Ok, so I love my Camry, and like many others on this forum and in the market for a new phone to support the handsfree features in the car. Yesterday I upgraded my phone to a Motorola Razr. It links easily, sounds great, but there are definitely some issues:

1. Verizon Wireless is Evil - They disable the bluetooth OBEX exchange features in their phones, so you cannot transfer your directory to the Camry's directory. Aaarrgghhhh. I've looked for phone mods to fix this, but don't feel changing the phone's firmware to Alltel's a viable solution. If anyone finds a solution to this, please post.

2. Ok, so it's a pain to put my phone book in the car, so can I use the phones voice recognition dialing handsfree? Not that I can figure out. There appears to be no way to talk to the phone via the car's "headset" to do voice dialing. The car want's to dial from it's book. I can hit the button on the phone that allows me to voice dial, but the phone isn't listening to the phone or the car, so anything I say get's ignored. There is some incompatibility going on here.

Hmmm, the combination of Verizon and the Camry is less than ideal.

I'm going to try an LG 8300 next to see if that works any better.

I've read all the bluetooth threads and other phone related threads on this site. Has anyone figured any of this out yet for Verizon?

 

I have Verizon, but I have a Treo 650. Apparently Treos in general have trouble transferring their phone books to the Camry, regardless of the carrier. Anyhow, I just use voice dial as follows:

1) Press the Talk button.

2) Say "Dial by Number."

3) Wait for prompting and press the Talk button again.

4) Say the number and confirm that it is correct (if not press Talk and say GO BACK, and do it again)

5) If the number is correct press the Off Hook button and it dials.

In most cases the numbers I would be calling from my car are numbers I know without looking them up anyway, so for me it doesn't matter that much.

 

Obex RAZR tutorial

 

No vehicle bluetooth system that I know of will let you dial via the voicename you have recorded on the PHONE. They must all be re-recorded into the car. At least this is how it was on my 2005 BMW, my girlfriend's Benz and my friend's Audi that have bluetooth integration. I am fairly familiar with bluetooth in a vehicle, as I've been using that sort of system for two years or so. I've had my RAZR for about half that time.

In each vehicle you need to re-record a voicename for each entry you would like the car to voicedial for you.


With respect to transferring your phonebook to the vehicle. I have non-nav, but to me the transfer via phone only cuts out a step or two, so to do an entire phonebook of 100+ numbers is fairly cumbersome. I have the RAZR with Cingular, and although I can send numbers to the car via bluetooth, I can only do one number at a time anyway...which must then have it's own individual recorded name created. If there were a way to send the entire phone book to the vehicle in one fell swoop, that would be great, but you'd still need to tab through each number and assign a voicename to it for the car.

If you want to learn how to mod your phone and enable the seem that controls the ability to send contact information via bluetooth, get a cup of coffee and head over to www.motomodders.net

It's a great place for modding your phone, enabling longer video recording, and deleting unneeded stock phone files, to allow you more space for ringtones, games, pics and videos. Although I wouldn't recommend you spending all the time needed to do seem edits if all you want to do is get your phone's contacts into your camry.

Anyway, bottom line to your quandary - don't sweat it...even if you have to load the contacts in via the car's interface or via voice, you should be able to put your most commonly dialed numbers in within about an hour. Just another excuse to climb inside your Camry Hybrid and not use any gas!

 

Thank you for the great response. I have minimal experience with bluetooth, especially in a car, so your perspective is valueable.


This is interesting. The phone has great voice dialing capabilities and it's a shame a I can access them. It must be Bluetooth design issue, although I bet it works perfectly from a bluetooth headset. Why can't I just put the car in headset mode?


Sounds like a plan.

Although did I mention that Verizon Wireless is Evil?

 

OMG! I almost missed this little, tiny, nearly hidden reply.

 

Yep, even with a bluetooth headset I've seen many complaints that the custom ringtones don't work with the headset. I don't have a BT headset, but I've seen numerous people complain that there is only one type of ring on the BT headset when used with the RAZR. Can't verify, just repeating hearsay.


ONE thing you might try, is with the phone in the car, and bluetooth connected, you could try pushing the phone's voicedial button and speak the name of whom you want to dial into the phone receiver.

My guess is it would connect the call through the phone, but as soon as it started ringing, would pipe over your car bluetooth. Now, granted, this kind of defeats the need for voicedial on your car itself, but it would eliminate the extra work of tagging each entry into the car, and I'm just trying to give you options.

Even if you can put your phonebook into the car, remember the car has a limited memory and if your phone is chock full of all of your biatches and hoes, you may not have space for them all anyway.

I'd suggest this...go into your car, and by voice, enter in your 10 or 20 most oftenly used numbers. Play around with it a few days and then decide if you like the camry's voicedial or the phone's voicedial system better.

 

If you get the NAV option the number of phonebook entries is increased to 1000 entries. If your cell phone has hundreds of entries you definitely want a phone that can transfer the entire phonebook at once.
Just an FYI.
J

 

Wow, didn't realize NAV allowed for 1000...I agree with schmitty.

Non-nav allows how many entries again?

 

Twenty (20).
I posted these differences on another thread:
https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...tachmentid=205