Handsfree in the Cage...doncha love modern toys?

[slofox]

Only bike related in that Blueant does in car and in helmet units. I now have one of each.

Since I do have to use the cage quite a lot to lug stock round the countryside, I decided the business could spring for an incar speakerphone unit. Couldn't be having with a headset stuck in my ear'ole all the time.

I have the Blueant Interphone in the bike helmet, which I quite like. Seems to work pretty well. So I looked again when I found that you can also get the Blueant Supertooth 3 Speakerphone unit for the cage. Read lots of reviews, compared with a couple of others and went and bought the last one in town yesterday - for $190 flat. (Innit funny how these firms put out daily flyers promoting items they don't have in stock..?)

The unit is a little black box that clips to the sunvisor in the car. Has a couple of big fat buttons on the front (which you rarely have to use in practice) plus volume controls on one of the edges. It uses Text To Speech technology so it can call out the names of incoming callers as long as you load your contact list into it. It can "do" some six languages and you get the choice of "British" English or "US" English. The only thing I didn't like about it is the rather bright blue light that pulses on and off regularly to indicate it is active. Not a problem during daylight hours but just catches the edge of my vision at night...slightly distracting but I daresay I could mask it with something if I really wanted to.

Pairing phone to Supertooth was the usual doddle, but it took a wee bit of jiggering around to get the cellphone's contact list loaded to the Supertooth - the phone didn't "do" automatic transfer, and being a bear of very little brain, I had to try several times before I worked out the process. But persistence has its rewards and eventually I succeeded.

The Supertooth unit does voice answering of incoming calls (just say "OK" to answer or stay silent to reject the call), voice activation of outgoing calls (you do need to push one of the big buttons to start this process but its pretty easy to find without looking - its big.), has excellent clarity and plenty of volume. In fact it works a treat. Battery life is several million hours on standby (welllll, 800 I think in reality) and hours of talktime as well (15?). Incar charger comes with the package as does a mains charger. Three hours to fully charge the Lion battery. If you turn the unit off when away from the car, one charge lasts for weeks.

Bloody good unit - specially the audio quality. Blueant stuff is the biz.

PS. You can get it for $177.77 from Orb...buggrit!!

[Crisis management]

Good choice Slofox, we have been using one for the last year or so and it has been reliable if a bit pedantic.
A couple of things to watch out for: Remember to turn it off when your out of the car as it will prevent you answering your phone if your still within range, about 30-40m. Makes for high speed sprints back to the car accompanied by screams of "where's me keys!"
The phone battery will run down a bit faster as well as it has to drive the bluetooth connection.

Other than that, a useful bit of gear.

[peasea]

Can't wait for the hands-free handlebars and steering wheel.

[p.dath]

As I understand it, the phone has to be "cradled" in some way to make the use of it legal. I don't believe it is sufficient to just have it "hands free".

[geoffm]

I got a hands free from dealextreme.com for aroudn $NZ80 landed - has a solar panel in teh back so it doesn't have to be plugged in to recharge and recharges from a USB.
Seems to work well.
Geoff

[Usarka]

As I understand it, the phone has to be "cradled" in some way to make the use of it legal. I don't believe it is sufficient to just have it "hands free".

The phone only has to be cradled if you have to physically handle the handset.

If it can be controlled via the bluetooth whatsit then you can stick the phone up your arse and still take and make calls completely legally, if not a little kinkily.

[Sidewinder]

look mum no hands

[YellowDog]

The phone only has to be cradled if you have to physically handle the handset.

If it can be controlled via the bluetooth whatsit then you can stick the phone up your arse and still take and make calls completely legally, if not a little kinkily.

Keep it on vibrate then!

Phone me you bastard, phone me!

[scracha]

the car as it will prevent you answering your phone if your still within range, about 30-40m. Makes for high speed sprints back to the car accompanied by screams of "where's me keys!"
.

If it's the good unit, it goes to sleep once out of range anyhoo and wakes up when you open the car door (vibration). Had mine in the car for 4 weeks without charging and it's still going strong. Put a shortcut key on your moby to turn on/off bluetooth quickly.

There's much cheaper units on the market but I've tried a few others and you get what you pay for.

[jimmy 2006]

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Mobile-phon...-250898263.htm