Saramonic BlinkMe Wireless Mic Kit with Touchscreen

Saramonic is no stranger to us as we have used or tested products from the company so many times over the last 5 years or so (since we first came across the Uwmic9 series). Time and time again the company has proven its ability to deliver a solid and competitive product at a fair price, and now it has a new mobile wireless lav kit to add to that roster. It is the new Saramonic BlinkMe dual wireless mic kit (releasing April 29th, 2023).

Like most mobile kits, it comes with two transmitters and one single dual-channel receiver. It embraces some of the new modern features found in similar kits, like making use of 2.4 GHz instead of configurable UHF frequencies and sporting built-in li-ion batteries instead of requiring alkaline. However, there is little to call normal about this one beyond that. In case, this is a very unique one.

Design & Features

This kit focuses on users of mobile rigs, including smartphones, action cameras, laptops, DSLRs, and more. It is meant to provide a powerful solution in a small package. Making it easy to carry with you.

Speaking of carrying it with you, you can tell there is something special about this product when it comes tucked away into a durable Pelican-like case (air pressure valve and all). This is something the company has been doing for its more flagship-like products.

It is a formidable storage solution for keeping your important equipment safe as you travel around and can take plenty of abuse (or at least, it should if it compares to companies like Pelican or similar–which it does give the impression of).

The case features custom-cut foam that keeps everything snug inside and opens straight to all three units, as well as a separate spot for all of the accessories to hide into. Something it has plenty of.

Of course, you aren’t here to learn about the case it comes in (although it is pretty nice). The main focus is the three little devices inside of this fancy case.

There have been a number of smaller lav solutions, including those with or without attachable mics. But transmitters with built-in microphones have been taking off within the mobile communities (users of all skill levels).

But this lav kit takes on a design we haven’t seen anywhere else. Instead of small pieces tucked away into a pocket-sized case, the case is completely eliminated and the charging properties built directly into the receiver. Then to make it all the stranger (and very fascinating), the transmitters look like what my colleague in the unboxing video below referred to as “pucks”. A term I kind of side with and will be referring to through the rest of this article.

These pucks attach to both the top and bottom sides of the receiver through the use of magnets. They can then take charge from the receive when not in use (like they would a charging case.

The only catch is that you likely won’t be sliding these into your pocket like you would one of those cases. Although you could likely get away with it since the glass covering the screens feature “panda glass” for added protection.

When they are attached together like this, they can take charge all at once using a single USB-C cable plugged into the receiver. Giving the receiver up to 24 hours of use, and the transmitters up to 9 hours of use.

These numbers slide around a little since the receiver also functions as the charging source for the transmitters when they aren’t plugged in. So you get a little give and take between the three to balance out the charge throughout the day (or until you plug them in next).

Turning on the receiver via its power button will also turn on the transmitters along with the receiver. This makes everything ready to be used in one shot. From there you can pull each transmitter off and place them on whomever you want to mic up. If you only plan to use one of them, you can keep one on top of the receiver so it remains charged.

When it comes to browsing around the settings of each device, this is another area that is unique to this kit. Instead of having three to four physical buttons and a basic LCD display to dig around the menu of features, all three of the devices have built-in touchscreen displays. This minimizes the physical buttons since you don’t need them.

As you can see from the other image, there are only three buttons on the receiver (power and volume. Everything else is adjusted within the touch screen by swiping down the screen to access some of the typical options like mono/stereo modes, gain, display settings, pairing, and more.

You can also swipe up on either side of the screen to access some basic settings for the individual transmitters, including mute and onboard recording. Giving you access to these settings on either end (not just the transmitters).

The color display is small but easy to read thanks to its brightness and crisp details for icons and text. You have everything on the screen so you can easily and instantly know the status of the transmitters, including modes, meters, connectivity, and battery life. The screens are also durable since all three feature Panda Glass (similar to Gorilla Glass), so they should last a long time as long as you don’t drop them on the ground.

There are three connections on the side of the receiver, including two analog 3.5 mm connections and a USB-C. The USB-C could be used for both charging and audio output, despite the instructions saying this is only for charging (or at least, it’s the only thing they mention in the diagram). It is able to charge all three units at once when they are all attached to each other. While also providing as a USB-C out to any device that accepts USB-C audio.

Technically, you could possibly send to two different USB-C devices since you have the option of 3.5mm adapters.  So, looking at the image above, the left-most output is a TRS/TRRS connection for 3.5 mm to your phone, camera, or any other device (depending on the cable being used).

The second port is for headphone monitoring, but can also be used as a 3.5 mm TRS/TRRS connection to an output device. So if you think about it, you could potentially consider the main 3.5 mm output as a universal output depending on the cable being used, plus the USB-C port for connecting to a device, and then there is the headphone monitoring port which can (potentially) be used as a third source to send to something (analog) if you aren’t already using it with headphones.

Originally, we assumed our colleague in the unboxing video at the end of this story was incorrect in this assumption. However, he clarified it by speaking with Saramonic in person at NAB 2023 where the company did confirm that the USB-C port can be used as an output. 

The trick is that you can use an adapter to go from the TRS/TRRS port to alternative connections, such as USB-C or Lightning. If you also want to record in analog 3.5 mm beyond that, you can use the headphone port to send to a second device.

So the TRS/TRRS output is really where you are getting the USB-C from. Not the USB-C input on the side (which is only for charging).

Thankfully, as you can see above, the company offers multiple adapters you can purchase and you can also find these online via any retailer that sells them (ie, Amazon, eBay, B&H, etc). Just make sure you are getting a TRRS to whatever output format you need (and that it is for output and not input adaption). If you already have some of these adapters lying around from previous kits or gear, you can likely just use those.

Moving on to the transmitters, these small little puck-like units are not much bigger than the watch on your wrist (if you wear one). This is where a lot of the unique features come into play and where having a touchscreen for your settings is so user-friendly.

These screens are bigger since they have more surface space to to take advantage of and are packed with options. They include every icon and meter necessary to know what mode you are in, the connectivity strength to the receiver, audio meters, and more.

Then you can swipe up or down on the screen to access all of the settings. Including mute, onboard recording, noise reduction, brightness, gain, display settings, and more. This is also the second time we mention onboard recording and first for noise reduction, which are two powerful options for these microphones. We will be getting into this in a detail within the next section.

If you don’t like the idea of looking at the screen while the subject is wearing it on camera, you can set it to eco mode so it automatically turns off after so many seconds. That way it is just a shiny black puck stuck to their shirt. Or, you can press and hold on the screen where it will allow you to slide up and down between different designs. You can also upload your own design via the app (which we will go into detail later on).

The transmitters feature a built-in microphone so not wired lav is used in this kit. The transmitters are the mic and you attach them directly to your subject. You simply pop them off of the receiver when you are ready to go and attach them to your subject(s) as needed.

Just make sure that they are facing upward so that the mic is pointed toward the face of the person wearing the mic.

The kit comes with a number of a adapters for the backside of the microphone to make this possible. Using magnets, you can attach or detach them as needed to find the best way of adding the mic to your subject. The kit includes two backs with clips so you can simply clip them to someone’s shirt like a normal wired lav would. However, if there is no easy way to do this, it also comes with simple magnets that you can insert underneath their shirt (or other piece of clothing) that it can attach to through the material. No clips or special tricks needed. You can see the normal magnetic back being used in the previous image above (gentleman wearing a white shirt).

Saramonic includes four magnetic backs, which gives you two extras in case you lose one. There is also an additional adapter (right-most of the above image) that attaches to the receiver so it can be inserted into a cold shoe of a camera.

If using a smartphone, the kit also comes with an adapter that latches onto your smartphone. The top of the adapter has a cold shoe mount and the bottom has your common threads so you an use a tripod or a selfie stick or handle.

Just like the receiver, the transmitters have minimal buttons, with only two to choose from. You have the power button and the NR (noise reduction) button. Both of these buttons have multiple uses. The power button can also be used to lock or unlock the screen, protecting it from accidently adjustments. The NR button can also be used to mute/unmute the mic, as well as turn onboard recording on or off. It all depends on if you single-press, long-press, or double-click these buttons.

Everything else is conveniently included within the touchscreen display for easy access. Also, all of these settings can be seen on the screen so you know what their active state is (mute, noise reductions, recording, etc).

They also come with two fur windscreens in case you are recording in a windy environment, a USB-C cable for charging everything, and a single TRRS to TRRS 3.5 mm cable.

This is where you have to determine if you need an adapter or not. It doesn’t come with a normal TRS to TRS cable, so if your device doesn’t support a TRRS cable, you need to look for an adapter. For example, the camera in our studio that was used to shoot the below unboxing video (at the end of this article) accepts 3.5 mm TRS or stereo XLR. Both of which require an additional cable.

The TRRS cable that comes in this kit is best paired with smartphones and tablets. Given that the company provides a mount adapter for your smartphone, you can tell that their main target audience for this one includes vloggers that shoot with their phone. For anything else, you likely need the adapter cable.

The entire kit combined (not including the optional cable adapters) is $249.99.

Diving Deeper Into The Features

So giving into some of these features we have mentioned, we can look into some of these unique qualities that set this mic kit apart from some of the others.

For one, they offer 8GB of onboard storage so you can record directly to them (16 or 24 bit audio). This is the “onboard recording” I have mentioned a few times. So the receiver doesn’t actually have to be connected to anything. Or you can use this as an added backup source in case somewhere goes wrong elsewhere. There is also

Of course, you don’t need this if you have Mono/Safety mode enabled. Which is an extension to your typical mono vs stereo settings. Mono combines the mics into both channels where stereo separates each mic into its own channel (left or right). Stereo makes it easy to edit later on since you can modify the audio of each mic separately and then combine them into the channels as needed using your favorite software.

However, mono/safety mode records both mics into both channels as well as a safety track is records onboard with -6dB. The purpose of this is to provide you with a backup track in case you aren’t properly monitoring the audio to your recording device/camera and you find out your audio is distorted due to clipping. The safety track will hopefully act as a backup to this since it is recorded at a lower volume.

Then there is that noise reduction option. This is something we haven’t always been impressed with when it comes to mobile mic kits. Many times you can get a lot of digital noise and hiccups from using this feature in these mics. Impressive when it comes to ANC headphones, but not always with microphones.

However, Saramonic does a surprisingly good job with these. You can hear this in the following clips as well as the unboxing video at the end of the article. Enabling noise reductions helps to eliminate some of the background noises in your background so you can focus more on the person’s voice. It isn’t perfect, but it does dial out a noticeable amount of sound.

Here is an audio sample with noise reduction turned off. Recording in a quiet environment with no background noise:

Here is an audio sample with noise reduction turned on. We added some background office sounds using a smartphone placed just four feet from the subject. The phone was turned all the way up for maximum effect:

As you can tell, the sound effects can be heard very slightly in the background but hardly at all compared to how loud the sounds were playing on the device. We didn’t include the noise with the first clip though since we wanted your ears to hear what the microphone sounds like naturally with no distractions and noise reduction turned off. To get a general idea of the mic quality.

While for the noise reduction sample, it is a focus on both noise reduction performance as well as looking for any digital noise in the mic while the effect was enabled.

This is a great feature to have if you are recording in a busy/noisy environment. Add in the fur windscreens and this includes if you are recording it all outside and it is windy as well. A great mobile kit for all (or at least. most) scenarios.

The App

Then there is the app, which extends control of the units by allowing you to customize some of the button options. In case you’d rather use them for a different combination of features and click patterns.

You can also upgrade the firmware of the devices using the app, which is a strong feature to have since everything is so digital and dependant upon integrated software performance. If any bugs pop up, the company can squash them with a firmware update.

Then there is the option of controlling the wallpaper on the transmitters. You can control and upload your own content via the app, making for a strong feature to have.

Our Conclusion

This is such a unique approach to a mobile lav kit. Using this puck-like design is new and quite convenient. It is less awkward-looking than some of the other options out there and the screens adds a little extra layer of design to them if you doctor it up a little. However, I can still see most users opting to use the eco mode so it turns off while on camera.

The noise reduction sounds really good with this one. It is nice to see a company put a little added focus on this feature. The overall audio is a bit compressed and thin, which is very common for mobile kits like this (it’s hard to make an all-in-one mic sound perfect when it is designed to be as universal and all-in-one as they are). However, it doesn’t sound terrible at all and the noise reduction doesn’t add a bunch of weird digital sounds or noise into the mix. For the price, I’d say this is a pretty solid option for the need it is trying to fulfill.

The ability of onboard recording (and the safety track mode) is nice to have and could potentially really save someone’s day if they aren’t paying attention to their gain structure or connectivity. Or if they forgot their cables at home and have no way to connect it to their camera.

For $249, this mic kit has a lot going for it, maintains a unique footprint compared to anything else, and looks great. It also sounds pretty good as well. As long as the noise reduction continues to record without any noises or issues, this would make for a strong kit for any beginner or intermediate user to own (even professionals when in a pinch). I can see us using it from time to time if we need something small and simple.

Video:

Additional Images:

Specifications:

Updated 04/18/2023: Confirming USB-C port usage. 

Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.