We have seen a swarm of A2DP Bluetooth devices that can receive stereo audio, but only a handful that can transmit it. The Motorola Bluetooth Stereo Gateway acts as a bridge between devices that can receive A2DP audio and traditional, non-A2DP audio devices.

In essence, this is a two-way wireless music extension cord. It’s powered, like all the other Motorola devices we’ve seen lately, through Mini-USB. As it’s intended to be integrated with a home stereo system, it comes with a wall plug power supply and not a USB to USB-Mini cable, although the gateway will still work if you power it through a computer with a Mini-USB cable.

The small backplane provides all of the device’s wired connectivity; two pairs of RCA connectors for audio and the Mini-USB power socket. One pair of RCA connectors is used to transmit audio from a traditional source, and the other will receive audio through A2DP, convert it to analogue audio and send it to the connected device.

There is a power button and a pairing button on the front of the device, which results in a simple, clean facia. Once the power is on and the unit is receiving audio, you hold down the Motorola button for 5 seconds and it turns blue. From there you search for it with another device and generally you’ll be met with success.

The range of the gateway should be about 100 meters as it is a class one Bluetooth device, but we found that the range depends on the paired device’s range. Like almost all other wireless transmission, obstacles within the signal’s radius will reduce the range, so you won’t get 100 meters worth of transmission unless you happen to have a football field in your garden.

The only shortcomings were the lack of a display to show us what was connected to the gateway. Although pairing is a fairly smooth and intuitive process, a display would have taken some of the guesswork out of pairing, especially if you have multiple devices within range. It would have added to the final cost though, which is a little pricey, but other than this it’s a good product that does everything it sets out to do.