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Echo on car kits? |
Lewmar
Joined: Mar 28, 2003
Posts: 11
From: Los Angeles
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***originally posted in P800 forum by mistake - sorry!***
I bought a generic ($40) bluetooth car kit (speaker plugs into cigarette lighter) and although the BT and speakerphone work great with my T68i, the person on the other end of the line complains of a bad echo. I tried it myself and the echo is intolerable.
Encouraged by how well the bluetooth functionality works, and on the theory of you get what you pay for, I'm planning to buy either the SE HCB-30 kit or the motorolla BT car kit and get it installed in my car, however I'm now nervous about dropping $400 to get the kit and installation only to find that the echo problem will be present with these kits.
Can anyone with an Ericsson car kit (BT or with cradle) tell me if the car kits have echo cancellation, and how well does it work?
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Strangely
Joined: Jan 13, 2002
Posts: 56
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I have the Bluetooth carkit HCB-30 and nobody has ever complained. the more expensive kits normally have echo and noise cancelation!
So you are correct, that you get what you pay for. |
leqc
Joined: Mar 15, 2003
Posts: 7
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Why does anyone need a bluetooth hands free in the car? I use the Advanced Vehicle Kit HCA-20, it installed neatly and the sound is excellent on both ends. The phone pops into it's cradle and automatically sets the profile to hands free. Works great!
When in rentals or other cars I use the Jabra bluetooth. |
Lewmar
Joined: Mar 28, 2003
Posts: 11
From: Los Angeles
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Thanks for the input. I figured that the better quality kits would have better quality echo cancellation...
I wired a remote speaker to the cheapo kit and put it in the passenger footwell where there are less reflecting surfaces. This reduced the echo considerably, but it's still there.
A bluetooth kit suits me better since it will also work seamlessly with my T68i and my wife's Nokia. Battery life is so good on cell phones these days that they don't need constant charging from a cradle, and besides, there is no good place for a cradle in my car (Audi TT). |
Strangely
Joined: Jan 13, 2002
Posts: 56
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Quote:
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On 2003-03-31 17:27, leqc wrote:
Why does anyone need a bluetooth hands free in the car?
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Because like @ Lewmar says some people have different make phones!
I for one used to have a Nokia 6210 and car kit!
I now have a P800 and the Nokia Kit is useless to me and i dont want to have to buy a new car kit again in the future if i change phone!
Even if i stuck with Nokia (god forbid) they are notorious for changing the interface at the bottom of the phone.
[ This Message was edited by: Strangely on 2003-04-01 00:07 ] |
Lewmar
Joined: Mar 28, 2003
Posts: 11
From: Los Angeles
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What did you pay to get your car kit installed? Or did you do it yourself? How long did it take? |
Strangely
Joined: Jan 13, 2002
Posts: 56
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I did it myself, it's quite straight forward, it took me about 2 hours.
It should be quite easy if you can identify the wires that you will be connecting to. There are about 3 or 4 to connect and the best way to do it is to use scotch block connectors to ur car stereo harness. |
Lewmar
Joined: Mar 28, 2003
Posts: 11
From: Los Angeles
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Do you have it mute the stereo and use the stereo speakers? If so, did you use the advanced music mute cable?
Do you have any photos of the finished installation? |
leqc
Joined: Mar 15, 2003
Posts: 7
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Quote:
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On 2003-03-31 20:11, Lewmar wrote:
What did you pay to get your car kit installed? Or did you do it yourself? How long did it take?
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$50 and it took them less than an hour. Well worth the price. |
Strangely
Joined: Jan 13, 2002
Posts: 56
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Yes i also bought the Advanced mute kit as i don't like these small speakers quality wise and also clutter wise in the car!
I could take some pictures for you but you wouldn't see much apart from controll button mounting.
To be honest the rest of it anyway is all literally stuffed behind the dashboard.
The advanced mute kit works well but the only problem with it is that it completly mutes the audio. |
Merkur
Joined: Dec 05, 2001
Posts: 311
From: Iceland
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My colleague made a test of the audio quality in various Bluetooth car kits. I know he tryed out the Motorola Bluetooth Car kit and SonyEricsson's kit as well. I'm not shure if Nokia had one there too.
In his opinion the Motorola kit was a shure winner. You might ask yourself why: DSP on the mic. The Motorola kit has a DSP unit connected to the Mic that removes extra noise. He called me while using the Motorola Car kit and it sounded like he was sitting in his office. |
Lewmar
Joined: Mar 28, 2003
Posts: 11
From: Los Angeles
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and the Ericsson? was there a lot of noise or echo?
Do you know if the kits can work with more than one phone automatically (without re-pairing each time you change phones)? What would happen if phone#2 receives a call while the kit is taking a call on phone#1. |
Merkur
Joined: Dec 05, 2001
Posts: 311
From: Iceland
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The SonyEricsson didn't wipe out the background noise as efficiently as the Motorola car kit. I don't remember echo.
This is taken from SonyEricsson Global support:
If more than one phone is paired to HCB-30, what are the priority roles?
If no GSM communication is established the HCB-30 have no communication channel to any paired device.
When any paired device establishes a GSM connection, either receiving or setting up a call, a Bluetooth™ channel is established.
Setting up a call through HCB-30 is only possible with the last paired device.
The one (of maximum 5 paired device being inside the Bluetooth™ coverage area) that is to establish a GSM connection first, will get the Bluetooth™ channel. The other ones will get their GSM connection in their phones, not using HCB-30 at all.
However when the HCB-30 call is finished, it is possible to transfer any other ongoing call to the HCB-30. The last terminal paired is the only one that can be activated from the HCB-30 control panel (for VAD and transfer of sound).
So, if you have 2 phones paired to the carkit and one is using the carkit for a call it will stay there. The other phone will take the call it the phone.
The outcome of my colleague's test was that the functionality was similar, but Motorola won because of the DSP mic. |
Lewmar
Joined: Mar 28, 2003
Posts: 11
From: Los Angeles
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What kind of car was used for the test? The interior volume of the cockpit must affect the response...
Will he publish the results? I'd love to see a review of either product. |
Gigitt
Joined: Mar 08, 2003
Posts: 32
From: Bottom of the World
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Your hands free Car Kit - whether it be fixed, Original, OEM, cheap and nasty or BT, all can prduce echo.
You have to make sure that the speaker is far enough away from the mic.
Echo is only created if the speaker and Mic are too close together.
On a Duplexing HF kit, where you can Listen and Talk at the same time... you only want the mic to pick up your voice, but if the speaker is too close or the volume is way too high, the mic will pick up the the output from the speaker and this is the echo you do not want.
Best to put the speaker in Passenger foot well near center console.
Put the Mic up on the Drivers A column (this is the the column between the winscreen and the drivers door)
I have a HCA-20 temporarily in my car... still have not fully wired it up.
At least I have mounted the cradle... it is fully functional and is powered from my ciggy lighter.
I had the speaker and mic just laying on the passenger seat and any call made had very bad echo. I threw the speaker into the passenger footwell and the mic wedged into my ashtray and there is no echo.
This post was posted from a T68i
via IP-GPRS Location: Moon Surface |
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Posted: 2003-03-28 18:26
