My Treo 650 worked fine with HFL for about two months. Last week it began to intermittently lose connectivity with my 2004 TL. The phone icon on the dash will come on when I first get in the car, then will disappear. Once in a while it will reappear, but if I try to make a call it says "no phones found".

I took the car into the dealer this morning, they replaced the HFL module but I'm still having the problem. They were able to pair another phone (Motorola) without any problems and have it maintain the connection.

According to Acurahandsfreelink.com the Treo 650 isn't supported, so the dealer wasn't able to do anything else for me (other than to suggest contacting Cingular).

I've already installed the PalmOne CarKit patch.

Is there anything else I can do?

 

Here's the official word back from Acura:

-----
Thank you for visiting acura.com and for your inquiry. I apologize for the
long reply, but I want you to have all of the details regarding the Treo 650
and why we have it listed as "not approved" on our website.

PalmOne, on their website, are reporting a software upgrade that will, in
their words, “make the Treo 650 compatible with the Acura HandsFreeLink.”

http://www.palmone.com/us/support/do...date/supported

While this software upgrade does indeed resolve many issues found in our
testing of the Treo 650, there remains an intermittent problem with the Treo
650 that causes us to determine that the Treo 650 is not compatible with
HandsFreeLink. The testing that Johnson Controls performs in determining any
particular devices compliance with the Bluetooth Specifications and the
level of interoperability acceptable is very rigorous and specifically
focused on compatibility with the HandsFreeLink system.

In our testing of the Treo 650, which has been ongoing in cooperation with
PalmOne for almost a year to this point, has determined that there is a
problem in the Bluetooth operation of the Treo 650 that may cause the user
to “drop” calls, or lose some Bluetooth functionality.

The issue is intermittent and its impact on any one user is greatly
dependant on the amount if use. The more often the user invokes the
Bluetooth Hands-Free function of the Treo 650 the more likely they will be
to experience this issue.

Bluetooth operates between two devices via a protocol that defines a number
of specific commands and responses that are transmitted between the devices.
In the case of the Hands-Free functions, the HandsFreeLink issues the
function commands and the phone (Treo 650) responds to these commands.

Our testing has discovered that the Treo 650 will form time-to-time stop
responding to commands issued from HandsFreeLink. This may cause the
appearance of a call dropping, or unable to answer an incoming call for
example. HandsFreeLink does have a failsafe that will detect this lack of
response and restart the Bluetooth protocol between the two devices. Thus a
user who uses the Hands-Free function less frequently may not experience
this issue. Due to Acura and Johnson Controls high standards for quality
and usability, we felt the Treo 650 should be determined to be NOT
compatible with the Acura HandsFreeLink system.

PalmOne has recently submitted a software version to Johnson Controls for
testing, that has indeed resolved this issue. We have confirmed this to
PalmOne. The exact revision level of this new software is not yet known, as
PalmOne needs to work with the network operators to roll this out for
general availability. Once we have been informed by PalmOne what the version
is and how users can obtain this fix we will list the Treo 650 as an
APPROVED device for use in the Acura.

Please feel free to contact us with additional questions.

Sincerely,

HandsFreeLink Customer Service

 

I find it amazing, that customer support responded with such level of technical details!

 

I agree, that response from HFL acura support or whatever is exceptional. My entire acura experience (all 3 weeks of it) has been a surprising pleasure .....

Keg

PS. That puts the nail in the coffin (of my piece of chit motorola v220, and my clie tj37.... back to the palm phone - I order the treo 650 tomorrow!)

-former samsung i300 user

 

I got my Treo working again, I simply re-installed the car kit patch from PalmOne's web site.

 

Two things:

1. From experience my Treo 650 is 'okay' and my SonyEricsson T616 is 'superb' with the TL's HFL.
2. On the RL I believe that the reason it wasn't fully approved was that the data link (RL >> dealership or Acura) fails. This isn't an "intermittant" thing but always.

So I'd say that the Treo 650 works, but it's not the best device for use with Acuras yet.