All Cars, All the Time

Experimenting With Bluetooth


I’ve long wondered why Bluetooth isn’t offered as an option on nearly every car. Sure there are folks that make the argument that you should “shut up and drive” or as one comedian said “I’m not so sure about hands free phones, if my hands are doing something so important that they must be free shouldn’t my brain be in on it too?” Whatever the case most people are going to continue to yak whether others like it or not.

The question becomes how best can a phone be implemented in a car. Having your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road are a given, but what else should buyers be looking for?

With the recent sale of my Saab I’ve had a few extra benjamins floating around and I decided to add some ‘tooth the family truckster: the Honda Odyssey.

I like car accessories, but I don’t like accessories to look like accessories. Given the chance to buy something for a couple hundred bucks, I’ll spend double to get an OEM appearance. Now that aftermarket car stereos are starting to trickle into the marketplace, I thought I’d give Bluetooth a chance. There are other ways to go, several vendors such as Blue Ant and Parrot have or will soon have visor mounted Bluetooth units for your car. Literally charge up the battery, pair your phone and clip to your visor. The ease of install allows you to “gidder done” during halftime and only be out about $100. I’ve got one of those units on order and I’ll keep you posted, but for the ultimate install you’ve got to replace your stereo. A Bluetooth head unit gives you several things: a clean appearance, your stereo turning down the volume so that you can hear your phone ring, hearing your caller’s voice through your stereo speakers, and never having to charge or replace batteries.

At Crutchfield.com there are only two manufacturers, Pioneer and Sony, that are offering complete Bluetooth integrated units. Complete means that Bluetooth is built in, not some extra module that you have to add on. Between the Pioneer and the Sony I chose the Sony because the microphone was built in. The Sony was $400, but I had an Entertainment book coupon for $50 off so the unit was $350 shipped with a wiring harness adapter and a DIN stereo adapter so that the Sony would fit into the Odyssey’s dash.

When the Sony arrived I unpacked the box and wired together the Sony’s wiring harness to the Crutchfield supplied Honda adapter. Next I slipped the radio into the dash adapter and I was good to go. Next I went out to the Odyssey and ripped off the HVAC/Radio dash cover (very easy to do as it's just held in with clips) and unscrewed the four screws holding in the factory radio. Unplugging the radio I then plugged in the wiring harnesses and the dash adapter and turned on the radio. Pairing my Sprint LG phone to the radio was cake but transferring the phone book didn’t seem to be possible. No big deal I simply hit a speed dial on the LG and the phone started to make the call to long suffering Joe. When Joe answered he was quite annoyed firstly because I was calling during Lost and secondly because the sound quality was “horrible.” I hung up and finished mounting the phone in the dash and reinstalled the dash cover. I played around with the noise cancellation (there are three modes: off, 1 and 2). I called Joe again, this time Eko was about to be killed by the smoke monster. Joe pronounced that the call quality had improved but I still sounded like I was in a barrel. I called someone with worse hearing, Dave, and he thought it sounded okay.

This discrepancy continued with some folks saying "sounds okay" to others hanging up on me either because of sound quality or because it was starting to get rather late.

When driving on the freeway with rough pavement almost everyone agreed that it was impossible to hear me, but on quieter pavement or slower speeds most people were willing to at least stay on the line. Not exactly a rining endorsement but progress none the less.

I’m left with a quandary: do I return the Sony and go for the Pioneer with the remote microphone (reviewers have complained about sound quality on that unit as well)? Just live with the Sony? Or wait for more Bluetooth radios to flood the market?

The Sony’s Bluetooth integration is fantastic for being a first generation model. You can dial using the “Rotary Encoder Joystick,” the radio’s remote or the phone’s keypad. As I mentioned I could not get the phone’s phonebook to transfer. Looking at the feedback on all Bluetooth radios this seems to be a common theme. Many folks are blaming cell phone providers for disabling certain Bluetooth features and transferring the phone book may be one of them. Personally I don’t think it’s that disastrous, since reaching over to the radio to fumble through the phone book seems pretty dangerous. Voice activated dialing seems to be the best, but I have not played around with that.

In summary I’m happy to report that Bluetooth is soon within reach for everyone and every budget. Voice quality for you, the driver, is great but unfortunately all units seem to fall down for the party on the other end of the line. Whether you go with a portable unit, an add on to your factory stereo or a new head unit you’ll find that the future has finally arrived.

Here are some of the units that I’ve looked at:


Above is the Blue Ant visor unit for under $100.


Above is a new portable model from Parrot that should be in stock soon for close to $100.



Above is the Parrot unit is an add on to your existing car stereo for around $150. You can buy a wiring harness adapter to that it will dim your car's stereo for around $60.



Here is the Pioneer unit from Crutchfield that runs around $450.



Here is the Sony unit that I bought that sells for $400.