Pryme BT-523-V2 Bluetooth Dongle Adapter Compatible with Jedi and XTS Radios

Thank you very excellent product

I wanted to give this a try, and get away from cords being wrapped around my neck and body. The concept is great, and I got a highly rated earpiece to go with it. All you get is static. I have even tried using other ear pieces, and still static. Even holding the radio next to your head to make a 2-3" connection gets you static. So, I retired this brillant idea.

I bought one of these to use with an XTS5000 portable radio. My work involves walking through a lot of dense brush, cactus, and and other plants and my last ear-piece had the cable ripped apart when it caught on a thorny branch. I decided to give the PrymeBlu BT-523 a shot and also got the Plantronics Voyager Legend Headset. The BT-523 was easy to attach just like my Motorola accessories and has an excellent fit and strong grip to the radio. I had to look at the PrymeBlue manual to pair my headset, but once I followed the steps it was easy. The first thing I noticed about the BT-523 after getting it going was the light. I don't know why companies that make bluetooth products feel that they need to put the brightest possible flashing blue light on their products, but in this case it is a liability. It's not recessed, and it doesn't just shine so the user can see it. It provides substantial illumination, which is bad in my case. I work at night and generally I don't want other people to see me until I turn on my flashlight and the BT-523 is a dead giveaway. The product should have the option to completely turn the light off after the pairing process. I already know if it's working because my BT headset will tell me when it connects. Pretty dumb. A small piece of electrical tape and some black nail-polish later, my BT-523 is now in usable condition. I've used the BT-523 for a few weeks now and it's okay. When it works, it does everything I need it to, and my radio's battery life doesn't seem to suffer much with the BT-523 installed. My big complaint though is the range. I'm used to connecting my Galaxy Nexus phone to my little bluetooth stereo at my apartment. I can put my phone anywhere in my apartment without any static or interruption to the BT connection. So I was kind of hoping for something similar with the BT-523 so that even when I get out of my truck at work to open a ranch gate I could leave my radio in the truck and would still be able to hear radio traffic from the BT-523. NEGATIVE, all static. I don't wear my radio on my belt for various reasons, so it's either strapped to the back of my CamelBak or in one of my cargo pockets if I need to travel light. I get tolerable bluetooth reception with my radio on my CamelBak, but even putting it in one of my cargo pockets completely destroys the reception. It's all static. So, from 4 feet away on the other side of my body, just about zero BT reception. If I turn my head it gets a little better, but it's basically useless at that point. All of that to say: The effective range of the BT-523 is atrocious. I'm guessing they sacrificed range for battery life but I would have preferred they just integrate a rechargeable battery into the BT-523 instead. I know of other Motorola accessories that do this and it works fine, you just have to turn the radio on while you're charging it. Another frustration is that I assumed before I bought the BT-523 that I would simply be able to push a button on my BT earpiece to transmit, but this is not the case. I either have to key the BT-523 (which picks up my voice from the headset), or attach a wired key with it's own mic (included in the kit I bought), or buy a wireless bluetooth key from Pryme which is pretty expensive and only has about a 4hr battery life... This is mostly annoying when I have my radio mounted to my CamelBak, if I wore it on my belt it wouldn't make much of a difference. Still, I should be able to use just the earpiece to transmit and receive. To make a long story short. Decent product, but it needs some tweaking. If I had it to do over again I'd still buy one because being cordless is wonderful. The bluetooth range is awful, and you may have to rearrange where you wear your radio, or where you wear your earpiece to make it work right. Also, be prepared to be lit up like Christmas with the stupid blinking blue light until you get it covered over. The brightness really is over the top.

This item is worthless. i am sending it back asap. when you turn on your radio and follow the instructions on how to pair it sets off your man down, and then youll have tons of people heading your way and you feel like an idiot cause you just got ripped off. Ive tried it many times and it does not work properly like they claim. ill keep using my earpiece and running the cord under my shirt, its worked fine for years.

When this is plugged onto my xts5000 the range and signal is decreased my several miles and adds static in the background of all transmisions evean when close to the repeater. I believe the reason is that the bluetooth is right next to the antenna witch interfeaes. Don't buy