How to use Bluetooth

I'm jealous - couldn't find a car with option 9 and while the nav is cool, it was the blue tooth that I wanted. I use the phone alot in the car however my wife is one of those walk and chew gum folks that almost refuses to talk while driving .... I'm told that the setup is intuitive but won't find out until I purchase my next prius?

 

Bluetooth, phone books, and Macs

Have any Mac owners devised a bluetooth strategy for syncing their Mac Address Book > cell phone > Prius, given the limitation of the Prius only being able to store one phone number per name? Since I have hundreds of names with multiple phone numbers, it would be a drag to have to split those all up into multiple records.

 

Evan, you seem to be the man in the Bluetooth realm. I won't have a BT phone for another month when my contract is up for renewal but I'm trying to start organizing the data in my Mac's phonebook.

Regarding the 9 character limit in the Prius phonebook: When I sync my Mac phonebook to my future Sony 616 it will presumably send over the first and last names as they appear in my Mac. In your example, you list the Prius phone book displaying last name first. Is that the way the Prius imports it?

So if I have George Smith in my phone will it end up in the Pius as George Sm, or Smith Geo?

Thanks.

 

Is there a list someplace of which phones with bluetooth will work with the Prius. I have a Motorola 270c with the add-on bluetooth module that does not find the Prius on scanning. Does anybody have experience with the Sony/Ericsson 608 with the patch for use on Verizon?

 

There's a link for the phone compatibility list on the Bluetooth page accessiblew from the Toyota Prius page. Ultimately, you end up on toyota.letstalk.com which shows you exactly what phones are known to work with the Prius in your specific zip code area, which is a key point. After all, unless you're planning on moving, the compatible phone had better be available in your area.

I have the #9 package and bought a Sony-Ericsson T616 from Cingular. FYI, this is also sold as the T610 through T-Mobile. The setup and transfer info is published on the web and can easily be found with a simple search.

For your particular bluetooth phone, if it's not this model, things to look for when figuring out how to this are:
1. Make sure your phone's bluetooth interface is turned on. On the T616, only the GRPS and GSM capability is enabled by default. Bluetooth and IR have to be activated in the Settings menu. Make sure your particular phone doesn't turn it off automatically after some length of time to conserve battery power.
2. Once the phone's bluetooth is activated, follow the published instructions to have the Prius search for a bluetooth device. If found, the Prius will tell you to enter the passkey (default is 1212). The phone should automatically respond to the connection and prompt you for the passkey. Completing the connection and setup may take a minute or two, so don't do anything further until prompted. Save off this connection on your phone for future automatic startup. On the T616, it defaults to MY HANDSFREE.
3. To transfer the phone book, follow the on-screen instructions in the Prius' Settings screen to prepare for receiving the transfer. On the T616, you start the transfer from Phonebook/Advanced/Send All/Via Bluetooth. This seems to take an extremely long time, but does work eventually. For other phones, I would expect a similar menu structure.

Note that although the on-screen phone controls are disabled while driving, except for 1-touch calling, the keypad on your actual phone is still naturally active. If I need to manually dial a number while driving, I simply key it in on the handset and then hit Send. The wonders of auto-muting the stereo and using the car's speakers and microphone are still enabled. I expect that the voice dialing would work as well, but haven't actually tried it yet.

One last note... There's a Jabra Freespeak Handsfree kit for non-Bluetooth mobile phones that retails for around $179. Since the Prius is actually just a big handsfree device, it may be possible to connect the phone-side bluetooth transceiver supplied in the kit without their earpiece and have the Prius identify it as a 'bluetooth phone'. I'd be interested to know if anyone's tried this....

 

I have been having intermittent problems with "Bluetooth Connection Failed" messages.

At first the phone (a Sony Ericsson Model T608 from Sprint) worked reliability. Then it ceased connecting at all. I deleted the phone from the car's system and then re-registered it. A few of the connection failures occured when the battery on the phone was a bit low. But now about 25-50% of the time the phone won't connect with the car.

Ideas?

 

I have the T616 from Cingular (same as T610 from T-Mobile). This model is next step up from the T608. I don't have the connection problems that you have even when the phone is in its leather case in my jacket pocket. Since Bluetooth transceivers are supposed to work up to about 30 feet, I'd say it's either your particular piece of equipment or that model's signal strength isn't as good. I'd be sure that you have the phone in your hand, outside of any kind of case and in plain view of the dash when you start the car and see if it's as unreliable.

 

I followed the bootleg instructions and got the Sony T608 running on Verizon. You must have the MSL# to make the switch.

 

I finally got my Bluetooth phone (T616) and am loving it. Had a bit of a hard time getting the phone to connect to the Prius -- they saw each other but I kept getting a CONNECTION FAILED warning. It finally went through... although I have no idea why it all of a sudden worked... and now it connects and disconnects well. One thing I noticed in reference to Evann's comments about names in the Phonebook only being 9 characters long. That's true, but I noticed that names I selected in the Phonebook to be One Touch Dialing numbers would display more than 9 characters in the One Touch Dialing window.