The Blueye is a cool little piece of gadgetry that joins two of the most popular pieces of technology together: Bluetooth mobile phone handsfree kits and the iPod. At its core, it’s a third party version of Apple’s iPod Radio Remote with an integrated Bluetooth handsfree kit, designed to send the iPod commands to stop and start the music automatically when you’re making calls.

Like the Apple iPod Radio Remote, the Blueye is a small clip style remote control with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the end. It will also serve as a decent FM radio for your iPod, although the tuner will only ever lock onto strong signals and provides no manual tuning at all.

On the Bluetooth side of the equation, a small built-in microphone is housed in the top of the Blueye and is connected directly to the Bluetooth circuitry. The 3.5mm headphone jack is connected to both the Bluetooth circuit and the iPod. Once a paired phone rings, the Blueye will automatically pause the iPod, and let you use the buttons on the remote to accept or reject the call.

Although the music will cut immediately after you receive a call, it will take two seconds before the remote’s buttons will respond and let you either answer or divert the call. If your iPod is in view you’ll be able to see the number of the caller on its screen, but even if the caller’s name is stored in your phone, the iPod will only display the caller’s number.

Unlike the Apple Radio Remote, the Blueye doesn’t come with a pair of earphones with a short cable length. We’ll concede that the ones that Apple supply are rubbish, but using standard length headphones with the Blueye means you have to find a way of dealing with the extra 50-odd centimetres of cable that is added, due to the Blueye’s wired connection to the iPod.

The Blueye connects to the dock connector at the base of the iPod. An unintentional bonus is that because the audio from this is independent of the iPod’s headphone output, you can connect a pair of headphones to the Blueye and another pair to the iPod and control the volume of each independently.

The Apple iPod Radio Remote by itself is $80, and most Bluetooth handsfree kits cost roughly that again. At $150, the Blueye is a decent value gadget that comes with extra flexibility, which is always welcome.