Bluetooth with and without Nav package

It seems to me the biggest difference is the user interface. I have nav, and being able to use the large screen for the phone (to dial by contact or speed dial, for example) is much easier than a single line display on the non-nav cars (never used it on a non-nav Prius, but have in BMW loaner cars).

Nav also comes with voice recognition--I'm not sure if the non-nav BT has voice dialing capability.

 

I have the III but no NAV.

Yes, we have voice-dialing recognition and the BT works excellent. The ONLY difference in Bluetooth is that NAV people get BT Audio Streaming and we don't. (Kinda pissed about this, personally)

I am happy I got the III without NAV, but I was under the impression that we did have BT streaming and found out the hard way.

 

In the non-nav version everything is (or can be) done by voice commands. You can use the interface to speed up some things (like changing the settings) if you like but for the most part you press the button and say 'dial so-and-so' and that's it. You use the radio station presets for speed dial.

 

Yeah, I was disappointed that I can't stream music from my ipod touch over bluetooth (like you can with Nav). At least there is the Aux connection. BTW, lame that Toyota didn't include an Aux connection cord.

 

The NAV is eye candy on the dash and it also allows for the USB port upgrade that just came out as well as BT audo stream, but to me it was not worth $1,800 and that is why I chose my III without.

 

I just got dealer added BT to my II package. They use the BluLogic product. It doesn't have voice recognition - it defers to the phone and my Iphone doesn't have it.

 

If you have BT and your cell phone supports voice dialing, then, you have voice dialing thru BT.
BT does not perform voice recognition. It merely passes the voice back to the receiving device, in this case, your cell phone.

 

Do you know if that's true when the phone can't transfer contacts to the non-NAV Bluetooth? I have a Motorola so I had to register all the name/numbers, by voice, one at a time, into the car. Is the car then doing the recognition, or the phone? And if it's the phone, would a voice prompt name entered via the car recognize a number in the phone that has not been registered in the car (i.e, 50 names in the phone but only entered 20 in the car)? The phone will do voice dialing of the whole contact list. Just curious if you know but I guess I will try it, as well.

 

I like the idea of radio station presets for speed dial. Does the nav version have the equivalent on the touch screen?

 

Yes--you can program a bunch of speed dials.

 

If all you want is the Bluetooth, then it seems kind of crazy to spend $1800.

On the other hand you will get voice recognition that is handled on the car side, meaning you don't need a phone that supports voice dial. And because of that, you can dial by voice tag (custom name you record), name as found in your phonebook, or by saying the phone number.
It's probably a lot easier to manage your phonebook, speed dial, and other things via the touch screen too.

It makes things much easier, but maybe not $1800 easier. You kind of have to want the nav and backup camera (and built-in calendar; the ability to see what day it is in your car is amazing. Best feature of nav) for it to be worth it.