I have a pair of over-ear headphones I bought in 2017. They sound incredible. They also have a six foot cord that snags on doorknobs, chair arms, and my own pockets. Every new phone removes the headphone jack and every new pair of wireless headphones costs a hundred dollars or more. I was not replacing headphones I already loved.

I bought a tiny bluetooth receiver for eight dollars. My wired headphones are now wireless. Here is how dumb simple this is.

The Gadget

Search “Bluetooth 5.0 receiver” on Amazon. You are looking for a device about the size of a car key fob. It has a 3.5mm aux jack output and a built-in clip that attaches to your shirt collar or headphone band. Some have a microphone so you can take calls. Some have playback controls — play, pause, skip. All of them pair with your phone exactly like any bluetooth speaker or earbuds.

Plug your headphones into the receiver’s aux jack. Pair the receiver with your phone. That is the entire setup. Your wired headphones are now bluetooth headphones.

Battery Life

The cheap ones get six to eight hours of playback. They charge via micro USB or USB-C in about an hour. I clip mine to my shirt collar with the headphone cord tucked inside my jacket. You forget it is there after five minutes.

Sound Quality

Bluetooth compresses audio. If you are an audiophile with $500 headphones, you will notice. If you are a normal person listening to Spotify through $50 to $150 headphones, you will not hear a difference. The convenience of no cord outweighs any marginal compression artifacts.

What About Latency?

Watching video? Cheap receivers might have a slight delay — lip sync being off by a fraction of a second. The fix is getting a receiver that supports aptX Low Latency or AAC codecs. These cost about fifteen to twenty dollars instead of eight. If you only use them for music and podcasts, the basic receiver works perfectly.

I have been using mine for four months. The headphones I almost replaced are still going strong. Eight dollars versus a hundred plus for new wireless headphones. That is a win I will take every time.