i intend to buy a new prius and it has no bluetooth. is there any way to buy some bluetooth kit and install it?
There are several options. Most cell phone providers have a kit you can use. Another option is that many GPS units now have built in blue-tooth.
If your car does not come with blue-tooth then you cannot use the touch screen to dial (even if you add an after-market blue-tooth kit later) Even if you have blue-tooth you cannot touch screen dial while moving (unless you purchase something like lockpick to disable that feature). I have an 04 and there is no voice dialing option. Later models have that available (06-09) I think. I use the voice dialing option on my phone to dial. I hope that helps.
For what it's worth...we have the BlueAnt Supertooth 3 I'm a newbie too. We recently bought an '09 Prius, pkg 2 (so no bluetooth or GPS). I put in a portable bluetooth speakerphone, the BlueAnt Supertooth 3 (bought from Amazon). It is very compact and fits on the visor. Sounds very clear and works well with my wife's BlackBerry (which has voice dialing). It has text-to-speech, so after transferring her address book to the unit, it will announce the caller by name (for phone numbers not in the address book it just announces the phone number). It has a vibration sensor, so when you open and close the door to get in, it looks to autoconnect to the last phone it was connected to. So, for my wife, with the smart key and this bluetooth speakerphone, her Prius is truly an automatic car -- she never needs to take her keys out of her purse and, for much of the week, her cell phone is automatically connected when she enters the car. It also worked out for us that when she leaves the car and enters the house the distance is sufficient to automatically cause the phone to disconnect. We are so happy with the BlueAnt that after 2 weeks, I bought another one for the minivan for my own use. I'm sure the installed bluetooth phone offers more features (like the screen) but for now we are quite pleased with this portable unit. As an added bonus, if we fly somewhere for vacation, we can bring the portable unit for use in a rental car. Mr. Peabody Oh...and my wife and I are LOVING our new Prius.
