Bluetooth Car Kit News

For sometime now, SatNav systyems have included Bluetooth hands-free kits, however the audio quality has been a average to poor and as such they have been useful primarily only as SatNav systems with the Bluetooth hands-free capabilities largely underused.

Tom Tom, with the launch of the Go 720 have improved the feature set and now provide a sleek slimdevice with a host of features.

Although there is a large 13 cm LCD touchscreen, the device itself is slim, so can be taken easily with you once you leave your car. There is an enhanced hands-free kit with a new quality sound system that links to your mobile phone through Bluetooth and includes optimised acoustic design with enhanced noise reduction, echo cancellation and an automatic answer feature to make sure that you can take your calls completely hands-free.

In looking at the SatNav features, the Tom Tom Go 720 has options that allow you to customise maps so that if you travel a route regularly you can indicate roadworks or blocked streets, or where street names change. These collections can then automatically be shared via the Tom Tom ‘Home’ service.

There is an integrated MP3 player or you can connect your iPod directly to the Tom Tom Go 720, and music or navigation instructions can be played straight through the car stereo through built-in FM transmitter.

This is integration of technology at its best and Tom Tom now have a device that may start to rival separate hands-free systems and it means that you do not need a variety of devices such as an FM transmitter, iPod connector and Bluetooth hands-free car Kit. Finally one little tweak that you my either like or loathe is the ability to record your own driving instructions with a customised voice such as your children. If you’re looking for a SatNav with built-in Bluetooth hands-free or indeed just a hands-free kit but would like a SatNav kit as well, the Tom Tom Go 720 may be the device to you.

        

As July 1st approaches, drivers in California are being reminded to gear up to go hands free, to avoid a first time offence penalty of $20, rising to $50 for further infractions.

For those drivers under 18, the law will be even more strict, banning completely electronic communication whilst driving, both talking or texting, including hands free talking.

Whilst the option to use a cheaper corded handset is available under the law, a Bluetooth handsfree kit or earpiece, provides flexibility, and usually more features.

Other alternatives, such as a sun visor mounted Bluetooth car kit are a compromise between a fully fitted car kit, and an earpiece solution.

If the law can help to reduce accidents then the change must be a positive one, and as the California Highway Patrol reported that there were 1,232 collisions in 2006 that were attributed to handheld cell phone use, compared with 71 collisions that involved hands-free use, the statistics suggest that this will indeed be a positive change.

        

This young lady certainly looks like she is enjoying it, or perhaps is just a little mystified by it.

This is the perCushion from Urban Tool, a foam pillow with a velvet cotton cover. Connect via Bluetooth to your mobile so you can carry on chatting in bed. Or perhaps you should just get a decent memory foam pillow, and some sleep, and make that call in the morning!

        

This time it is Nova Scotia that are set to ban hand held mobiles in vehicles, in a ban that is a result of a law passed in December 2007.

A first offence fine of $164.50 will be followed by a follow up fine of $222.00 for a second offence and then $337.00 for any subsequent offences.

Nova Scotia is the second province in Canada to ban drivers using cellphones and as with other areas that have passed similar laws, handsfree speakerphones are allowed, as are earpieces.

        

Are you an employee for a company that makes you wear identidy badges, or needs to have a proximity access control card on you at all times? The clever Iqua Smart Badge includes a bluetooth handsfree kit with a headset on the strap of your badgeholder. If you are always on the phone, and needing to walk around your office, this could be ideal.
Providing 40 hours of talktime and 600 hours standby, the device should enable you to be handsfree without recharging for quite some time and there is a vibration alert feature. You can also use it as a wireless speaker and microphone for your computer and apply it to VOIP internet calls or online messengers such as MSN Messenger, NetMeeting and Skype.
Currently only available in USA.

        

As the debate on handsfree mobile phone useage intensifies in America, researchers are increasingly reporting that it is not the holding of the phone that is the problem, but the call itself. But although the message about banning young drivers from making all forms of calls and prohibiting text messaging behind the wheel seems to beeing accepted there is still a groundswell of objection to extending the ban to Adults. Government studies show that 1 in 20 drivers in America are talking whilst driving. <!–more–>

But developers are working to overcome the dangers. Answering a call without having to press a button on a device can help believes Charlie Klauer, a Virginia Tech researcher who worked on a recent study with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

And systems that can dedect when a driver may have lost focus on the road are also in development.

“Technology now makes it possible to monitor the driver’s condition or state and have some remedial steps so that you can have a more refined response,”

according to Mary Stearns, acting chief of advanced vehicle safety technology at the Volpe Center, a US Department of Transportation research facility in Cambridge. This would help make handsfree devices more akin to talking to a passenger in the car, who can sense when there may be a danger ahead and stop talking, something that the person on the other end of a call can not do, at least not yet.

        

The Jays BlueStreamer2 Bluetooth device is like most handsfree headsets, in that it allows you to take and make calls handsfree and via bluetooth.

Where it differs is that it lets you plug in any headphones you like, via the 3.5mm jack, and then lets you stream music from a MP3 or music player to be found on most mobile phones these days.

        

Whilst not quite a handsfree car kit, this is certainly a different twist on the handsfree kit. The Handsfree tie, from Yanko Design, has the microphone and controll systems in the ‘knot’of this electronic tie.

Yank down to accept a call, and push up to end, sway the knot right to increase volume, and left to decrease.
Will it catch on - well it looks better than a lot of corded handsfree devices you can get at the moment, although I am not sure it really clasifies as a fashion accessory.

        

Well the guys at Bluetrek are quite odd, well at least their marketing is! As reported by shinyshiny the focus may be on unusual adverts, and hippo’s but they have a fair range of handsfree kits and headsets as well.

        

The Venturi Mini is a Bluetooth handsfree kit, with an FM transmitter, that can also recharge your phone, direct from the car’s cigarette lighter.

Stream music from your mobile or MP3 player and then take your calls through the speakers of your radio.

Easy to use - just plug it into the cigarette lighter, and tune in the radio!