I installed my Parrot CK-3100 Bluetooth handsfree kit at the weekend. Not exactly as straightforward as i'd hoped but i'm pleased with the results.

I'm putting a bit of a guide together on the install which should be relevant to any bluetooth kit installation on the OctyII. Hope it will be of use to anyone prepared to do the install themselves.

I'll post it when i'm finished. In the meantime feel free to PM me if you need any advice or run into diffs. I'm no expert but i'll do my best to help.

My company pays for the kit and install but i'm less than happy with some of the installations i've seen in colleagues cars with scotchlok connectors used etc so I fitted it myself. Total cost of the required parts was about

I have just ordered a new Octavia and was thinking of buying one of these systems. Strangely I have found the same problem with installers and also fit my own kits!

What do you think of the kit itself, is it easy to use, good sound quality at speed?

I have just ordered a new Octavia and was thinking of buying one of these systems. Strangely I have found the same problem with installers and also fit my own kits!

What do you think of the kit itself' date=' is it easy to use, good sound quality at speed?[/quote']

It needs a bit of tweaking between the hands free volume on the radio, the microphone vol, voice commands vol, in call vol etc but it seems to work well. The electronic voice is handy for telling you where you are in the menu without looking away from the road but the head unit can't quite keep up and takes a second or so to switch to the phone input but it's no big deal. The sound is pretty clear once it's all set up but there's quite a lot of hiss in the background. If you store your voice dials in the Parrot it works great. It picks up my voice everytime whereas my old Sony Ericsson kit was hit and miss using the voice dials in the phone. One other thing i've noticed is that every press of my mobile phone keypad is repeated through the radio. This is a bit annoying and was the same with my Ericsson kit but TBH my boss has the Ericsson kit and a Sharp flipfone. He doesn't have the problem so it looks like its my phone that is causing it. No real problem though just a niggle.

So far I would recommend it.

If you are able to turn off the 'keyboard click/beep' sound on the mobi itself that should sort out that particular problem, I've got mine paired with two phones, one does allow you to turn it off, the other one does not.

Background noise is not great but the voice dial stuff is excellent AS LONG AS you record it 'cleanly' i.e. no other noise about when you record the voice snapshot. If you don't do that and it picks up background noise it will potentially use that as part of the snapshot, meaning that if you're talking to say SWMBO and you use a part-keyword it starts to try to recognise it.

The second problem is that it does not appear to like the '+' as a international dial prefix, and that it cannot do 'pause', the # and * signs as part of a dialled number. This is not something Parrot specific though, it is the same on most other kits, but it is still possible to dial such numbers by initiating the call on the mobile itself. The kit will then 'pick it up' and work fine

Mine was fitted by the dealer, Fabia so different layout but basically the little control unit/display was fitted on the supplied holder, which in turn was fitted to a blanking plate (the only spare one I had) so that the kit can be removed without a trace.

Fully agree with the comments about fitters just screwing in brackets etc - it's not a good thing, it looks a mess, and if you want to sell it on, you cannot hide the holes most of the time.

If you are able to turn off the 'keyboard click/beep' sound on the mobi itself that should sort out that particular problem' date=' I've got mine paired with two phones, one does allow you to turn it off, the other one does not.

Background noise is not great but the voice dial stuff is excellent AS LONG AS you record it 'cleanly' i.e. no other noise about when you record the voice snapshot. If you don't do that and it picks up background noise it will potentially use that as part of the snapshot, meaning that if you're talking to say SWMBO and you use a part-keyword it starts to try to recognise it.

The second problem is that it does not appear to like the '+' as a international dial prefix, and that it cannot do 'pause', the # and * signs as part of a dialled number. This is not something Parrot specific though, it is the same on most other kits, but it is still possible to dial such numbers by initiating the call on the mobile itself. The kit will then 'pick it up' and work fine

Mine was fitted by the dealer, Fabia so different layout but basically the little control unit/display was fitted on the supplied holder, which in turn was fitted to a blanking plate (the only spare one I had) so that the kit can be removed without a trace.

Fully agree with the comments about fitters just screwing in brackets etc - it's not a good thing, it looks a mess, and if you want to sell it on, you cannot hide the holes most of the time.[/quote']

Cheers for the 'beep' info. i didn't think of that so i'll try it.

The pause thing annoys me though because when I ring people at work there is often the facility to press '1', then the ext no. then # to get straight through (for example). I can set up a preset on my home phone by using pauses so I can ring straight through but it doesn't work on my mobile phone with or without the parrot.

Yeah - same here for my voicemail & also the example you give :(

Maybe they'll fix it one day :(