Disclosure: I’d like to thank Karina at iFi for providing me with the UP Travel for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and iFi had no say or input on the contents of this review.

The iFi UP Travel was announced way back in May 2025, but only within the last month or so has it been available for purchase. So, I’ve spent the better part of a month using the UP Travel in many different situations. The UP Travel is essentially a portable Bluetooth DAC transmitter and receiver, with a USB-C port and a 3.5mm AUX connection that can be utilized in different ways. The main idea behind this little device, though, is to be able to stream audio from sources like in-flight entertainment systems on a plane (iFi even includes a 2-pin airplane adapter for this) for up to two Bluetooth headphones or TWS earbuds.

That feature in of itself is already intriguing, and I have always hated having to use wired headphones via an adapter, or the airline-provided earbuds to be able to watch movies and TV shows while flying. On top of that, though, the UP Travel transmits audio from USB-C sources, as well as plugs into a car’s 3.5mm AUX jack and allows you to stream Bluetooth audio to your car’s audio system from a smartphone or DAP.

I’ll get into all the various connection methods and use cases in this review, so be sure to keep reading, but the main question you probably have is, will this $99 USD device replace the majority of Bluetooth adapters out there, or is it strictly a niche product? Let’s get into the review and find out all about the iFi UP Travel.

• iFi Up Travel
• USB-C to USB-C cable
• USB-C to USB-A adapter
• 2-pin airplane adapter
• Manual

The iFi UP Travel’s construction is simple but clever. Its body is mostly plastic and weighs a mere 26 grams. The standout feature is a built-in 3.5 mm connection that flips out like a switchblade or car key. This is done by pressing the large top button, allowing the gold-plated plug to spring out, which also powers on the device. Pressing the button down and pushing the audio jack back in similarly powers it off.

This design means no separate cable is needed, as you just plug the UP Travel directly into a headphone jack for TX mode, or expose the plug and stick it into, say, a car AUX port for RX mode. The slim oval chassis (about the size of a USB flash drive) slips easily into a pocket or bag, making it extremely portable and travel-friendly.

As for durability, the UP Travel feels reasonably solid. The housing is plastic, so it won’t survive heavy impacts or water, but there are no obvious weak points, and plastic doesn’t creak or flex. The folding plug mechanism is spring-loaded and gold-plated for good contact.

iFi was able to fit a surprising amount of buttons and connectivity on this little device. On the very front of the UP Travel are three buttons. The big one at the top is releasing the spring-loaded 3.5mm jack, as well as powering on the device. The bottom button is split into two halves. The top half is for changing the Bluetooth codec, pairing device “A”, enabling/disabling the voice prompt, as well as performing a factory reset.

The bottom half is for pairing device “B” and for switching between the paired devices. Surrounding the bottom buttons are four LED lights (I’ll get into their purpose in the Usability section of the review).

The bottom of the UP Travel has a USB-C connection, and is also where the built-in microphone is located. The right side has a switch for toggling between the RX and TX modes, and the left side houses the 3.5mm AUX connection.

The UP Travel uses Bluetooth 5.2 and the Qualcomm QCC5100 series chipset, ensuring a robust connection and broad compatibility. It supports virtually all major high-res codecs: LDAC and LHDC/HWA for true hi-res streaming, SBC, AAC (RX mode only), and the full aptX family (Classic, HD, Low Latency, Adaptive). The only thing missing is aptX Lossless, which I will admit is a bit of a shame.

This means you can push up to 24-bit/96 kHz audio from a compatible phone or laptop, and you also have low-latency modes for video or gaming. Switching codecs is easy: use the front “CODEC” button to cycle through the options (with a color-coded LED or voice prompt indicating the current codec).

Using aptX Adaptive’s low-latency mode with the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 (I verified the codec using Sennheiser’s Smart Control Plus app) yielded excellent results. I would not use this for gaming, but for watching movies and YouTube videos, the performance was excellent. The UP Travel also supports the older aptX LL (Low Latency) mode, so your experience will really depend on what you are pairing with the UP Travel.

Range and stability are on par with modern adapters: expect about 10 meters (30 feet) of range in an open and interference-free area, with reliable pairing. The dual-mode (TX/RX) function is handled by a side switch. In TX mode, it transmits analog audio from the source device’s jack to your Bluetooth headphones, TWS earbuds, Bluetooth speaker, or Bluetooth receiver. You can even pair two Bluetooth headphones, TWS earbuds, or speakers at once (dual pairing), so you and a companion can listen together. When I tested this feature, it worked extremely well, but note that there is no volume control on the UP Travel, so if you and your companion want different volume levels, that will need to be done on whatever headphone or earbud you’re using, as the source’s volume will obviously affect both of you.

In RX mode, it receives Bluetooth audio and outputs analog sound through the 3.5mm jack, ideal for playing music in a car that doesn’t have Bluetooth support.

iFi rates the internal 400 mAh battery for about 10 hours of playback. In practice, my results varied: at low volumes or with SBC, I was getting almost exactly 10 hours, but with LDAC or high volume, it was around 8.5 hours. Still, this means there’s more than enough battery for domestic flights, and even some international flights.

Charging is done via the USB-C connection, and a full charge from empty takes just under 3 hours.

The UP Travel is supported by iFi’s Nexis mobile app (for iOS and Android), which can apply firmware updates and provide the ability to change some sound settings, as well as enabling/disabling specific Bluetooth codecs. The core functions of the UP Travel work without using the app. iFi Nexis is simply for firmware updates and convenience.

Practically, all you need to do is pair the UP Travel with your smartphone, open the Nexis app, and it should detect the dongle. The app itself is in a pretty good place now (though it seems they removed the dark mode theme), and as far as companion apps go, I quite like the simplicity of this one. Here are some screenshots of what it looks like, as well as available options for the UP Travel:

Using the UP Travel is largely intuitive. A large round button on top serves as the power/switchblade trigger: tap it to eject the 3.5mm jack and power on, or hold it in and retract it, which shuts the device off. You can also stop it halfway so the 3.5mm jack is sticking out the side, which allows some flexibility for whatever you need to plug it into. A small slide switch on the side toggles between TX (transmit) and RX (receive) mode.

Feedback comes via LEDs and voice prompts. For example, when changing codecs, the LED ring lights up in different colors (green for LDAC, blue for aptX, etc.), and a voice prompt can announce the codec name while in RX mode. The LED on the bottom indicates remaining battery life and the charging status.

Pairing is as simple as powering on the device (it enters pairing mode by default) and selecting “UP Travel” on your phone or audio source. If you’re in TX mode and are pairing with something like Bluetooth headphones, simply put your headphones into pairing mode, and it will pair with the UP Travel. While this process may sound cumbersome, pairing worked literally every time for me, regardless of headphones or device. The one exception is my Apple AirPods 4. They were able to connect via SBC (since the UP Travel does not support AAC in TX mode), but sometimes I would get audio playback, sometimes I wouldn’t. If you plan on using the UP Travel with AirPods, I would look for another dongle that includes AAC support.

The dual-mode nature of the UP Travel makes it a rather interesting device. The obvious use cases, which iFi uses in its marketing material, are as a Bluetooth transmitter for in-flight entertainment systems on airplanes, and as a receiver for transmitting audio to your car’s 3.5mm AUX port. These are both great use cases, but I discovered some other ones that may interest both audiophiles and casual listeners.

First off, the UP Travel can be used as a Bluetooth USB DAC, by which I mean you can plug it into virtually any source with a USB-C or USB-A connection (PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone, game console, DAP, TV, etc), toggle the switch the TX mode, and pair the UP Travel with your favorite Bluetooth headphones, TWS earbuds, or Bluetooth speaker. This is a great option for laptops that lack modern Bluetooth codec support. It’s also a convenient way to be able to use codecs like aptX Adaptive with modern Digital Audio Players, since they rarely support that codec.

Next up, if you have a device with a 3.5mm output, such as an old Apple iPod Classic 7th gen, or Microsoft Zune, or really any digital audio player that lacks Bluetooth, you can set the UP Travel to TX mode, plug the 3.5mm jack into your device, and then pair your headphones to the UP Travel. There, now you’ve just added Bluetooth support to your old iPod Classic. It actually works really well, and you do have to max out the volume on the iPod, but being able to listen to my iPod Classic with my Sennheiser HDB 630 headphones, without wires, is something special.

You can also make it much more complicated, but pairing the UP travel with a Bluetooth receiver like the FiiO BR15 R2R (or even iFi’s own ZEN Air Blue). In my case, the FiiO BR15 R2R is paired to the UP Travel via LDAC and is outputting audio via coax to my FiiO K13 R2R. Now I can use power-hungry headphones like the HIFIMAN Edition XV, Audeze LCD-2, and Sennheiser HD 660S2 to listen to music from my iPod Classic. With PEQ support too, as both FiiO devices support PEQ profiles. Overkill? Hardly. We are audiophiles after all.

If you have a portable CD player, such as the FiiO DM13 or Shanling EC Zero T (or EC Zero AKM), which has Bluetooth support but lacks LDAC, the UP Travel can give you LDAC support by plugging it into the 3.5mm headphone output on either of the players and then connecting your TWS earbuds or Bluetooth headphones to the UP Travel.

I’m sure there are many other configurations you can think up, but these are the ones I have genuinely used and have an actual, practical benefit.

Unlike basic Bluetooth dongles, the iFi UP Travel uses a separate high-quality Cirrus Logic DAC and different stages that iFi calls it a “true Hi‑Fi architecture” to render the Bluetooth audio. The sound quality here is more reliant on the Bluetooth codec used, as well as your source. Still, what I can say is that the UP Travel produces a very clean output, and I did not notice any noise or distortion during my listening sessions. Volume levels were also more than enough for me for all of the Bluetooth headphones and TWS earbuds I tested with.

In the iFi Nexis app, you do have some filters that you can choose from:

• Fast or Slow roll-off
• Minimum or Linear
• Bit-perfect (disables the previous two options)

I will be honest, I don’t hear too much of a difference between them, and even if I did, you would probably hear it slightly differently than I. The fact that you do get a choice of filters is great to see, as a dongle like the Sennheiser BTD 700 does not give you any such options. After testing all of the combinations, I settled on having bit-perfect enabled.

Overall, expect a neutral, uncolored sound signature, with the main limit being your source and headphones, not the dongle.

The UP Travel’s microphone consists of a single MEMS mic on the base, and iFi implements Qualcomm’s cVc noise/echo suppression to clean up the signal.

Like most other devices that utilize Qualcomm’s cVc tech, the microphone quality is simply serviceable in most situations, and unusable when there is a lot of background noise. It’s a nice addition to have and use in a pinch, but I wouldn’t rely on it for everyday use.

The iFi UP Travel is a unique product in its category, essentially a high-end Bluetooth “travel adapter.” Its pro side is very strong for the right user: true dual-mode TX/RX operation, extensive codec support (including aptX Adaptive, LDAC, and LHDC), a genuine high‑fidelity DAC path, and extras like dual‑headphone sharing and call support via the built-in mic. These features mean it can replace a tangle of dongles and adapters with one neat package. Weighing under 26 grams and roughly the size of a car key, it’s far more convenient than carrying a loose cable or box.

On the downside, battery life is modest (~10 h) compared to some simpler solutions, and at $99 USD it’s pricier than bare-bones adapters. If you only need Bluetooth audio output, the UP Travel may be overkill. For example, Sennheiser’s BTD700 ($59 USD) offers aptX Lossless and a very good low-latency mode, but it lacks LDAC and the onboard DAC and mic that UP Travel has. The FiiO Air Link (replacement for the BT11) is similar to the BTD 700, but offers LDAC support and charging passthrough. In other words, you pay a premium for iFi’s extras.

Who should buy it? The UP Travel is best for frequent travelers and audiophiles who want first‑class wireless audio. If you often fly long-haul or drive cross-country and care about sound quality, this device lets you use any headphone wirelessly and enjoy higher-resolution codecs. It’s also ideal for sharing content on flights (two headphones) or adding Bluetooth to an older car stereo. By contrast, if you just want a quick one-off Bluetooth link (for example, pairing TWS earbuds to a laptop), there are cheaper, simpler dongles. But for truly “lossless‑feeling” travel audio and versatility, the iFi UP Travel is hard to beat at its price

Bottom line: iFi’s UP Travel streamlines portable Bluetooth audio into one hi-fi-grade device. It nails the basics (ease of use, portability) while delivering superior sound and codec flexibility. I recommend it for discerning listeners who need both TX and RX in a pocketable package.

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