Twelve South AirFly Pro 2 Bluetooth Adapter

There is a peculiar modern indignity in boarding a plane with excellent wireless headphones, then discovering that the seat-back screen is still waiting for a 3.5 mm plug and a time machine. The Twelve South AirFly Pro 2 exists for that moment, plus the equally niche but entirely real treadmill, gym bike and older television predicament. We think that is enough justification for a small electronic mediator.

It connects a source with a standard headphone jack to Bluetooth wireless headphones, so the airline’s entertainment system can speak to your AirPods rather than forcing you into whatever brittle wired set was last found in a drawer. More usefully, it can pair two headphone sets to one source. Shared listening is suddenly possible without the traditional tangle of splitter cables and accidental elbowing.

The Pro 2 is not merely a travel widget that lives at the bottom of a bag until one annual flight. TX mode sends wired-jack audio to wireless headphones, while RX mode receives Bluetooth audio and outputs it to wired speakers or an AUX-IN port. That gives old speakers, car inputs and similar stubborn hardware a route into the present, without pretending every household audio problem deserves a new sound system.

At 56.6 mm by 29 mm by 11.2 mm and 16.5 g, it is a notably small bit of kit, with more than 25 hours of listed battery life. USB-C charging and automatic reconnection to the last two devices reduce some of the ritual, although pairing remains a task rather than sorcery. Our verdict: the AirFly Pro 2 is a pleasingly specific answer to the annoying gap between wireless headphones and the wired world that refuses to die.