Owners, how is Bluetooth working for you? Can you post a quick review of the system?

I'm interested in finding out the following:

How's the audio quality?
Is the MID interface intuitive?
Can you sync with the phone's phonebook?
Does it have call transition? (You're on the phone when you get in the car, push a button and the call is transferred to the in-car hands free system.)
Can you read, write and send SMS messages on the navi screen?

Thanks!

 

Yeah, who?

I don't have it, but I just wanted to give this a bump to help make sure it doesn't get lost in space.

C'mon, new TL dudes and dudas -- tell us about the Bluetooth!

 

Sorry, waiting on the new Motorola V600 to come out the end of the year, nead a small multi country compatible phone. The others are too large (that I have seen).

 

Wow, that phone is hotness
Of coarse not for Verizon- typical
I am afraid to look for price
looks expensive

 

I'm still waiting for any dealer in the western US to get a Red/Parchment/Navi/5AT but having test-driven and knowing a little about the specs I can answer most of these.

1. So-so. You have to speak at a certain pitch to be clearly audible at the other end. Shout and you cause distortion, speak softly and it doesn't catch it. It may also drop out when both ends of the call speak simultanously.
It's reasonably good, but hold onto your headset for now.

2. Very. The voice actvation is particularly good. 'Dial 4-0-8-5-5-5-1-2-1-2' is understood immediately.

3. I don't think so. But I might be wrong. You certainly cannot USE your phone's phonebook. You might be able to transfer entries, although I doubt it.

4. I believe so. But I haven't tried it.

5. Absolutely not. I don't think that's even part of the Bluetooth standard.

Now if only someone would take my $35k and sell me one I could answer all these questions and more....

 

They don't come much smaller than the SonyEricsson T610 (900,1800,1900) and T616 (850,1800,1900). I've had a T610 for two weeks now-its an amazing phone. Bluetooth, IR, camera, Java, POP3 email, GPRS, Tri-band, its all there. And the phone is open so you can download themes, ring tones, pictures and games without having to "hack" the phone.

If you have a Mac running OS X the T610 acts like a built-in phone module via Bluetooth. Allowing you to place and take voice and data calls, send SMS and sync phone books. Its basically a OS X version of the hands-free profile.

I was holding out for a V600 (longtime Moto user) but I read it was delayed so I gave the T610 a try. SonyEricsson is also coming out with flip-phone version of the T610...the Z600. Both the V600 and Z600 should cost considerably more than the T610 when they arrive.

 

1. I've read that the voice quality can differ between handsets, even differ between different firmware versions of the same handset. The Bluetooth stacks are new and bugs are still being flushed out.

3. This really is a big surprise. I'm guessing they ran out of time to fully implement and test this feature.

5. Its a matter of implementation. For example OS X allows you to send SMS via Bluetooth from the address book. I think I read about Lexus or MB having this feature.

 

SSH, thanks for the info, and those great photos last summer!

I currently have a V66, and like the size, had a T28 before that which I found was more versitle. I will check into the T610 a litte more in depth, if close to the v66, I may go there, how do you like it?

 

FYI

You cannot SYNC your phone's phone book with Bluetooth. On the other hand, you can preset up to 25 phone numbers with the system.

Yes, it does have call transition.

 

I found this site very useful... especially for those in Ontario

http://www.arcx.com/sites/

 

The T610 is great. Its the most impressive handset I've seen so far. I've got a Mac (Bluetooth) at home and a PC (IR) at work and I use the phone to keep my contacts and calendar in sync on all three.

One of the best things about T610/616 is that it's been on the market in Europe for a couple of months and because its "open" users have created a tonn of ringtones, themes and games for the phone. It has a huge user community to tap into.

 

I WANT to use it but I also have to carry a Blackberry. I don't want to carry two phones. What am I to do? Is there a plug in that will work with the Blackberry?
Anyone?

 

Unfortunately not!

 

If you have any questions regarding to pairing or storing phone numbers with Bluetooth, I can answer them for y'all!

 

ccheung,

So.... tell us how the quality is (in/out) of hands-free! This is the most important thing... if the quality isn't good for one or both parties, then this feature is useless... and you'll spend more brain power trying to understand people (and visa versa), and then become a rolling hazard again.

 

I have had my 04TL for about a week now, and my wife and I each have Nokia 3650 phones. Ive used the phone extensively. In fact, I feel now that I would rather talk on the phone in my car now than on any land line or cell phone (OK, I love just sitting in the car, but thats another story).

Pairing was very easy, and of course weve paired both phones. The audio quality is very good (from both ends), and people you call often dont realize youre not talking on an ordinary phone.

The phonebook certainly does not transfer-- my one annoyance. The voice recognition is good but not great. You press the button on the steering wheel and say 'call XXX' where XXX is someones name that was previously stored in the address book. The system wont let you store names that sound too similar. I had put in my daughter 'jess' and then tried to put in my mother 'Ruth', but it replied that these were too similar, so I had to use 'Steve's Mom' instead of Ruth. No biggie, but I suspect this avoids alot of mistaken calls down the road.

As previously mentioned, you can also say 'call YYY' where YYY is the number. The system reads back the number and at the same time displays it on the dash, you have to say 'yes' to confirm, and you can interrup the repetition of the number and say yes based on reading the dash. The recognition has been 95% for me, but I usually call numbers of people in the phone book.

A cool feature is integration with the Navi. You can say to the Navi 'find nearest chinese restaurant'. You pick from the list (OK Im in N california so there are usually alot of these) and then there is a 'send to phone' button. If you press that (or say it to the Navi) your phone calls their number. This of course also avoids having to enter the number.

It seems to sync with the phone almost flawlessly when I get in the car- and a phone icon on the dash shows that its synced. I havent quite figured out how incoming calls work when BOTH phones are in the car- i think one has priority,a nd if the other rings you say 'next phone' to the system to get it working, then answer that one.

You can always say 'transfer' to unsynch the phone (such as you reached your destination while in a call and want to leave the car with the call intact), or vice versa (you got in the car while on the phone handset and want to talk in the car).

Ill be happy to answer any other particulars

 

For those of you using Bluetooth, who is your (cell phone) service provider?

 

AT&T

 

Great write-up Steve. Many thanks.

The phonebook not transfering does seem like the only major flaw in the TL implementation. Maybe Acura will surprise us and offer a software update to fix this in the future.

The GSM providers (AT&T, T-Mobile and Cingular) are currently the only providers offering Bluetooth handsets. This might change if Sprint offers the new SonyEricsson Bluetooh CDMA handset.

 

Goldband,

Thank you so much for this review! You're the first person outside of an Acura Ride and Drive to report really no issues with the handsfree link regarding quality. That's good news.

The bad news is the consistent use of the Nokia 3650 for any/all good HF reviews. It seems the smaller units don't work as well.

Tis a shame that the phonebook doesn't sync... seems almost ludicrous that it doesn't do that!

I wonder how long it is until we can FLASH ROM update our CARS with the latest "Car OS" (COS) with the latest tech features???

Hey Acura! You could CHARGE for this... like a yearly subscription/maintenance plan. Think about it... new revenue stream...

Jon

 

Im no Bluetooth expert- but my understanding is that BT has defined protocols: headset-sender, headset-provider, file transfer, image transfer, modem, printer, etc. Each device 'advertises' the protocols it handles, and nearby devices that have the corresponding functionality have the chance to synch. Phones generally have the 'headset-sender' function and the car has 'headset-provider'. Actual wireless headsets are just like the car and have the headset-provider. Most of this is hidden from us as users of the TL system.

Both the phone and car would have to have the address book sync. My 3650 has this (it syncs to my computer database), but im not sure if other bluetooth phones have it. Same goes for appointment calendar (The TL has this feature in the Navi, little known).

I agree with the previous post that it is a 'mere' matter of software to support transfer (in both directions by the way) of the phone's address book. One glitch could be capacity. My phone has a large number of addresses (hundreds)... the car only can store 32 I think-- so how would you designate which to transfer? The car's storage should be expanded.

Another glitch is that there is no visual access to the phone book-- only voice input. This makes it very hard to maintain, but it also would be impossible to access entries transferred from the phone unless they had voice tags (can you even do this in the phone, Im not sure). And then... the tags might not be distinct enough for recognition to get straight. Note in my previous post the car wont let you enter addresses with names it cant distinguish.

If I were the engineer working on this, I wouldnt want to do the sync until there was a clean way to solve these problems. Id want to have a screen-based way of dealing with the addresses for instance (that doesnt depend on the Navi screen!). So it makes sense to me that they wouldnt implement a feature that was taking us down a garden path to much greater frustration. If I had to guess, probably some brave QA engineer lay on the tracks on this and said to either do it right or kill the feature.

(Full disclosure: I am a software engineering manager)

 

Steve,

You're absolutely correct in your assessment. It's obvious that you're a pro at what you do.

I wasn't aware that you couldn't view your address book in the display area.
At least the 'most important' feature of using the HF system was implemented: voice tag calling.

Ultimately, this is a killer app for this car. I am looking more seriously at a TL vs. TSX because of this feature. I wonder how many others are as well?

FYI - I read that you can hit the steering wheel button to "confirm" the number as it's talking back... you don't have to speak back apparently.

Jon

 

Which Bluetooth phone offers the best reception and transmission quality when paired with the TL? I'm thinking of getting the Ericsson T616 but I'd like to hear someone comment on the quality of the driver's voice as perceived by the person receiving the call.

 

Peter,

So far, with very limited sample size, the Nokia 3650 seems to work the best with the TL. I do not know if the T616 has been tried.

Jon

 

I've got a T610 and I've heard rumblings about poor BT voice quality. Browsing the T610 boards its looking like this is a firmware issue that has been addressed in the European handsets. My guess is that a fix for the US handsets is not far behind, it might even be in the pipeline now.

 

My understanding is that the Motorola v600 and the Sony Ericcsson z600 are supposed to be out very soon in the US as well (end of the month for the v600 and end of year for z600).

Here are links to these phone for everyone, they both look amazing.

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?id=247

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?id=375

 

Crap, no Verizon
sorry I have to ask
what is msrp for the Motorola V600?

 

Thanks everyone. The V600 looks pretty good considering that it weighs only 95 grams and has 6.5 hours talk time. If the price is reasonable and the TL pairing reports are favorable that's the one I'd be inclined to get.

 

Right now, you can get it on eBay for $2,000 - $3,000. If you can wait a month, it should be $249 - $299.

 

w/ activation or just for the phone?
if just for phone then usually much cheaper w/ contract

 

Just the phone.

 

The V600 and Z600 is a GSM phone, so people with Verizon are still lucked out

 

I thought the Verizon people could not use the V600.

 

Verizon has no bluetooth phones on the foreseeable horizon at this point. If you want bluetooth you are pretty much going to have to switch providers. There was a Sony t608 that was CDMA for sprint but it seems to have vanished off the radar recently. Rumor is that verizon will have a phone that is much nicer then the v600 by about this time next year, but that means waiting a calender year to get a phone that works with the car.

My game plan is to get the v600 and use number portability to move to At&T without a binding contract and then if next year verizon gets their act together move back to them.

 

I have the SE T616 and pick up my '04 TL tomorrow. I'll report in to let you know.

 

How is AT&T's coverage these days?

 

What is on tap for Sprint users?

 

SonyEricsson T608 was rumored to be on the way for Sprint PCS.

http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=187

Last I heard it had been delayed a few weeks.

 

Good, if you are in Charlotte.

 

Emu, I was through there this weekend. I currently have Sprint. What service with Bluetooth is in this area and in SC?