[Merged]Hands free kits

[caveman]

Can someone put me wise to the type of hands free kits available and what they do.
Do any of them work on some form of voice activation or do you always have to manually answer the phone in its cradle.
I saw a simple one in ****** for a tenner where the mike fitted into the cigarette lighter and a wire went away ti clip on to the phones earpiece but you obviously still had to take your eyes off road to answer the the phone.
Do the more expensive ones have automatic answering and calling facilities?

[Paul]

Auto answering often depends on the phone the kit is linked to

[Rob]

I suspect handsfree is in fact a myth, as most phones need a basic on / off type command to start / end the call.

There are cheap ones which rely on the phone's mic and speaker. They just clip to a dashboard, but probably won't be that effective bringing in lots of background noise.

A slight step up, is the long lead from the phone to an earpiece and mic. These aren't really "handsfree" as you can't use voice commands for dialling.

At the other end, will be professionally installed kits that holster your phone, use the cars radio speakers (cutting off the radio when phoning) with a mic routed somewhere like the mirror. Activation may be by voice command or press of a single answer / cancel button.

The mid range options usually rely on bluetooth. These are the clip on earpieces, or alternatively you can get standalone speaker / mic units that clip onto the sunvisor. Some in car navigation systems also double up as bluetooth units.

To answer a call simply single press a button on the bluetooth unit, then talk away. Call ends by repressing of the button or the other end hanging up. To make a call, assuming voice dialling has been set up (i,e, assign a voice command of "office" to your work number in the address book), simply press the call button on the handsfree thingy and speak the name.

Personaly I find the sun visor thing great. It isn't intrusive, and mine has great battery life of a couple of weeks usage before recharging. Callers have no problems hearing me, and it can be moved from car to car. Best of all the phone stays in my pocket. Downside is you can't see texts The earpiece type things I just find uncomfortable.

[bopdude]

Might help if we knew what phone you have mate, we can go from there, as Rob says, there are a lot of products out there, also, there's some nice voice command software, I've been having a bash with it on my XDA, you can 'tell' your XDA to do just about anything from make a call to turn on and off any apps you have.

But lets see what you have first

[caveman]

Any opinions on whats the best, cheapest etc. How easy are the Parrot ones to fit ( the ones where you intercept the radio speakers) or are the sun visor ones just as good?

[attman]

I have a parrot and I have to say they are brilliant.

It auto answers and voice dials brilliantly.

Thoroughly recommended.

I have the CK3100

[danielf]

Originally Posted by caveman

Any opinions on whats the best, cheapest etc. How easy are the Parrot ones to fit ( the ones where you intercept the radio speakers)

My wife has one of these, and had it fitted by the garage. It wasn't cheap IIRC. She's very pleased with it though. Incidentally, it still requires you to select a name from an alphabetic list (manually) to initiate a call. It does work very well though. Even with the phone in the boot of the car.

[Salu]

Originally Posted by attman

I have a parrot and I have to say they are brilliant.

It auto answers and voice dials brilliantly.

Thoroughly recommended.

I have the CK3100

How does it hold the phone to it's ear though?