Belkin RockStar Lightning Audio Cable Charger

Steer clear of the budget versions of this charger and audio adapter. This Belkin is what you really want. You pay this price for the satisfaction and functionality of a quality engineered product. I have this adapter attached to an old iPhone 8. It is plugged into a Raspberry pi with an external sound card running an Icecast server [with Darkice]. The charger cable keeps my ancient phone powered up, the analog headphone into the server. It’s fun and functional.

I was debating between buying this and the authentic Apple one and I’m so glad that I went with this. I chose this over Apple because 1. my coworkers recommended it (I want to buy this to use for a job) 2. I would receive it in time to start my job 3. its price point and the decent reviews it has on Amazon.

I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. The product arrived fast with prime, is quite sturdy and looks to be good quality. No issue yet and I have been using this every day since I got it (>1 month). The only thing I would say is that I plug a headphone into the adapter and sometimes I can hear sound coming from one of the sides only. However, remove the headphone plug and plug it back into the adapter fix this issue every time.

I highly recommend this product for anyone who is in the market for it.

Apple took away the headphone port, but sold me a lightning to 3.5 adapter so I could use my wired buds with my iPhone 13 Pro. Imagine my disappointment when my battery ran low while I was listening to a favorite playlist and I needed to unplug my buds to re-juice the phone!

I checked Amazon for a solution and found several adapters that split from lightning to a 3.5 and a lightning charge port, most of them quite similar, pledging that they were MFI certified and compatible with my phone. All around 10 bucks each; I selected three different vendors and bought one from each. Despite slight differences in their pictures on Amazon, all of them were the same when they arrived. Two of them failed to work with my earbuds right from the start. The third worked fine with my earbuds until I plugged in the charger at the same time and the audio became very static-y. Thankfully, the next time I tried them the static was gone, but sadly so was the audio. I started to think this golden unicorn adapter I needed was a donkey with a taped on paper horn.

Weeks later I’m on a 4 hour drive along country roads and digging the music that I’m playing from my phone, with Apple’s adapter into a double male 3.5mm cable into my truck’s “audio in” port. Good times! Until the phone battery runs low and I’m about to lose my map app.

I get home after having to listen to myself sing for 45 minutes. Fortunately no passengers, so I only had to endure myself. Still enough reason to re-approach Amazon to see if they have any of these adapters that will actually work. I spotted this unit from Belkin for just around $35 and thought “so this is what the phrase good money after bad means”. And yet, I couldn’t stop myself.

This Belkin adapter arrived in an Amazon bubble mailer promptly (two days) after ordering. Inside the mailer was a sealed plastic bag with the adapter, but no commercial packaging. The adapter itself had a black greasy smudge (repackaged defective return?), but looked otherwise new and I’m happy to report it performed exactly as I’d hoped when I tested it. Good clear sound through the truck’s sound system while charging at what seems to be a normal rate. This is the one that works!

Update-
It’s now April 2024 and this adapter is still working great after daily use.

Excelente producto, muy fácil de usar

So, I have been eyeing this item for a long time, but couldn’t bring myself to buy it when $10 alternatives littered the Amazon marketplace. Well, this item dropped to less than $30, so it was time to give it a go. I was also fed up with those $10 units working like garbage (that is, not working), save for one or two that actually worked as intended (I suppose it is worth mentioning I have bought many of those $10 units, only to have returned 80% of them).

Well folks, this unit is the real deal. I have never encountered one of these units that actually lets me sync my iPhone with my PC until I bought this one. The cheaper units I keep mentioning do allow charging and listening, but I found it very hit or miss to have the microphone/play/pause/volume controls work with those units (almost always being a “miss”). Worse yet, many of those cheaper units claim to support syncing, which has thus far proven to be completely false. On the other hand, this unit worked…with a couple of small hiccups (go two paragraphs down to see my report on this).

Regarding audio quality, control, and reliability, this thing is an ace. My 3.5mm stereo headphone/earphones with and without the microphone/play/pause/volume controls all worked. In other words, it seems any of the listening devices with 3 or 4 conductor plugs (a.k.a. TRS and TRRS, respectively) I threw at it worked. The audio quality was perfect (no high-pitched noises, clicks, static, etc.). The controls were flawless. When I pressed a button, the phone reacted as expected.

As far as syncing, however, there were some issues. I plugged the unit into one of my PC’s USB 2.0 ports. Then I connected the headphones and finally I connected the cable to the phone. It showed up almost instantly, so I was quite ecstatic. But to my dismay, seconds later it disconnected…only to reconnect seconds after that. This happened over and over. So long as it was in any of my USB 2.0 ports, this phenomenon occurred, regardless if I wiggled the cable, reset the phone, or any of the dozen other things I tried. Finally, I move it to a USB 3.0 on my PC and the problem went away. It established an instant connection that never failed! I was able to transfer photos, videos, music, etc. from the phone to my PC via iTunes and via my OS’s explorer interface (Win 7, in my case).

The plug end of the unit is larger than normal, so it did not fit my Otterbox Commuter case without me scraping a bit of plastic from the bottom. I was a little annoyed by that, but with very minimal effort I rectified that.

So, if you are willing to spend a bit of cash for such an item, I would recommend it, especially over the cheaper ones. Be prepared for the sync glitch (as I mentioned above) – if it happens to you, try a different USB port. Heck, you may not even face the problem. I also recommend not handling it like an animal. I have no doubt that these units all come from cheap-labor factories around the world, so don’t expect it to handle abuse. Since I use these units for work, they tend to rest comfortably on my desk or workbench, so I never stress them. If you do the same, you will probably be just as happy as I am.

Update: 2 more units purchased and they were plug and play. All went as smooth as silk. I’m still in disbelief that they work so well, but for $30, one would hope so. Thus far, they still are the only units I have encountered that do everything as advertised (including flawless synchronization with my PCs/laptops).

Other thoughts/notes: I don’t know why this item has gotten poor reviews of being “crappy,” because my impression of its build and material selection seems to be top notch. It feels sturdy, professional, and can actually take a few hits (I dropped my first one a few times, and guess what – it’s perfect). I hate that the first review you see (the top review) was of a poor experience, because if you are like me (wired headphone with controls/mic integration with PC synchronization), then this is the unit you have been searching for. You should also be warned that the lightning port on this unit is NOT for headphones. It is only for powering the unit, charging your connected device, and PC connectivity, all via USB. Finally, many of the negative reviews that are detailed (i.e. not the ones that simply say garbage and end it there) all state that the unit failed them after some time (usually some amount of weeks were mentioned). I will update this review if I fall into that group as well.

Não gostei do tempo q demorou pra avisar aliás eu q tive q descobrir o q aconteceu