OT: Bluetooth Car Kits

Has anyone used a decent aftermarket one, and have I got a hope in hell of having whoever's on the other end hear me in my Golf?

Reply to
Doki
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I have one called a Blue Ant. Chinese but works great. Put a genuine Nokia one in my business partners car and it is pretty good too. Only prob with the nokia is you can only code one phone to it. My blue ant one can support up to

  1. Fraser

Reply to
Fraser Johnston

Got a noisy car?

Reply to
Doki

Parrot works well apparently.

Reply to
Elder

Not really. 04 WRX. All stock.

Fraser

Reply to
Fraser Johnston

Have the parrot CK3100 in my Xtrail.

Uses a harness adapter unit and 'splices' into the speaker outputs (all four in the case of the xtrail) though has various options for output depending on car / HU. The specific harness adapter does NOT come with it.

Very easy to use, has voice recognition [1] clear sound, which goes pretty loud[2], will sync with upto 4 phones, and has built in voice for reading out instructions. Am told it is very clear and quiet at the other end.

Auto sync's with your phone book everytime it powers up, and just 'works'.

If I was buying one now, i'd buy the CK4500 with colour 4 line screen - can read out text messages, as well as display more info on the screen.

[1] - Works really well- too well sometimes. You train it with various keywords, and regularly used contacts from your phone book. Dont train it with the words 'phone' and 'hang up' as it often does so by misunderstanding people talking in the car for some reason, or whilst on a call- really annoying, but it may just be I cant be arsed to re-train it with those two words. [2] - I guess this is dependant on the speaker set up / quality already present in the car.

Tim..

Reply to
Tim..

Oh, and if buying from scratch and need a headunit too, Parrot do the Rhythm,n,Blue headunit. AM/FM, CD, MP3, WMA and bluetooth handfree all built into a standard headunit apart from the mic which you can site where you want.

Migh be the best bet for you as it is all in one and just ISO plugs into the car and automatically mutes the music when making or taking a call.

Don't know what the quality if like. Seen a couple of user reviews which rated it, and the usual online press sites raving over a freebie.

Reply to
Elder

IIRC my K750i has voice recognition. Is there some reason not to use that?

Reply to
Doki

The hands free kit will use the phone's built in recognition, it just works as a better microphone. Some include their own commands too.

Reply to
Elder

I've installed 3 Parrot kits, 1 cheapie headunit with built-in bluetooth and one Nokia in various cars over the past 18 months.

The Parrots are easily the best in terms of functionality, ease of use and telling you what's going on.

The one with the colour screen is particually good, but the ones with the mono screen are also very good.

The Nokia works OK, but I wouldn't buy another, without the screen of the Parrot it's pretty poor, and (in my case) it doesn't use the car's existing speakers.

The cheapie BT headunit was from Maplin, and is average at best. If buying a head unit again I'd buy the Parrot one and have the best of both worlds,

Alan.

Reply to
Alan

TBH I'm not bothered about having a screen if there are decent cradles about (Sony K750i), but on the other hand, I'm not keen on having it obvious that there's anything unusual in terms of ICE / electronics in the car - it's a MK2 Golf and anyone can get in one within about 20 seconds.

Reply to
Doki

Depending on how I go with next vehicle and carPC, it will either be a CarPC or a Parrot headunit and a 3G PDA phone with built in GPS and Copilot or TomTom. Or Maybe even just one of the better TomTom go units.

Reply to
Elder

Does that look "normal headunit" enough for you?

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Reply to
Elder

It looks alright, but as things stand at the minute I a) have f*ck all spare cash and b) do very little mileage in the car. I'm tempted to keep the current HU in or find a faceplate for my Pioneer and perhaps a Jabra or something. If I were to go for a built in BT headunit I reckon it'd have to be a becker.

Reply to
Doki

That Parrot 3100 thing is supposed to be the dog's nob

Reply to
Abo

Hmm, might have to put that on the birthday list ;)

Reply to
Abo

No- you use the Parrot voice-rec mode when in the car, rather than the phone. Or at least i do! (nokia 6233)

Tim..

Reply to
Tim..

I have used a Nokia CKw7 car kit (fitted) in a Zafira and X-trail Diesels. If fitted correctly people at the other end cant tell your on a mobile phone, let alone moving!!

Steve

Reply to
Steve

They're good when they work - unfortunately they're unreliable heaps of s**te.

I'm on my 3rd control box and 2nd cradle since August.

Reply to
SteveH

I've been told, in order of useability, Maplin Bluetooth Headunit. Then the Medion one that appears in Aldi from time to time. then the R'n'B

The problem with the other two is, they don't allow you to dialout with the headunit and stored address book. if you want to dial out, you need to use the phone pad. But still useful if you want to recieve calls. And thwe ALDI pikey central one has a USB port for any USB (including lappy drives in external cases) storage media you want to use.

Reply to
Elder

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