Third Party Treo 800w Audio Adapter Cancelled

Posted By: Kris Keilhack Friday, September 5, 2008 8:27:17 AM

An employee from the Accessory outfit Seidio has quietly confirmed via a forum post that Seidio's plans to release a microUSB to 3.5mm stereo headphone adapter for the Treo 800w has become much more difficult than originally anticipated. Therefore, according to the company's representative seidioseidio, Seidio has postponed (IE: cancelled) their plans to produce the adapter.

Treo 800w users wishing to utilize their existing high-quality stereo headphones or earbuds must therefore install a microUSB 2.5mm headset adapter and then a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter (such as the cumbersome Palm model I reviewed here) attached to that. The only alternatives for kludge-free music listening on the 800w remain Bluetooth A2DP wireless and the handful of standard microUSB stereo headsets on the market.

Fortunately, Palm has seen fit to finally follow the trend of conventional 3.5mm jacks, as the new Treo Pro is the first new device from Palm in nearly three years (since the Palm TX) to offer a standard 3.5mm jack.

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A headphone adapter is 'difficult'?

SeldomVisitor @ 9/5/2008 8:45:55 AM #

Perhaps the difficult part was the per-unit cost needed to recover design/manufacturing costs given expected sell-through of the 800W.

RE: A headphone adapter is 'difficult'?

hkklife @ 9/5/2008 8:55:06 AM #

Indeed. Not a surprising decision at all IMO.

Here's my theory:

Sprint was the only carrier brave (foolish?) enough to jump on the 800w. The CDMA Treo Pro is indeed forthcoming and the 800w will be soon (if it's not already) discontinued. Verizon will have the Treo Pro CDMA exclusive and Sprint will only offer the 800w as long as their remaining stock holds out and/or until VZW's exclusivity period is over.

Seidio figured that it simply was not worth the effort to make an adapter for a single model of Treo (all older Treos have 2.5mm and all future Treos will be 3.5mm) that's available on a single domestic carrier.

Now, for something like the new Seidio extended 2600mah battery that fits both the huge-selling Centro and the 800w, then all that is required by Seidio is to spec a slightly different battery door for the 800w and the per-unit cost was so negligible that it makes it worthwhile.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

RE: A headphone adapter is 'difficult'?

hkklife @ 9/5/2008 9:01:56 AM #

SV:

Another interesting tidbit, this time via the latest Palm Blog post:

http://blog.palm.com/palm/2008/09/thrilled-to-be.html

Interesting for 2 things, really:

1. Funny how Palm's touting the Pro's "suitability". Are they speaking in regards to voice quality? Signal strength? Battery life? Durability? I would ASSUME signal strength/voice call quality.

Funny how Palm's NEVER made any mention of sound quality in any Treo/Centro over the years until now, huh? From my experience, aside from call volume, Palm's products have the most atrocious sound quality & reception (especially in fringe areas) of any wireless phone that I have EVER used. But initial reports are that the Pro has rather good audio quality when compared to the 800w.

2. Much like the comments on the page suggest, it's also hysterical (for me at least) that Palm continues to beat the Pro drum over and over and, a few posts below on the blog, post a huge list of "me too" reviews that are proclaiming the Pro as the greatest thing ever, despite it still being unavailable for purchase and no specific release date offered....and, of course, zero carrier partnerships in the USA mean that 95+% of the phone's potential target audience will never even know of this thing's existence, much less be able to get any hands-on time with one.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

RE: A headphone adapter is 'difficult'?

LiveFaith @ 9/5/2008 10:11:40 AM #

Difficult is figuring out what to do when that USB power flow begins to melt the plastic on those earbuds. And as you said, figuring out how to cover the $100,000 engineering costs and roll that back into the 21,000 800Ws that will sell, leaving about 5,000 that would actually seek out such a device, and the 2,500 that would find it. Let's see here $4 per item to engineer, $4 to manufacture, $5 to advert and market. We're at nearly $15 per device with no hiccups, so we're lookin at $30-50 on the retail. Just for an to make the device work right! (All #s are guesses of top of head BTW)

Way to go Palm Inc. You've done it again. Someone has got to write a book about how these decisions get made over there!!!

Pat Horne

RE: A headphone adapter is 'difficult'?

TeatroJon @ 9/6/2008 10:35:26 AM #

In the initial post here, it states that with no plans for a 3.5mm adapter, we will all have to use bluetooth options or a combination of a micro usb to 2.5mm adapter...plus an additional 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter (in order to use 3.5mm audio connections).

I'm puzzled by this though. Are we sure that a micro usb to 2.5mm adapter will even work with the 800W? Has anyone tried it?

Many of us have tried the Motorola micro usb to 3.5mm adapters, and the don't work. So, why would the 2.5mm be any different. *(Believe me, this daisy chain of adapters would be better than nothing).

If anyone has had success with a micro usb to 2.5mm adapter on the 800w, please post.

RE: A headphone adapter is 'difficult'?

JL1 @ 9/26/2008 6:15:02 AM #

Any word on whether the Micro to 2.5 adapter, plus 2.5 to 3.5 thing works?

RE: A headphone adapter is 'difficult'?

kendertaunt @ 10/7/2008 7:12:57 AM #

I can verify that it does NOT work. Sigh. I'm stuck with a $299 paperweight. I upgraded my Treo 700wx and primarily use it as car MP3 player/GPS. Now I can't. I have to re-sell it, and buy back an old 700wx. ARG!

I tried 2.5mm headset adapter to MicroUSB, didn't work. I tried 3.5mm headset adapter to MicroUSB, didn't work. The sound just comes out of the phone speaker like there's no headphones plugged in at all.

More 3.5mm Adapter Frustrations

TeatroJon @ 9/6/2008 10:41:54 AM #

Let's also not forget that the "Bluetooth Volume Reset Bug" (mentioned in a few forums on the Palm Support site - See the link below)keeps even Bluetooth adapters (like the Jabra 3030) from working successfully...due to the volume being inconsistent and/or not loud enough. - It is a VERY frustrating situation...and seems to be falling on deaf ears at Palm.

http://forums.palm.com/palm/board/print?board.id=hardware&message.id=32807&page=1&format=page

The other thing I still don't get is why this is so difficult to put together a 3.5mm adapter. Many people have spliced their OEM 800W Headphones and made their own adapters...and they work. But, who wants to solder their own adapter??!!

plug in headsets are passe...

Bobaloo @ 9/7/2008 11:55:21 AM #

Get with technology... I'm using the Sony HBH-DS980. It works flawlessly with the 800w. I would never consider an old fashioned plug in headset again. Palm is maybe just a little ahead of our time, wired headsets will be a thing of the past like buggy whips and oil lamps.

RE: plug in headsets are passe...

TeatroJon @ 9/8/2008 11:12:54 AM #

I'm sure that's a great headset...but I think most of us are referring to having the ability to plug into car stereo adapters and/or home stereos or docks to play media outside of a headset.

As well, I had volume issues on the Jabra 3030 Bluetooth Headset Adapter due to the bluetooth volume reset bug. Is no one else having this issue with Bluetooth Stereo Headphones?