Posted by masseur
Official Sony Ericsson press release
Sony Ericsson today unveiled the newest addition to its portfolio of in-car accessories, the Bluetooth™ Car Handsfree HCB‑300. It offers an innovative Color ID interface that makes it easy to share the device with other people who drive the same car. The HCB-300 is ideal for users who lead active lives and have a keen interest in taking advantage of the latest technology. The HCB-300 will be available in stores in Q3 2004.
The HCB‑300 automatically connects to the user’s phone using Bluetooth™ wireless technology when the car ignition is engaged, even if the phone remains in a pocket or bag. This makes it more convenient for people who frequently have to get in and out of their car. The user can make their preparations to drive without having to remember to connect the HCB-300 to the phone. With the phone still in the user’s pocket or bag, there is no risk of leaving the phone behind in the car when the journey is over.
The HCB‑300 can handle up to five different user profiles. Each user chooses an identification color from the Color ID feature. When the car ignition is engaged, the HCB-300 automatically connects to the last phone used in the car displaying the pre-selected Color ID for that phone. If a user with the Color ID ‘blue’ drove the car last, the display will indicate the Bluetooth™ connection with a blue screen interface. If the next person in the car is a different user with a Color ID ‘green’, the HCB-300 will first try to connect to the ‘blue’ phone, as it was the last used in the car, then automatically search and find the ‘green’ Color ID user’s profile. A user can manually change the Color ID with one easy key push or simply wait for the HCB-300 to find the phone. The Color ID feature allows an entire family or group of colleagues using the same company car to use the same HCB-300.
The HCB-300 supports the voice recognition, voice tags in the address book of the phone in use, allowing users to receive phone calls while driving without losing focus. If the phone rings it’s easy and convenient to take the call with just one simple key push increasing the driver’s safety and convenience.
When a call is received, the car stereo automatically mutes and the driver can hear the caller’s voice loud and clear. The HCB-300 offers excellent sound quality for a pleasant user experience, allowing users to handle important calls without the worry about missing vital information because of sound disturbance.
Posted by Grimslade
Has anyone actually seen the HCB-300 on the market? Expansys only has it in preorder status. I want a bluetooth car handsfree, but it seems silly to buy the last-generation one when a new one is one the way. OTOH, the HCB-300 is looking a lot like vaporware these days...
TIA,
Brian
Posted by zebi
Its on expansys for about £111, and is widely available now.
Only thing is that has anyone actually got it/ tried it out?
At the price it sounds a bargain!
[ This Message was edited by: zebi on 2004-10-09 20:21 ]
Posted by Grimslade
Mine should arrive monday, but it might be a couple of days before i can install. Will give a quick review next week after i have got it working, if there's any interest. Let me know.
This message was posted from a T630
That shud have been "mine should arrive..." As for my "mind," I've given up waiting.
[ This Message was edited by: Grimslade on 2004-10-10 14:21 ]
Posted by zebi
that'd be great. post up a review. This could be my next buy!
Posted by Grimslade
Was beginning to think no one was interested! Got the kit today. May be a couple of days before I work up the courage to start tearing apart my car...
Posted by Grimslade
Ok, my HCB-300 is installed. I chickened out on wiring it myself and forked over the cash to have someone else do it. In preliminary testing, it sounds great (remote party reports same). Interface is un-problematic; switching between phones once they're paired is dead easy. Gripes/cautions: the switch is tiny, which is mostly good. But it's flimsy, which is bad. The advanced music mute only works on certain stereos; mine is one of them, but you can't assume yours is too... Cont
Posted by zebi
That sounds about alright. Have you ever used a bluetooth headset? I'be been able to pair more than one phone to the same headset concurrently- where calls from two phones are received by the same headset.
Do you know if that is possible with the car kit?
Posted by Grimslade
I have an HBH-600 and an HBH-65 headset. The way the HCB-300 is set up, there's an LED which can be switched between five different colors, each representing a different user with an already-paired phone. (Currently, I have two phones paired to the HCB-300, so if I hit the toggle button, it toggles between blue and green only) The HCB-300 will only pick up the signal from the phone assigned to the current color.
So, say my wife and I are in the car, and the carkit is showing "blue," my color, when my wife's phone rings. She can hit the toggle button, switching the carkit to "green," her color, at which point the carkit would ring, and she could pick up her call.
does that make sense? I've got a picture of the control unit on the dash, but I have to get it off my phone before I can post it.
Posted by davidb67
Grimslade,
your post gives me the good news I need!!!
I have a SE T610 (work) and a moto V600 (personal), and have just changed company car, and wanted to get a bluetooth car kit so I could use either phone. whilst you can pair several phones with most b/t car kits, the HCB-300 appeared in the sales lit. to make it easier to switch between phones.
I was still unsure though if you could enforce a "phone jump" whilst a call is coming through on the "wrong" phone....
your post seems to confirm exactly what I have been wondering: the non-"active" phone starts to ring, you hit the button on the car kit controller, and it makes that phone "active", then the carkit can be used.
Great!!!
i was tempted to go down the Siemens HKW-600 route, for it's neat little display (and at a more reasonable cost than either the Parrot or Nokia ones), but i think the functionality of switching EASILY between both my phones, is worth more than seeing who is calling.....
any pictures yet???
Posted by Grimslade
Pictures are on my digital camera. When I get home tonight I'll d/l them and post them. I think you'll be surprised how small the little thingy with the buttons on it is. I had my wife driving around with the windows open yesterday, and I had no trouble hearing her or the kids in the backseat through the included mike, which I had installed just above the rearview mirror in the middle of the ceiling.
Posted by Grimslade
OK, here's a pic. Not much to show, of course, but it gives a sense of scale. Sorry about the focus, etc. (The phone condom isn't mine, so please, no comments...)
Posted by davidb67
Thanks for the pic Grimslade, and having the T610 there helps for scale.
i'm now confident to go for the HCB-300 - thanks again!!
Posted by mince-inside
Would this Car kit work with the P900 or is the P900 missing bluetooth handsfree option...?
_________________
Pictures in my head
Worst job ever! v's Dream Job V=
[ This Message was edited by: mince-inside on 2004-10-20 22:39 ]
Posted by Grimslade
I believe it supports the the headset profile as well as handsfree, but most people who've tried to use car handsfree kits w/P900 have expressed frustration with the experience; connection instability, etc. It's listed as compatible on the web site, but I've heard a few installation shops recommend against trying it.
[ This Message was edited by: Grimslade on 2004-10-21 01:39 ]
Posted by mince-inside
@Grimslade
Cheers mate, T610 here we come...
_________________
Pictures in my head
Worst job ever! v's Dream Job V=
[ This Message was edited by: mince-inside on 2004-10-21 07:25 ]
Posted by shark0
Has anyone tried this with K700, as I am looking at diferent options for car kit, and what to now this works for other before being the first to try it.
Posted by 02
so how tiz works? the caller's voice is heard tru the car's speakers?? radio/music is stop etc etc when theres a call..
Posted by moogoo
would it be possible for you to take pictures of your installation or somehow post the installation manual on here?? i'm really interested in how it's installed...
thanks a lot
Posted by Grimslade
SharkO--I haven't yet, but I will try it with a K700, hopefully before the week is out. I'll let you know. I see no reason it shouldn't work fine.
@moogoo & 02--I would, but as I said, I chickened out and had a car audio shop do it. Before I wimped out though, I learned quite a bit. Here's what I know:
The kit comes with a small wiring harness and a speaker. It is possible to plug the unit directly into the supplied speaker and stow the speaker somewhere, like in the driver's-side footwell. If you do that, you only need to plug in a handful of things:
1.) Plug the speaker and the supplied mike into the command unit (which also needs to be hidden away somewhere like under the central console or in the footwell).
2.) Plug the button thing (that's the technical term; cf. the picture above for what I'm talking about) into the command unit and stick that onto your dash wherever it will fit (TBT is wired, so you'll need to thread the wires somewhere, of course...)
That leaves four wires: a black ground (earth) wire, which can be stuck to frame at any ground point you can find; a red 12V direct line, which needs constant power from the battery; a blue "ignition-sense" wire which basically needs 12V when the key is turned and 0v when not; and (optional) a yellow "telemute" wire. If you have a telemute pin on the back of your car stereo, hooking this in there will automatically mute the radio when you're on the phone (or the phone rings).
This is the stock setup, and if you go this way, your biggest challenge is finding constant 12V to tap into (some people use the lighter, which is usually tied to the ignition. But to do it right you want both constant 12v and ignition-sense 12v). This is where I chickened out; my car is six months old, and I just couldn't see myself chopping into my wiring harness and poking around with a multimeter looking for live wires.
All that said, I use a different setup (see below). The guy who reviewed it on mobile burn does it the way I describe above, and says the volume and sound-quality are A-OK.
But, as I said, I don't do it that way. I've bought the HCE-14 (I think?) Advanced Music Mute, which is somewhat misleadingly named since the yellow wire in the stock set up also mutes the music. What the HCE really does is pipe the sound from the handsfree through the stereo speakers. The HCE-14 (or whatever) is basically an extra wiring harness that you put between your radio and your speakers.
But... (confused yet?), the Advanced Music Mute won't do you much good unless you have ISO connectors on the back of your stereo (some do, some don't). If you don't, you might as well buy a third-party wiring harness, which will solve both the stereo-speaker problem and the power-supply problem at the same time. There are a few web sites that sell these; a complete harness runs 40 bucks or so, depending on the radio, etc.
So, to summarize: If you have a wiring harness for your car, and don't mind tearing up a lot of the fascia to run the wiring discreetly, you can probably get it done yourself. (Final point: Some cars are "pre-wired" for hands-free kits. If yours is, you probably have a connector somewhere behind the dash or glovebox into which you can plug or wire all of the connectors mentioned above. Whether or not you are prewired will depend on the age of the car as well as it's place in the product-line food-chain; the higher-end the car, the more likely it is to be prewired...)
Does that answer all your questions?
Seriously, if not, let me know. I spent a lot of time learning about all this, and since I didn't install it myself, I'd like to put it to some use, if only to help others.
Brian
[ This Message was edited by: Grimslade on 2004-10-27 18:56 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Grimslade on 2004-10-27 18:57 ]
Posted by moogoo
that kinda helps.. hehe.. your "technical" terms need some work but that gives me an idea of what comes with the kit and what i need to do. that in mind i have a few options that i can look into and i will update this thread when i eventually get it installed, most likely with pictures too!!
of course i won't be installing it for awhile since i dont have any money to spend on it at the moment so this might not happen until sometime in 2005 and hopefully the price will be cheaper then too
but thanks a lot.. it helped
Posted by 02
@Grimslade
Thanx for the brief explaination... hahaha... its very usefull... with the colour led and all... but wat happens if there are 2 phones and both bluetooth in on, in the car? Which phone will it connect too??
Posted by Grimslade
It will connect to whichever phone it was connected to last, by default. If it can't find that phone, it searches for all the other paired phones in turn until it finds one within range. You toggle through the paired phones by hitting the
button on the button thingie.
Posted by shark0
I am getting this unit installed today, I will update on my testing after I have got it installed.
Posted by moogoo
nice...
pictures would be appreciated sharky
Posted by YEOPK
Nice picture. I used to have car hands free kit in the early 90s with my NEC phone. It is very useful indeed if u always travel alone. But if u are with someone, it can be quite inconvenient cos your conversation can b heard loud and clear. U know what guys like to talk about...!
However, costs is a factor here. It will cost about GBP300 plus installation here. With that sort of money, I could get myself a new Tungsten T4, although driving without handsfree can get me a police ticket.
Posted by equusmedical
K700i sync problems.
I have noted with my HCB-300 that probably 1 in 20 times I get in the car it can't find the phone, or the phone can't pair with HCB-300.
I believe it is the phone that is at fault and may have something to do with pairing it with PC at home, going to my car and the phone confuses itself and doesn't pair with car. Might be wrong on this.
EM
Posted by Grimslade
It happens to me with the K700 occasionally as well. I too suspect the phone, since it never seems to have a problem with the t610. When it does, I just select the the hcb as my handsfree before I drive off.