Airplane Audio Doesn't Have to Suck and This Bluetooth Transmitter Proves It
If you fly often, you already know the routine. You settle into your seat, grab the in-flight entertainment screen, and then your AirPods won't connect. That means reaching for the airline's wired headphones that feel flimsy, let in every engine roar, and make everything sound muffled.
It's one of the most frustrating parts of flying, especially on long trips when decent audio can make all the difference. Between the engine noise, crying babies and that one guy snoring in 14C, you need a better option. The good news is there's a simple device that fixes the problem completely and makes flying feel a lot more like streaming at home. If you travel often, you probably already know the struggle: You're settled into your seat, ready to dive into the in-flight entertainment, only to realize your AirPods won't connect to the screen. The airline's wired headphones? Practically useless. They're uncomfortable, have no noise cancellation and let in every engine roar and crying baby within a three-row radius. For long flights, it's a recipe for a frustrating, low-quality listening experience.
That's exactly why the AirFly Pro has become a must-pack item in my travel bag. It's a simple Bluetooth dongle that lets you connect your wireless earbuds (like my AirPods Pro) directly to the airplane's entertainment system, no adapters or wired workarounds required. Since I started using it, I've stopped dreading in-flight audio and finally get to enjoy movies the way they were meant to be heard. If you fly often, this little gadget might completely change how you travel.
The AirFly Pro lets me truly enjoy in-flight entertainment
The AirFly Pro from Twelve South is a minimally designed dongle that lets me connect to the 3.5mm headphone jack on my flight to listen to in-flight entertainment on my noise-canceling earbuds. All I have to do is pair the AirFly Pro with whichever Bluetooth headphones I'm using, like my AirPods Pro, plug the AirFly Pro into the display in front of me -- and I'm all set. I don't even need to use my phone to connect the two devices.
Geoffrey Morrison/CNET
There are four versions of the AirFly: the AirFly SE, which costs $35 on Amazon and connects to just one set of headphones; the AirFly Pro ($55); the Pro V2 ($60), the newest version of the Pro; and the Pro Deluxe ($62), which comes with an international headphone adapter and a suede travel case.
I use the AirFly Pro, and it's been a game-changer for me on flights. I've never had to worry about battery life -- the AirFly Pro lasts for more than 25 hours and can fully charge in 3 hours. I can also pair two separate pairs of headphones to a single AirFly Pro, in case I'm with someone else on a flight and want to watch the same movie or show.
And if that's not enough, the AirFly Pro also doubles as an audio transmitter, so I can turn any speaker with a headphone jack, like my old car stereo, into a Bluetooth speaker.
Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.
Geoffrey Morrison/CNET
The AirFly Pro makes a great gift
The AirFly Pro is the perfect present to give to someone who's planning to travel this year. Besides my Anker MagSafe battery pack, the AirFly Pro really has become my most treasured travel accessory when I fly, which is why I consider it to be one of those can't-go-wrong gifts.
For more travel gear, here are our favorite tech essentials to travel with and our favorite travel pillows.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Drive
29 minutes ago
- The Drive
What a Bag of Chips Taught Me About Optima's Battery Tech at Pikes Peak
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Car racing has long been hailed as the ultimate test bed for burgeoning automotive technologies, with everything from aerodynamics to paddle shifters making their way from high-tech racing machines to consumer cars. But with so much of that already done, it's hard to imagine what, exactly, is left to learn. To find out, Optima Batteries invited me to the 2025 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. There, a fleet of BBI Autosport Porsche race cars would be outfitted with the company's OrangeTop QH6 lithium battery, and I was determined to discover exactly how relevant the iconic 12.42-mile run up America's Mountain can be in modern battery development. Interestingly enough, it didn't take some complex concept or high-tech machine to teach me why Pikes Peak presents an enormous challenge to a vital component like a car battery. In fact, all it took was a silly bag of potato chips. Elizabeth Blackstock But first things first: Why is racing relevant to a company like Optima Batteries? Tom Downie, vice president of communications at Clarios (which owns Optima Batteries), explained just that. Motorsport 'gives us a chance to push some of our products more than the average consumer might, and all of that [research and development] goes into our regular products.' This approach may include not only appealing to performance-oriented aftermarket customers who want to upgrade their stock equipment, but also monitoring how OEMs are developing certain elements of their machines through racing and pitching Optima products to them if their technology falls short. Elizabeth Blackstock, Optima From a sales angle, that makes sense. But to understand what, exactly, can be learned at an event like the PPIHC—or, as Daryl Brockman, director of global sales, marketing, and product planning at Optima added—the King of the Hammers and the Baja 1000—you must look at this race's extremely unique environment. Sure, you want your race cars to be durable, but Brockman explained that the PPIHC raises a frankly fascinating challenge, one that I experienced myself with the aforementioned salty snack. I bought a bag of chips down in Colorado Springs, which sits at an altitude of just over 6,000 feet. It sat, unopened, in the front seat with me as I crossed the race's starting line at 9,390 feet, and made the slow ascent up Pikes Peak to the summit, which stands at 14,115 feet of elevation. A sealed container like that bag of chips will undergo a wild change: It swells and expands. That's because the air pressure inside the bag remains the same as it was when it was sealed closer to sea level, while the air pressure outside the bag decreases. The internal air wants to push outside of the bag, which causes some extreme surface tension. Scientists call this Boyle's Law. Optima Just like the chip bag, batteries are also fully sealed containers, and the altitude change during the race is going to impact the battery the same way it impacts your chip bag: Namely, as you ascend higher up a mountain, the external air pressure is going to drop, but the internal air pressure in your battery will remain the same. Pressure changes can impact the structural integrity of a sealed lithium battery pack, which can cause your battery to leak or even explode, while decreases in cooling efficiency mean your battery can overheat. It should go without saying that all of these impacts are bad, but they become particularly concerning when those batteries are mated to purpose-built cars that are trying to race up a huge mountain in 10 minutes or less. 'Our batteries actually have a breather valve that allows the pressure inside the battery to equalize compared to the atmospheric air pressure,' Brockman told me. 'It's one of the small details that our batteries have that some of our other competitors may not have considered.' Elizabeth Blackstock And it's a detail that can't be replicated through lab conditions—not really. Brockman pointed out that the OrangeTop QH6 spent a year and a half in the lab, during which time the Optima development crew worked out any initial kinks. The next step is actually crafting pre-production prototypes that Optima has distributed to race teams and other enthusiasts who will really put those batteries to the test. 'A lab test is a controlled environment, so the assumptions don't always match reality,' Brockman explained. 'You'll have assumptions on how much power it takes to start the vehicle, which can vary wildly from one vehicle to another; the amount of cranking time; the differences in how a vehicle starts when the engine's cold versus when it's hot. Sometimes you'll find things outside of your initial assumptions, and those are the things we learned along the way to make sure that we have a product that will always perform.' Elizabeth Blackstock, Optima A breather valve is a fairly simple feature; under sea-level atmospheric conditions, this valve remains a sealed component of the battery. But as you climb further up a mountain and the pressure inside the battery builds, it compresses the valve and allows that air pressure to escape. When the air pressure inside and outside of the battery is equalized, the valve shuts. If my chip bag had a similar feature, it wouldn't look like it was bursting at the seams up at the summit of Pikes Peak. The valve may be small, but the OrangeTop QH6 is also outfitted with a load of sensors that monitor battery health, all of which can be transmitted to an app on your phone via Bluetooth. Without the breather valve, Optima could see exactly how sudden changes in elevation and atmospheric pressure compromised battery integrity and lifespan. Add in the breather valve, and the data showed a dramatically different story, though the Optima crew was reluctant to hand off any proprietary details. So, while the 2025 running of the PPIHC was the first time Optima had officially debuted its OrangeTop QH6 battery in a race car as a final product, it wasn't the first time a car had carried some version of that battery up a mountain; its adventure-focused product testers had been enthusiastically scaling summits for about a year before the company knew it had a battery that could withstand the pressures of competition. The difference is that now, Optima has completed the testing of its prototypes and feels confident enough to offer it to consumers. Got a tip? Email us at tips@
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What to Expect From Intuitive Surgical's Next Quarterly Earnings Report
With a market cap of $191.3 billion, Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG) designs, manufactures, and markets advanced robotic systems that support minimally invasive surgeries. Its flagship products include the da Vinci Surgical System and the Ion endoluminal system, which enhance surgical precision and expand diagnostic capabilities. The Sunnyvale, California-based company is expected to announce its fiscal Q2 2025 earnings results on Thursday, July 17. Ahead of this event, analysts are expecting ISRG to report a profit of $1.52 per share, up 3.4% from $1.47 per share in the year-ago quarter. The company has exceeded Wall Street's bottom-line estimates in the past four quarters. In Q1 2025, Intuitive Surgical surpassed the consensus EPS estimate by 3.7%. Holiday Trading, Trade Negotiations and Other Key Things to Watch this Week Alphabet's Strong Free Cash Flow Makes GOOG Stock a Value Buy Options Flow Alert: Bulls Making Their Move in GOOGL Stock Get exclusive insights with the FREE Barchart Brief newsletter. Subscribe now for quick, incisive midday market analysis you won't find anywhere else. For fiscal 2025, analysts expect the surgical robot maker to report EPS of $6.23, down 3.9% from $6.48 in fiscal 2024. However, EPS is expected to rebound and grow nearly 18% year-over-year to $7.35 in fiscal 2026. ISRG stock has climbed 19.9% over the past year, outperforming the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 12.6% gain and the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund's (XLV) 8.2% decline over the same period. Shares of Intuitive Surgical rose 1.9% following its Q1 2025 results on Apr. 22, primarily because the company beat analysts' expectations, reporting adjusted EPS of $1.81 and revenue of $2.3 billion. The company placed 367 da Vinci systems, including 147 of its next-generation da Vinci 5 systems. Additionally, the global procedure growth of 17% and a 15% increase in the installed base to 10,189 systems reinforced investor confidence. Analysts' consensus rating on Intuitive Surgical stock is cautiously optimistic overall, with a "Moderate Buy" rating. Out of 28 analysts covering the stock, 19 recommend a "Strong Buy," two have a "Moderate Buy" rating, six give a "Hold" rating, and one "Strong Sell." This configuration is slightly more bullish than three months ago, with 18 analysts suggesting a "Strong Buy." As of writing, ISRG is trading below the average analyst price target of $589.92. On the date of publication, Sohini Mondal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Severe Storms Cause July 4 Travel Delays: What to Expect
The busy Fourth of July travel week is off to a soggy start with severe storms causing more than 9,600 flight delays and 400 cancellations Sunday. AAA estimates 72 million Americans will be traveling for the long holiday weekend. More 61 million of those are expected to hit the road by car — and that number could increase due to the air traffic trouble. NBC's Maggie Vespa reports and TODAY's Dylan Dreyer tracks the latest forecast.
