Is Pairing A Bluetooth Headset To your Mobile Phone Worth $10?

 
I know that a lot of people reading this post couldn’t imagine paying someone to $10 for the 45 second process of pairing a Bluetooth headset to ones BlackBerry. Trust me when I tell you, however, that for most people, pairing a bluetooth headset is as difficult as, well…, pairing a bluetooth headset.

I literally do this for someone in the office every other week, and I can imagine that a couple of iPhone users will stop by my desk before lunch today.

Best Buy has decided to capitalize on the new California Hands Free Calling law by charging $10 to pair a Bluetooth headset to a mobile device. Is pairing a Bluetooth headset to your mobile phone worth $10? I am sure that many Californians that shop at Best Buy will think so.

[Via engadget mobile]

Written by Robb Dunewood on July 14th, 2008 with 6 comments.
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6 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com bluehorseshoe
#1. July 14th, 2008, at 9:08 AM.

Crooks. Yet another reason why I don’t shop there. Overpriced and the selection sucks.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com REV
#2. July 14th, 2008, at 9:44 AM.

Frankly, I have more disdain for folks who would throw away the ten bucks rather than simply read the directions and take the 45 seconds to pair the headset themselves.

If they’re using the headset for driving, it’s like they wasted 2.5 gallons worth of gas out of sheer laziness.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Fletchi18
#3. July 14th, 2008, at 9:48 AM.

I do it for people at work all of the time. Most of the time, because all headsets have their own somewhat quirky way of going into pairing mode, I just end up reading the instruction manual. Definitely just lazy people out there.
But hey, if BB can make a buck off of laziness, why not? It’s the same thing as a lawn service. Just people who are too lazy to take care of their own lawn…or sprinkler systems.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com crazylegs
#4. July 14th, 2008, at 10:08 AM.

What a rip-off! I’ll do it for $9!

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Robb Dunewood
#5. July 14th, 2008, at 10:18 AM.

I look at pairing bluetooth like setting the clock on a VCR. It isn’t really hard to do, however, you would just rather ask someone to do it for than to take the 5 minutes to RTFM and do it yourself.

Most of the people that would use this service probably are buying new headsets to pair with existing phones and would rather pay the $10 to have the store do it versus have to come home and google their owners manual for their phone and doing it themselves.

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#6. July 14th, 2008, at 12:38 PM.

Well, I guess that is the issue - is BB holding themselves out as simply “saving you a few minutes of headache”, or are they trying to mislead folks into thinking that BT pairing is some highly complex process that should be properly performed by a “professional”?

If it’s the former, that’s cool, I guess. If it’s the latter, that’s a PR nightmare waiting to happen.

I equivocate this to charging people $79.99 (or whatever) to install Vista on their PC. They’ve gotten away with that for a long time. A waste of money, IMO, but perhaps it’s worth it to someone who’s really not tech-savvy at all and wants some piece of mind that it was done right.

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