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I went on a road trip with a friend and his brother who had a Motorola Roadster to connect to his phone via Bluetooth. In that limited time seeing it in action I was fairly impressed. I was curious if anyone with this unit could give me some more detailed feedback?

http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Roadster ... B004877KOK

I currently drive a 1997 F-150, so no frills as far as audio goes (no Bluetooth or audio jack ports). My goal was to be able to answer calls/text messages hands free. I've got 2 phones also (both Motorola Atrix 4g) one for business and one for personal, which the Roadster will allow up to 2 phones to connect (perfect!). Other than having to leave Bluetooth on all of the time or when I'm about to get into the vehicle, anything else I should be warned about with this setup? My other goal was to use the FM transmitter to listen to people when they are talking.... From the sounds of it this will do everything I want.

The only thing it does not do is come with a way to wire up a permanent power cable from say.... an inverter. I may just get a really long micro-usb plug for it and wire one up to look factory or something.

I was at AT&T (God I hate giving them money)... but no one else in this town carries anything of worth for phone accessories, not saying AT&T does but better than most.

I bought a Jabra Crusier 2 thinking It would fit the bill and knowing that I can return it in 30 days. Well I got it out immediately and hooked it up. I must have looked like a moron because I was practically shouting at the device "Call" and I didn't receive a response. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong until I realized that the unit does not appear to take voice commands........... Are you f'ing kidding me? Hands free...... Yes, just simply reach above your head to your sun visor and press a button, hands free<<<<<???

So as much as the reviews about the Jabra Cruiser 2 may have been glowing, this does not seem to be in the same class as the Motorola Roadster 1 or 2 that I was considering in comparison. The Jabra did seem to have tons of reviews praising it for the call clarity where the Motorola reportedly fell short. However the Cruiser 2 can only read text messages, not send them, the Roadster can do both. The Motorola also has 20 hours of talk time to the Jabra 14 hours, big difference. From what I can tell, you can do all commands on the Motorola via voice, something this Jabra does not do, it requires you to answer and end calls by physically pushing the button.

With a little fiddling you could rig up an AUX port for your vehicle. It's really just a matter of splicing wires at the head unit. Extra work, but maybe you're up to that.

The Roadster looks like it connects to the power somehow... what exactly is your problem with it?

FireGryphon wrote:

With a little fiddling you could rig up an AUX port for your vehicle. It's really just a matter of splicing wires at the head unit.

Only if the head unit takes some sort of line input from an external device or outputs a line signal to an external amplifier, which for a factory radio in a no-frills 1997 truck, is not too likely IMO.

Lacking that, it's down to the FM transmitter or tape-deck adapter.

Well none of the devices i listed have a way to hard wire externally send signal to speakers or anything. For that id need something like a Parrot 9100/9200 which are more expensive and a different breed all together.

From my understanding the best route to go would be with something that works similar to the BlueAnt S4 where it is always listening in a power save state for the voice command "BlueAnt, speak to me" which wakes it up. Im sure it uses a bit more power to do that. Both the roadster and the jaber require a physical button to then give it a voice command, which as far as im concerned breaks the main purpose of these devices... to keep your hands completely off your phone while driving yet let you make/receive phone and text messages. If that also so happens to include playing music... and all with purely your voice... then im down.

I think to make everything work like im talking about you'd probably need the bluetooth device to have its own dictation commands that interface with a handset app. That way there is no confusion between devices and them using their own voice recognition.