Merc Bluetooth con

[Sym7]

Apologies if this has already been posted but I'm fuming. I bought a bluetooth cradle for my 07 plated CLK last year and now find that the bluetooth function doesn't work for my new phone. Merc have tried to sell me another for £270!! What a con! They expect you to change your bluetooth cradle every time you upgrade your phone and at a ridiculous price too.

Does anyone know an alternative? Ideally I want to have a device that works in a merc to support any bluetooth phone and links through the radio system. I'm not too bothered about having an integrated charger. There's got to be a better way than spending £270 each time.....

[lightweight]

Its not merc its the phone makers changing there bluetooth spec just change your phone its free

[r129sl]

Bluetooth is more trouble than it is worth: there so many different standards and variations (and it is developing so rapidly) that some care is required when upgrading one item of equipment to ensure that it is compatible with other retained equipment. Likewise car wireless sets (or telematics as we must now call them): rapid obsolescence is a given.

It is somewhat inevitable that many of next year's phones will not mate with last year's cars. With hindsight you ought to have checked that any new telephone would be compatible with your existing interface before proceeding. I suppose this is why I still use my good old Nokia 6310. At least I can figure out how it works, which is more than can be said for some of these new fangled telephones.

There is a company called comand.co.uk which offers an alternative bluetooth module which purports to be more widely compatible (Viseeo) but you are still looking at £200+.

[Deva Link]

r129sl said:

There is a company called comand.co.uk which offers an alternative bluetooth module which purports to be more widely compatible (Viseeo) but you are still looking at £200+.

There's even two versions of the Viseeo, and between them there are still phones they either don't support or only support with limited functionality.

I stll use my 6310 in the car too, setting my Palm Treo to divert to the 6310 and then switching the Treo off when I'm in the car.

My brother had an Audi company car with bluetooth for 3yrs and it never worked properly the whole time he had the car.

Edited by Deva Link on Friday 16th January 17:27

[steve_amv8]

There are only two bluetooth "pucks" for use with the prewired harness - one is a regular module (HFP) that just gives BT connectivity and the other is a SAP module, which will only work with handsets that support Sim Access / Remote SIM (such as most Nokia handsets) - the latter uses an aerial mounted in the car and effectively clones your handset's identity. Unfortunately the SAP module only supports a limited number of handsets because some manufacturers choose not to provide SAP functiionality (most if not all Sony Ericsson for instance).

I have the SAP module which works brilliantly with my Nokia E51. Not sure why you should be having so much trouble.

Which handset do you have and which BT module? The SAP module is the silver/blue and looks like it is modelled on the McLaren SLR(!) whilst the regular one is just plain black.

HFP MODULE:


SAP MODULE:

Edited by steve_amv8 on Friday 16th January 17:59

[mhhayes]

I can confirm that the SAP module works very well with my Nokia E50 too. I just move the SAP module from between my GL420 and CL63 without any trouble. It is also possible to put the SIM card directly into the SAP module.......

I think I'd be more willing to change my phone to one that worked with the module I had, rather than to change the module. Phones are cheaper!

[Deva Link]

Am I right in thinking that the SAP module can operate with reduced functionality as a HFP module too, so as to give wider phone model coverage?