Looking to get a Bluetooth earpiece without actually upping your tool factor by 40x or so? Good luck. Helium Digital’s so-called alternative (that’d be the HDBT-990 Bluetooth wristband ) was recently reviewed by our iPhone-lovin’ pals in the Great White North, and while they found it to work well when it came to handling calls without actually using the speaker and microphone within the iPhone 3GS, everything else about it was ho hum at best. There’s no inbuilt LCD for watching Caller ID streams, the mini-USB jack was “flimsy,” and there’s still the issue of this unit being at least somewhat unsightly.

This DIY Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator instantly reminded me of a comment a dear reader left when I shared a Star Trek fantasy . He was right: Bluetooth is the ruin of Star Trek. But this is a fun quick-n-dirty project. Basically you’re cramming a Bluetooth module and a microcontroller into a toy Communicator and then pairing everything with your phone.

Sure the Star Radio Communicator iPhone app looks kinda like that other communicator—you know, retro-futuristic design, flip door, 3 button layout—but last time I checked, Captain K’s communicator absolutely did not make calls on Earth’s phone system. iPhoneSavior says the 99 cent app gives you a dialing interface to place calls from within the app, making you feel like you’re about five seconds away from bitch-slapping a couple of Klingons. But I can’t imagine Paramount is at all happy with this. [ iTunes Store via iPhoneSavior ]