Customer Reviews

Parrot Evolution Bluetooth Car Kit

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had Best Buy install the Parrot CK3000 Evolution with the Multicomm in my daughter's car. She thinks part of driving is talking on the phone. One hand was always holding her phone to her ear while driving. She needed a good hands-free unit to make the road safer for others.

At low speeds, it worked great. It also worked great for me at high speed. The callers could hardly tell I was on a hands-free unit even at high speeds in a small (noisy) car.

But when my daughter used it at high speeds, people would tell her she was very hard to understand. There seemed to be a scratching static of her higher voice when the road noise increased. I theorize that the Parrot noise cancelation was canceling out too much of her voice when road noise increased.
I added a 10 ohm resistor (from Radio Shack) in the microphone wire. This did the trick. The extra resistance lowered the sensitivity in the microphone resulting in less pick-up of road noise but still great pick-up of her voice. Lowering the sensitivity resulted in less need for the noise cancelation to work so hard. It still cancels most road noise, but does not lower the quality of her voice. You almost can't tell she is on a speaker phone. With the adjustment, this becomes an amazing product.

For the most part the Parrot CK3000 works. I bought a special harness to connect it to my steering wheel controls and that works fine. However, for some reason I will have random trouble with the bluetooth giving a spotty connection. I'll have full bars on the phone but a poor transfer of voice data back and forth, with the sound dropping out. So I believe it's the bluetooth and not the phone signal.

Also, for a car unit, I would have figured that ambient noise and the voices coming through the stereo would have been taken into effect. The unit goes through the stereo and when I'm on quiet roads, it works well enough but my friends complain about noise. On a loud road, I have to turn the stereo up enough that it does a feedback loop of sorts. While my friends can hear me, when they try to speak it's terrible for them cause they hear themselves coming back through the microphone.

So if I'm on the highway, I'm not sure how useful this product ends up being.

Also, the website has a firmware upgrade sytem for the product, but you have to buy a separate cable and hook it to your computer to load them. The cable should come with the unit so a person can upgrade the second they buy the unit. Why is this so important? Well, once you have it installed in the car, nobody is going to take their car apart again just to reflash the Parrot CK3000 so an upgrade is only useful before you install.

On quiet roads though, I am able to have a conversation and it's nice.

I drive a VW GTI 2007.

This thing works fairly well at speeds of 30 mph or less, but if I drive faster than that the people on the other end really start to complain about not being able to hear me. I've moved the microphone in all different places without much luck. It is currently about 15 inches from my mouth attached to the overhead center console (away from the windshield). But it just doesn't filter out the background noise very well. On the other hand, some people claim theirs works just fine so it could just vary based on your car (mine is a pretty quiet car, though) or it could just be that I got a somewhat faulty unit. My wife's car has a handsfree unit built-in to her Acura and it works quite a bit better than the Parrot one I have.

Just works, not much more to say about it. I use it in a BMW 3 series with a connects2 cable, so that I can use the steering wheel controls to answer my phone, hang up, use voice commands etc.

Apparently they are still shipping v5.24 and according to the release notes the android bugs are fixed in v5.25, which you can't update to yourself and I was unable to find an installer who could update it for me. The only recourse is to send it back to parrot for a firmware update. I used the bluetooth file transfer app to work around the android bugs in the mean time. After that, it works great. I'll give it 4 stars cause it works great but you can't update the firmware without sending it back to the manufacturer.

Before you buy this device, go to Parrot's website and make sure your phone is compatible. It will not work with my Droid X at all and customer support only tells me that it's not compatible and they can't help.

I use this in a 2000 Saab 9-3. Installation is straightforward, following the instructions. I used the car's built-in microphone (factory wired, but not connected to anything until I installed the Parrot) instead of the one that comes with this kit.

The kit is wired in between the stereo and the speakers (in my case, I have installed an aftermarket amplifier, so it sits between my amplifier and the speakers, but the result is the same). When I make or receive a call, the Parrot cuts the line to the speakers and drives the speakers from its own internal amplifier. As a result, it does not affect the stereo sound at all when it is not in use, and it always completely mutes the stereo when I'm on a call. It sounds like the Honda Element driver who reported problems with this had either a defective unit or an incorrect installation.

Separately, the Parrot sends a "mute" signal to the stereo, which on my car causes it to display "Telephone" on the screen and to pause a CD if I'm playing one.

I love that it is small and unobtrusive. It has an answer button (which also serves as an "initiate voice commands" button when you want to dial a call) and a hang-up button, and it has a volume dial. The one thing it can't do is call waiting--when you're on a call, the answer button switches from the speaker system to "discrete mode," meaning you use your phone's speaker and microphone instead of the car's (in case you have something private to discuss and there are others in the car).

Aside from that one limitation, it works better, with fewer keypresses needed and better support for voice commands, than the factory bluetooth system in my mother's Mercedes. It also works when the radio is off, which many factory bluetooth systems don't. Great design, and reliable for four years I've had it. I recommend it to anyone.

This is the second Parrot we have purchased and installed in our vehicles. We have tried many other hands free devices and the Parrot is the best. Callers on the other end are always suprised when I tell them I am in a vehicle because of the incredible clarity of the device.

I had this unit professionally installed with the standard $50 wiring harness made for Honda vehicles. My car is a 2004 Honda Element with OEM stereo. The first notable thing was my radio no longer had close to the volume it had before the install. Second, when receiving an incoming call, the radio would not mute completely, resulting in me having to turn down the radio. Third, my music would be incredibly bassy, and no amount of adjustment could compensate. The installer tried to trouble-shoot the problem, install a relay to shut down the radio when calls come in, and made calls to Parrot tech support, which gave them no solution to the problem. I had it removed from my car and ended up eating the install fee. I really liked the convenience of the parrot, but for my car, it was not going to work.

I installed the Parrot Evolution in my wife car over 4 years ago and it sounds as good as the day I installed it. The uplink audio quality is the best from any car kit I have ever heard! Better then OnStar that is in her car when she use to use to call me from it. The downlink audio is great also. My loves that fact that when she receives a call the radio audio will stop and the speakers in the doors will play the ringer and when she answers the call the calling parties audio is routed to those speakers. Everybody she has talked to on it are amazed at how well the call sounds.

The other great feature is the privacy mode of this car kit. When we are traveling and my wife's boss calls the rest of us in the car don't need to hear about my wife's next job, she presses the green button while on the the call and the car kit switches the audio to her phone.

Overall I would buy another Parrot product again after this great experience.