Blue tooth compatible phone for 540i

[bmergrl]

Hi There,
I want to get my husband a blue tooth comapatable phone. We use Cingular....what kind of phone do I need to get him that will work in his car? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Bmergrl

[Decolliber]

NYT 5/7/05
Your Phone Is Calling Your Car
By WILSON ROTHMAN

Hop in your car, turn the key and your phone book stares up at you from the liquid crystal display screen in your dashboard. Scroll through a list of missed calls or recently dialed numbers. Find the name you're looking for, press a button and the call rings through the car's sound system, all while your phone remains untouched in your jacket pocket.

Radio-frequency wireless connections in cars through a technology known as Bluetooth have been around for about three years, but this new level of connectivity - where the phone's internal directory and call logs are displayed on the car's dashboard - is new. At the moment, you can find it only in 2005 Audi A6 and A8 models, and only if you use certain phones, including PalmOne's popular Treo 650 P.D.A. phone.

The Audi-Treo matchup may still be missing certain crucial features, like the ability to find entries stored in the phone's memory by using the car's voice-recognition system. But this initial cooperation, followed by a broadening of the Bluetooth standard and continued development in automotive technology, promise a future where most cars and most phones work together in wireless harmony.

"There's much greater availability in cars today than ever before," said Michael Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth special interest group. "Over 20 carmakers - including over 30 2005 models - offer factory-installed Bluetooth options."

BMW, DaimlerChrysler and Ford offer Bluetooth in all or most of their cars in the United States. G.M., Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen, makers of Audi, each offer at least one car with integrated Bluetooth.

The most rudimentary systems simply turn the car's sound system into a hands-free speakerphone. More advanced systems - like those in DaimlerChrysler cars featuring the UConnect Bluetooth option as well as Honda's latest Acura TL and RL models - use voice recognition. Call out a string of numbers, and they are sent to your phone, where the call is placed. These in-car systems allow you to create "voice tags" - short recordings of names - that can be matched to numbers, so you can say a name instead of remembering a number.

The 2005 Audi A6 and A8 come standard with Bluetooth, and the special connectivity for retrieving call logs. The system is also compatible with nine other Bluetooth phones from Motorola, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.

The difficulty in marrying phone technology to automotive technology originates partly from the development time of different systems. By the time a carmaker has added a technology like Bluetooth to its assembly process - at its fastest, this might take 18 to 24 months - a cellphone maker has built and marketed two or three generations of phones, each time honing that technology.

There is another cook in the kitchen, too. In the United States, cellphone companies can choose whether to carry Bluetooth-enabled phones and scale back the software loaded onto the phones they sell. Last year, Verizon Wireless shipped Motorola's V710 handset, but only after some of the phone's Bluetooth ability had been removed.

Even with reduced ability, the V710 was a breakthrough for Veri- zon Wireless, as the carrier's first Bluetooth phone.

"Automakers, wireless carriers and handset makers have to agree on a profile," said Dan Benjamin, senior automotive analyst for ABI Research.

The latest draft of that profile, Mr. Foley said, will be out this summer, and will include detailed instructions for standardizing phone books, so that phones other than the Treo 650 - and cars other than Audi - can have instant on-screen access.

Mr. Foley promised additional new applications for Bluetooth in cars. Besides phone books and enhanced voice-recognition compatibility, the biggest breakthrough might be wireless music. If you store digital music files on your phone, you may soon be able to stream them to the sound system of your Bluetooth-enabled car.