Afternoon all,
Ontario has passed a law banning the use of mobile phones in cars, it will come into effect in October. Personally I think it's a good idea, but we'll dispense with that in favor of the real topic.

I've got an iPhone 3GS and it sits in a cradle attached to an air vent to the right of the steering wheel. What I want to know is what options are available to me for hands-free use, specifically for making receiving calls.

I know the 3GS has Voice Control, however, it's not completely hands-free. You need to hold down the home button on the iPhone to activate the feature, and it would seem this needs to be done every time you wish to make a call. There also seems to be no facility to answer a call using your voice, unless I'm mistaken.

I'm going to assume that a bluetooth headset of some sort might be the way forward, but I'm not overly keen on wearing one, but will if I must.
I believe there are possibly solutions out there that don't require you do (a product with parrot in the name rings a bell). Ideally I want something as plug and play as possible and that can charge/power itself and the iPhone from the cigarette lighter and does not require direct wiring to a power source, or pulling apart the interior of the car to fit microphones and such like.

Any suggestions and advice are greatly appreciated.

 

My 3GS works great with my Alpine bluetooth through the headunit, but did involve installing a mic.

The Parrot MKi9200 looks pretty nifty:
Bluetooth Hands Free Car Kits - Parrot USA

 

That's the bugger! Does look rather funky, seems you can get a harness for integration with the head unit in the car, so no splicing of cables.

 

I've hit a Nokia Bluetooth kit in my car. Worked fine with everyphone I've had (not just Nokia) but the iPhone is so quiet through it that it's unusable

 

yup parrott is like tomtom. top of the market nothing comes close

 

Turn the volume up

I have a CK-7W, your welcome to try it on that Matt. It has worked on every phone I've had so far, never tried with an iPhone. I have a HTC Hero

 

That's almost as bad as telling me to turn it off and on again
Now I work from home I'm hardly ever in the car so it's not too much of a problem but I might take you up on your offer thanks matey

 

Could you supply the product name/number for this nokia kit please.

 

Matt, asked some people at work, my CK-7W is a no go according to them. Has issues... Can't remember what they said now

The Parrot's that are installed work with the iPhone, so they say...

 

i have the same problem with my iphone going through the tomtom really quiet but if i use my work nokia its really loud.

 

Markus

I use this combination in my scoob, obviously for the cradle/charger you will need something suitable for your dodge/suv/veeeehicle you drive across there

Bluetooth Hands Free Car Kits - Parrot USA

Buy a Brodit Apple iPhone Car Holder | UK

The one down the list that charges the iphone from the cigarette lighter.

The parrot kit does need splicing and fitting but I did it with a mate within an hour or so . PLug and play with a few cable ties thrown in for good measure

Works a treat, syncs with the iphone and does voice dialling.

 

Thanks for the replies chaps.

I've already got the cradle and charger bit sorted out, so looks like all I'd need would be the parrot.

Do you need to press anything on the iPhone to activate voice dialing?

 

no becuase the parrott does it all, it copies the contacts from the phone to the parrott itself does the dialing , if that makes sense

 

Makes perfect sense.

 

I have the Parrot 9200 and it connects to the iPhone perfectly. It does need some trim removal etc, but it only took me a couple of hours to do everything as I bought an ISO connector kit thing.

I like it so far, the screen and wireless control unit are removable, phone calls are lovely and clear and it has voice recognition straight from your phone book, i.e. you don't have to record any names, it just somehow recognises what you say when you press the green button.

Quality of the kit is good, and the controller is nice to use - the screen is also really good.

You can hook it up to an iPod, SD card, line in, and now over Bluetooth (although that means you have to use the phone to change tracks).

There are a few niggles with it on the music side, it has it's own amp so doesn't use the car's stereo system and the audio functions are limited, for example it doesn't have treble or bass adjustments, just preset EQ settings and it can be a bit tinny on low quality MP3's etc at low volume. Other than that though it's very good.

The unit has connections for iPod, phone, USB etc which means I can have my 80gb iPod in the car with me with full music collection.

Overall though, I give it 9/10.

If you don't want the music functions, then they also do the 3100 which is just hands free and also good.

 

Once again, thanks for the replies.

Quick question on the headset side of things, I'm guessing they don't do voice dialing/call answering?

 

The 9200 does, you just say Accept or Reject for incoming calls and just say a name for outgoing.

Not sure about the bluetooth headseats though.

 

I've had a look and it seems that bluetooth headsets don't always offer voice dialing, be it accepting/rejecting or making a call, you need to press a button on the headset, not exactly hands free.

The other thing is that the iPhone 3GS has a voice control feature but it's not hands-free, you need to enable it on the phone, plus it does not currently work with bluetooth headsets.