Nate Dickson Thinks...

So here's a non-problem I've had recently. I want to be able to listen to music, but without headphones. Headphones make it so I can't hear the rest of the house. I like to hear what's going on around me. Kinda. Sometimes. Look, let's not question the premise, okay?

All I want is a pair of speakers with Bluetooth, so I can stream music from my phone or computer. That should be cheap and easy, right?

Easy? Yes. Cheap? No, weirdly enough. All the decent Bluetooth enabled speakers I've been able to find are either

1. Expensive
2. Ugly
3. Ugly and Expensive

So I want to make something better. I want good but cheap speakers and a good but cheap Bluetooth adapter. Since I'm specifying cheap I'm obviously aiming for satisficing, not perfecting.

So here's what I came up with:

• Creative Pebble speakers. Roughly $20 if you find a good sale, $40 if you don't. I found a good sale.
• 1 Mii B06 Plus Bluetooth adapter. $30-ish. (I found it for $28, minus $10 using an eBay coupon.)

So my overall price was $38. The next cheapest set of Bluetooth speakers that looked reasonable was around $70, so I'm calling this a win.

Everything arrived and I plugged it all in. It works! But we see the problem with doing this as individual components instead of a pre-built system: wires everywhere.

Not a big deal. I'm putting this whole thing on a bookshelf, so let's use books to solve the ugliness problem:

I'm pleased with the result; the volume on the Pebble speakers is more than sufficient for the room I'm in and the B06 will connect to two devices at the same time, which means I can play music from my phone or computer without un-pairing and re-pairing.

And there you go! non-problem solved!

#100DaysToOffload 8/100 #amwriting