Recommended Bluetooth car kit - phone and music?

[jantman]

I have the bury kit and it does everything that you could ask......I can stream all media from the kit over my car stereo....including GPS audio....

Which model? And does it do any/all of the fancy stuff (phonebook, photos, initiate call, voice dial) with the Droid?

i just got a Parrot MKi9100. i will let you guys know how it works once i get it installed.

Cool. Looking forward to hearing the results...

 

[seang]

installed it yesterday, and its pretty slick. took me about 2 hours with a harness. i have an 08 accord coupe.
plays music, and sounds almost at good as the line in, but not quite.
the voice recognition is OK, but not great, maybe i need to figure it out a little more.
only had one call on it, and it was good. at highway speeds, my car gets a little noisy with the low profile tires, and i could hear. the other party said my car was noisy. i think i need to find a better location for the mics.
compared with my wifes built in Nissan armada bluetooth, i think the parrot is much better.

 

[spwn3d]

I just got the MOTOROKR T505 from verizon. Figured I could return it for free, no restocking fee and such. It's really great actually. The sound quality is perfect as long as you find a good station, which is also super easy since you can push the scan button and it will find you one that isn't in use then read it out loud. You can easily adjust it while driving if you are on a long drive and going through diff. cities. It's got phone and music, pauses music and reads off phone number of person calling. It's got a car charger as well you can use it while its charging. The call quality is pretty good, haven't tested the mic yet though. It auto connects to your droid after it's paired. auto turns off after 10 min if nothing is connected i just flip it on when i get in my car, it hangs on the visor. Just wanted to share, it's got really great sound quality, also it has an internal speaker if you don't want to route through your cars. It can go pretty loud, but the droid can do the same thing better so not a huge deal. Nice if your not on the radio station though.

 

[killjoylm1]

Works Great

Ok. So, I got my Parrot MKi9200 today and had Best Buy install it for me and I have the DROID. I thought I might share what I found with you. For those who don't know this system allows you to use your cars stereo system to listen to music and make phone call with voice recognition over Bluetooth.
Calls:
-Phone book syncs perfectly (no pictures unless you push them one at a time)
-Caller ID shows up perfectly
-Phone reception in car = Amazing
-Phone reception on other side = Great
Music:
-Bluetooth audio features are limited and doesn't sound prefect, but still pretty good
-No album art (this is true of any Bluetooth connected phone including the IPhone)
-Back and next track work fine
-Pause button works, but resuming is buggy sometimes it work and mostly it doesn't
Combine Features:
-When a call comes in music pauses, but doesn't resume
Note:
All other goodies work as advertised. I already had an iPod touch and hooked that up the iPod connector in the glove box and get high quality audio, back and forward track, album art on the unit, and seamless music to phone call and back to music transitions. This is definitely the way to go. The best part is it is not my phone so I just leave it there hooked up and it is always ready to go.

Hope this helps all you DROID fans!
~G

 

[jantman]

Thanks to all who posted their experiences. I think I'll pick something up in the next few weeks, and I'm definitely leaning towards the Parrot MKi9200, despite the hefty price tag (which may increase depending on how it interfaces to my stereo).

 

[seang]

so far my MKi9100 has been flaky, i explained the symptoms to support, and the are sending me a new unit without sending the old one in first. thats good.
the bad is their support is slow as christmas.
as soon as my new unit arrives i will post back about the replacement.

 

[jantman]

Ok. I'm pretty sure I read that Parrot was having issues with the Droid (either on their web site or in forums) but hopefully they'll get them ironed out.

 

[seang]

there are issues:
Issue 4948 - android - Droid does not sync / transfer contacts to car's bluetooth phonebook properly - Project Hosting on Google Code

http://www.parrot.com/forums/usa/search.php


search for droid.

 

[jantman]

Apologies to anyone who reads this multiple times, as I'm posting it on multiple forums.

I've done a fair amount of Android development. I just bought the MKi9200 from Amazon, it should be here on Wednesday, I'm installing it the next day. Once I do, I'm going to sit down with the whole Parrot "features" list, go through them one by one, and post my findings. If I come across any workarounds, I'll post that as well.

There's a possibility - and this is only a possibility - that some of the issues, specifically the music not resuming after a call and the phonebook sync issue, *may* be able to be fixed using an app as a workaround. If this is possible, I'll get to the coding.

If this isn't possible, I've rooted my Droid (Verizon, 2.0.1 ESD 56) and may investigate writing a patch to fix some of these problems in the OS.

 

[seang]

Apologies to anyone who reads this multiple times, as I'm posting it on multiple forums.

I've done a fair amount of Android development. I just bought the MKi9200 from Amazon, it should be here on Wednesday, I'm installing it the next day. Once I do, I'm going to sit down with the whole Parrot "features" list, go through them one by one, and post my findings. If I come across any workarounds, I'll post that as well.

There's a possibility - and this is only a possibility - that some of the issues, specifically the music not resuming after a call and the phonebook sync issue, *may* be able to be fixed using an app as a workaround. If this is possible, I'll get to the coding.

If this isn't possible, I've rooted my Droid (Verizon, 2.0.1 ESD 56) and may investigate writing a patch to fix some of these problems in the OS.

im rooted, willing to assist how i can.

 

[must_i_register]

I have the BlueAnt Supertooth3 and it is actually great. I had a Parrot MiniKit before this and, while the Parrot was great, its battery life stunk.

The BlueAnt has a 2 week standby time and it goes into a 'sleep' mode when you walk away from the car. When you unlock the door or trunk, the vibration wakes up the unit and it looks for your phone again. The volume is very good, it comes with two metal visor clips and has two strong magnets on it that latch right onto the clip for easy mount and portability.

Short of having something hard-wired, this is about the best thing going IMHO. The battery life is what makes it. It synchs with your phone book and will import all your contacts automatically. (My 880 took about 2 minutes.)

 

[paverman]

bluetooth sync

I am having trouble with syncing my droid address book to car kits and also bluetooth car stereo's. I have tried motorola t325 speakerphone and tried syncing to a bluetooth alpine car stereo. Anybody have any input?

 

[baddadgus]

Had 9200 installed today,had to use Bluetooth File Transfer found in market,to sync contacts.Will let you know of anyother issues

 

[tritan]

I have the BlueAnt Supertooth3 and it is actually great. I had a Parrot MiniKit before this and, while the Parrot was great, its battery life stunk.

The BlueAnt has a 2 week standby time and it goes into a 'sleep' mode when you walk away from the car. When you unlock the door or trunk, the vibration wakes up the unit and it looks for your phone again. The volume is very good, it comes with two metal visor clips and has two strong magnets on it that latch right onto the clip for easy mount and portability.

Short of having something hard-wired, this is about the best thing going IMHO. The battery life is what makes it. It synchs with your phone book and will import all your contacts automatically. (My 880 took about 2 minutes.)

This is the solution I am looking for something that can answer calls and stream my music. Did you do any research on these speaker units is this one of the top ones? I need something for streaming music and podcast this winter that I can quickly mount in my work truck and take out and move to my own truck at the end of the day.

 

[pjo1966]

I have the BlueAnt Supertooth3 and it is actually great. I had a Parrot MiniKit before this and, while the Parrot was great, its battery life stunk.

The BlueAnt has a 2 week standby time and it goes into a 'sleep' mode when you walk away from the car. When you unlock the door or trunk, the vibration wakes up the unit and it looks for your phone again. The volume is very good, it comes with two metal visor clips and has two strong magnets on it that latch right onto the clip for easy mount and portability.

Short of having something hard-wired, this is about the best thing going IMHO. The battery life is what makes it. It synchs with your phone book and will import all your contacts automatically. (My 880 took about 2 minutes.)

Wow! That's a heck of a lot cheaper than a Parrot and doesn't require any installation? I definitely need to check that out. Of course the down side is that it doesn't cut out your car stereo when the phone rings. If the radio is blasting and the windows down you might have trouble hearing it. Minor drawback. On the plus side, if you rent a car you can take it with you.