April 9, 2007

Oregon Scientific IB368 iBall Wireless iPod Speaker with Transmitter Dock

Oregon Scientific has another very cool product out there that we think you might be interested in. We reviewed their Music Sphere earlier and really liked what they had produced. Now looking over the iBall we have found another great product that we think is sure to make many an iPod owner happy.

With the iBall you have a transmitter that you dock your iPod into and a receiver that picks up the wireless transmission and outputs it via its built in speaker. The receiver unit has a little LCD display that displays all sorts of information from the current time to the bass/treble output levels to the songs playing status.

The docking station is much more functional then many we have seen on the market these days. It charges your iPod as well as lets you sync it with iTunes. Most other units only will charge the iPod and make you disconnect the iPod and dock it with your computer to add/remove songs. So the ability to just leave it in the dock and have complete control over it is a great feature.

Also to note is that the receiver unit comes with an auxiliary line-in for hooking up a CD player or another MP3 player. This is a great addition that really expands this devices usefulness. You could for instance take this outside with a CD player and stream music outside at a Summer party. We like choices and the simple inclusion of an aux-in makes us smile.

The iBall supports the following iPods:

iPod shuffle (512 MB and 1 GB models)
iPod mini (4 GB and 6 GB models)
iPod with click wheel (20 GB and 40 GB models)
iPod with dock connector (10 GB, 15 GB, 20 GB, 30 GB, and 40 GB models)
iPod with color display (20 GB, 30 GB, 40 GB, and 60 GB models)
iPod nano

So just like its cousin, the Music Sphere, we love this product and think that anyone looking to use their iPod as a way to stream music around the house or outside would love it. Amazon is currently selling these guys at a HUGE discount so now is a great time to pick one up.