W210

Thought I should share this with you guys. For the longest time, we have been told how good the electronics in Lexus/Acura are, how advanced is their Bluetooth technology working so well with your latest cellular phone, how MB and BMW need to catch up, etc.

Well, I just spent some time helping an older gentleman setting up his V600 in his 2005 Lexus RX330 and I can say most of the praise is hype.

Yes, while you can bring in any Bluetooth telephone, the system is far inferior compared to the V60 I use in the MB.

For one, the Lexus system does NOT sync all entries from your phone to the car automatically.

This means you have to add each phonebook entry manually. We are talking about a 10 steps process for each entry, first click opening the car phonebook, then turning on the Bluetooth phonebook download option to get the car in the standby mode; then bring up the phonebook in the V600, find the individual phonebook entry you want to upload; select send, then pick the correct Bluetooth device to connect. Even if you're good at memorizing the above steps, you can't do it quickly as there are a few seconds of annoying lag for the Bluetooth devices to communicate as you upload each entry from V600 to car. And it is very time consuming looking for the selective phone entry from the tiny V600 screen to upload.

So you thought ah no problem, can I not input the entries using the nice touch screen on the dash to keep a smaller frequently used phonebook in the car? No, the Lexus system does not allow you to directly create phone entries and you have to always start from the V600.

As one can imagine, no one will bother diligently uploading each phonebook entry which means the Lexus phonebook is pretty much useless. In fact, to upload the 200+ phone entries from V600 to car, one requires a running checklist to keep track of which entry has been uploaded and which hasn't. If you add a new contact in your V600, you will have to remind yourself to upload it to the Lexus later on.

Without an up-to-date car phonebook, when an outside call comes in, the caller ID will only show the number and not the name. And talking about caller ID, the Lexus system is again rather crude.

For example, if you have "212-555-1212" saved in your Lexus phonebook as John's number, when a call comes in from John and you see "+1-212-555-1212" on the dash, the Lexus system will not be able to match up the two and show you John's name. As a result, my associate had to actually add the "+1" for each entry in his phonebook in order to get the name come up correctly in the Lexus!

On the MB V60 system, every time I plug in the V60, all entries are automatically synchronized and my car phonebook will always mirror the V60 phonebook. It's smart enough to match the name entry from the caller ID much more intelligently. I also get text messages (SMS) which is not available in the Lexus.

The MB feels like a true extension of the cellular phone (even the stored memory location numbers match up) while the Lexus is gimmicky, looks impressive offering lots of options, but lacks substance.

I also had some time to play around with the Lexus navigation system. I personally do not find it intuitive at all. While the MB system reminds me of an efficient operating system such as Linux or Mac OS, the Lexus is like Windows having lots of bells and whistles which I don't care for (such as personalizing icons for your destinations, please, or giving you options to change background color, etc.) When inputting addresses in the Lexus, we ran into many 'no such address' errors which I have never seen in my MB. Not sure if they're software or hardware related. To get around the problem, since the system claims house 3670 does not exist, we had to enter 3620 instead, how pathetic!

Overall, a major letdown as I expected a lot from the latest Lexus as far as eletronics are concerned. The Bluetooth connectivity is a convenient way to save users from dealing with proprietary phones, but unfortunately, the interface and functionality are extremely unsophisticated. For a serious business user such as myself (who makes dozens of calls in the car and relies heavily on the phone features), the Lexus Bluetooth solution is not an viable option.

Very disappointed. Come to think of it, even my 2000 E-class MB Timeport phone is a better system.

ToonArmy

There is quite a bit of discussion out there about problems with the Lexus-Motorola Bluetooth combo. Some Motorola phones (the v710 specifically is mentioned) only support limited Bluetooth "profiles", and specifically do not support the syncing/file transfer Bluetooth functionality.

http://www.clublexus.com/forums/show...hreadid=129187

So it's possible your associate might have better luck with a Nokia or Sony-Ericsson phone. Or not, as I don't know whether the Lexus implementation itself supportsthe syncing function. :-)

Regarding the +1 callerid - I have a similar issue with the MB UHI integration with a Cingular SE T637 - I did have all my numbers stored with +1 (since I use the phone internationally). The phone itself will recognize callerid for +1-xxx, 1-xxx, or xxx stored in the contact list, but the in-car system will only recognize the name if it stored as 1-xxx (have to have the 1, cannot have the +). I've noted this in a related thread:
UHI caller id

W210

Well, the V600 could transfer names to the Lexus, except one at a time which makes it extremely impractical.

I suppose Bluetooth telematics is still at an infant stage with lots of firmware compatibility and integration issues. Not an easy task when you have to deal with a car vendor, a cell phone service provider, and the phone hardware manufacturer.

The problem with all of the above is that it makes it very difficult for a consumer to find out exactly what features are supposed to work! When the Lexus dealer so cheerfully provided an instruction sheet with Motorola's name on it, we were hoping that all the bugs had been worked out and we were getting into a proven system. It's depressing to learn from your thread that other features such as 1-touch may not work either.

The CDMA MB factory phone solutions in all my previous cars do work very well, from last generation E-class to current SL and E. The system can always partially match up callerID numbers to my phone book and display the corresponding names.

How do you like your UHI solution besides the callerID issue? One thing I find is that the Bose (I presume) COMAND in the 2003 SL allows users to dial numbers much more quickly. There is a slight delay when you hit the keypad in the 2004 Harmon Kardon COMAND. Not a serious bug but a little annoying.

After spending more time with the Lexus navigation, I begin to appreciate how the MB navigation only gives a range of house numbers even when you enter a specific street address. The beauty is that MB won't give you the dreaded Lexus common error: "this street address does not exist" and force you to make up a phantom street number to get to where you want to go.

ToonArmy

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the UHI installation. I posted a summary of my initial impressions here (R230 SL, S-E T637 phone, Cingular):

R230 SL UHI experience

After a little more experimentation, I have resolved the name caller id issue as described (had to drop the leading + from the numbers), so I now have pretty much full functionality. The few (relatively minor) issues that I would raise are:

1. Recording of "last dialed" numbers is very erratic - it seems to work maybe 50% of the time, and I have not found a pattern. I initially thought that if I canceled a call via the VCS lever, it was not being recorded, but subsequent tries with the steering wheel button hangup have also not been recorded. At the moment, my theory is that there is some (unknown) operation which, if performed prior to diaing a number, somehow gets the software into the correct state to record last-dialed numbers and enable redial.

2. I do not appear to be able to store my voicemail password as part of the voicemail dialing number. I have this stored in the phone, but if I access it from COMAND or multi-function and dial it, it appears to not send the password correctly. Similarly, I did not find a way to use voice dialing to store the vmail password for easy hands-free operation.

3. More minor - it would be nice to be able to either use the phone's voice diaing capabilities, or attach voice tags to the phonebook entries. It is a bit awkward to have to enter voicedial tags purely by voice, but acceptable since I have a relatively small number of voice-enabled entries.

ToonArmy

Agree completely, having to transfer entries one at a time is very weak.

I think part of the problem here is that the marketers have unfortunately "simplified" things to talking only about "Bluetooth", without specifying which specific profiles are or are not supported. So even if the formware compatibility issues are sorted out, it will still be possible to buy a supposedly "Bluetooth-enabled" device and find it rather lacking in functionality.

W210

I also access my voicemail daily and have discovered the following.

I cannot dial my programmed voicemail password number from the steering wheel, last number dialled list, or from voice dial. I think the problem comes from the system eliminating the programmed pauses automatically.

However, I can get around this problem by accessing my stored voicemail numbers (together with the needed pauses and passwords) directly from the COMAND keypad.

At least in my CDMA setup, the pauses do work in speed dial locations 2-9, and also in other locations, if you remember to add a # before hitting 'send'.

To check my office voicemail, I hit '7', followed by 'send' using the COMAND keypad. To check my second office voicemail, I go '8' followed by 'send'.

Somehow when dialling the speed dial numbers from the COMAND keypad, my system will directly access the stored numbers on my V60 with all the pauses working properly.

I hope it works for you as well?

ToonArmy

Thanks for the tip on voicemail - I'll give that a try.

ToonArmy

I was not able to get this to work with my SE T637 and UHI. Assuming I'm understanding you correctly, I used the COMAND knob to "Phone Book" -> "Read Phone Book" -> scroll to voicemail number (stored in the phone as number, pause, password, #). The number as displayed on the COMAND display did not show the pause, and pressing "SEND" in the COMAND dialed the voicemail number, but did not register the password.

I wonder if the pause indicator used makes a difference? On the S-E it is stored as a lower-case "p" .

Not sure on etiquette here, but if this is better taken offline, PM me and we can continue in email.

W210

Hi there, thought I would give it a go here as I'm sure others will have similar problems. If it gets too technical we can bring it offline then.

No, do not use the COMAND phonebook to scroll to the voicemail location. I find that if we originate a call using COMAND or the steering wheel, it will eliminate the pauses in the dialling process.

Instead, first program the number, pauses and password using your SET637 doing the usual xxx-xxx-xxxxpxxx, etc. Store everything in a location you can remember, say location 2.

You then go to the telephone screen, simply type in 2 using the keypad and press send and see what happens? If pressing 2 and send doesn't work, try 002 and send, or press and hold 2 and see if the system will dial for you as a one touch button?

With my CDMA Motorola V60 setup, if I key in the location number using the keypad, I manage to bypass COMAND and directly access the stored phone number on my V60 and the pauses will work.

jmartinacevedo

"At least in my CDMA setup, the pauses do work in speed dial locations 2-9, and also in other locations, if you remember to add a # before hitting 'send'"

That's also true for my set up (CDMA V60), except I don't have to add a "#" before hitting send. I simply push any of the memory saved numbers (2 through 9) and then hit send. All the DTMF tones and pauses work like a charm.

Tones and pauses don't work if you dial through the steering wheel or scroll through the phonebook on the head unit.

M-

W210

Yes, and I only needed to add the # when accessing locations with 3 digits, i.e. 100 onwards. I programmed lots of speed dials corresponding with my office's extension, 103#, 110#, etc. Having tried locations 10-99, perhaps they work the same way?

ToonArmy

Thanks for the detailed instructions. Unfortunately, for some reason, either the UHI or the SE T637 works differently in this case.

I am able to dial memory locations by pressing and holding 1-9, but the dialed number still appears to strip out the programmed pause. I tried 1#<SEND> and 1<SEND>, but neither of them worked either. Well, I could dial, but not get the programmed pause.

Oh well. Thanks for the help, at least it got me to rearrange my phone book ordering to make use of the one-touch dialing locations. The S-E hardwires "1" to the voicemail number, but doesn't assign it memory location 1 - that caused a little confusion at first.

ToonArmy

Since there is now a thread on the BMW Bluetooth system I wanted to link it in here, since it points to a good list of compatible phones and their capabilities. While the list is collected for the BMW system, it might help with picking phones for other car systems as well.

X5 World Bluetooth compatibility list

imthduke

Only thing I like better about the Lexus Nav system is the pleasant woman's voice. The MB woman's voice sounds like a prision guard telling me I better take the next turn or else.

paulhu

What do you expect? You drive a German car, and German women are supposed to sound authorative, like a commandante.