Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)A really great product. Don't know how I lived without these capabilities. Purchased this for my Mercedes-Benz SLK350 with COMAND head unit and DVD-based Navigation (NTG1). Among other things, this means my car has an LCD display screen for maps, music information, etc. The car had no pre-install for hands free phone and no microphones installed in the overhead console for driver hands free. It had no CD changer, either. FYI, the mBrace mic for roadside assistance is a completely different set of wires and components. The kit includes all the missing pieces you need: mic and long connectors for power and fiber optics. I found instructions online for how to quickly remove the panels in order to gain access to the fiber optic and power sources. The kit includes a wire to connect to cars with a valet mode, something the SLK lacks so I can't speak to that, not required for operation of the kit. The other connections were to attach the supplied iPod dock cable and the supplied microphone. The installation was extremely simple, well documented, and the only configuration besides simple Bluetooth pairing was to select my phone from a list because it happens to be an older Samsung phone with Bluetooth quirks; the setting handles about half a dozen other quirky phones. The first time I powered it up to test with the kit lying on the floor it just worked out of the box and worked flawlessly. So much fun I played with it until the car warned me the battery was getting low before resuming the installation. The biggest amount of time was deciding where to locate the mic because I'm picky about audio quality and wanted the wires completely out of site. The mic cable is quite long so you can pretty much locate it anywhere you want. After much experimentation I found the best location was directly above the steering column. The Parrot dual directional mic is VERY directional. Audio was completely unusable when attached at/inside the built-in mic housings of the overhead console (too bad - would have been a factory perfect result!) and barely usable on the driver's visor (thought that would be the ideal place, but no). With that solved, the install was all set. After using it for a week I'm blown away by how many phone capabilities the Mercedes COMAND has and how mObridge takes full advantage of them. The obvious stuff is phone book sync, and name/number display of callers and SMS txt'ers on the head and/or cluster displays, but that's the tip of the iceberg. I'm still noticing cool touches like it shows a count of missed calls along the bottom of the display. The iPod cable just barely reached the center console but made it; would be nicer if it were a foot longer. They seem to think you'll put it in the glove box but the console is the way to go. The interface to configure and navigate is very clunky since its menus mimic being tracks on a CD changer (a clever kludge), but you only configure it once. iPod integration is also as CD Changer emulation but that makes more sense and is organized as if you had a CD for each of Artists/Albums/etc. Navigating by songs is crazy-impossible but Playlists are THE way to go and work great. It's an expensive product but worth it. I don't think I'll ever be able to like a car without all the features this product enables. And being completely hands free with the music muting as the call comes over the sound system makes me a safer, legal driver, too. This should be standard equipment on every car.
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