any mobile phone via a 2.5 mm adapter. There is one LED and one button which you will press to place the dongle in various modes.

Setup

The package we are reviewing contains both the Bluetrek mobile headset and the BT07 dongle which makes the headset usable for all mobile phones out on the market (and really any phone that has a 2.5mm jack).

The headset is a qualified Bluetooth headset that complies with the Bluetooth 1.1 protocol. Thus it can be used with any:

•  Qualified Bluetooth mobile phone

•  Non-Bluetooth phone with the BT07 dongle.

You should check your mobile phone to see if it is qualified as a Bluetooth device.

Before you pair your headset and the BT07 dongle, you should fully charge both devices. It takes approximately 2 - 2.5 hours to charge the headset. The charger comes with two cables allowing you to charge both the dongle and the headset at the same time. The LEDs will be red on both devices when charging. The headset uses a rechargeable battery that has a life of about 500 charging cycles. If the talk time is reduced significantly, then you should contact Bluetrek for battery replacements.

Setup consists of initiating a pairing between the Bluetrek headset and the BT07 dongle. The volume up button on the headset also acts as the power ON button. Press that button for 8 seconds and the LED light should be blinking red. The BT07 dongle needs to be placed in pairing mode also - this is done by pressing the lone button on the dongle for approximately 10 seconds until you see an alternating flashing red and green LED light. Once both devices are in pairing mode, the headset will find the dongle and complete the pairing. The LED on both devices will flash a slow green light. You're all set at this point.

If you have a Bluetooth enabled phone, you will need to enter the pairing code on the phone for the headset. Refer to the manual for more details for this process.

One complaint that I have with many Bluetooth headsets is the complexity introduced by having different modes. Since a headset can only have so many buttons, you often need to use the buttons in creative ways - such as holding a button down for a certain amount of time while paying attention to the LED to indicate state changes. This is annoying when your headset can be placed in a variety of modes which also means that you really can't throw away that manual. What should happen if you lose your pairing? Well you'll need to remember how to place both the headset and the dongle into pairing mode. What about standby mode? Let's see - I think I needed to press this button for umm one second? What happened to a simple on and off button and a setup button to initiate pairing?

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