Parrot bluetooth in 2005 E Class with COMAND 2.5

[BabaBJ]

Hi. This is my 1st post and it is long but I hope others will find my experience useful.

I have spend the better part of the last month looking for a suitable built-in hands-free solution for my E320 (W211) 2005 model with COMAND 2.5 This is the COMAND with the separate DVD navigation disc in the boot. It can also play DVDs including those filled with MP3s in the dashboard slot.

My current phone is a bluetooth-capable Palm Treo 650 PDA smartphone.

The car did not come with the Mercedes pre-wired UHI telephone kit. I enquired about a retrofit and was told that it would cost over £2000 and need at least a whole day's installation. This would only allow me to use a narrow range of phones-SE T610, Nokia 6230, 6310 and a few others. No bluetooth which means I can't use my current phone or most of the new phones available now.

I decided to go for a Parrot CK3100 which is a bluetooth kit with a small display which can be placed discreetly on the dash somewhere. It also comes with a mic and its own speaker which can be hidden in the dash. The best part is that it can do voice-dialing irrespective of whether that feature is available in your phone. You do need to put in voice tags for your contacts but this only has to be done once.

It will also transfer your phone book or let you send it by bluetooth if your phone doesn't sync automatically.

My installer was able to get it to mute the radio when I receive or make a call. I found a cable from connects2.co.uk which can connect the Parrot to the steering wheel telephone controls but we could not connect it to the fibreoptic cabling in my COMAND. It only works on COMANDs which do not use fibreoptic cabling.

Does anyone know how to do this? Or is there any other cable available that can do this?

I am very pleased with the current arrangement which cost under £250 for much better functionality than the Mercedes UHI kit.

 

[RichardM]

I was told the same thing, they could only mute the radio, not connect the phone kit to the cars audio system.

 

[fuzzer]

In opting for not getting the factory fitted system , youve basically done away with the functionality in comand for the telephone which i think is crazy since comand cost you 2k.

Comand in w211 uses MOST bus and the head unit is basically a dumb terminal connecting to the audio brain in your boot as is the navigation dvd in your boot too. I do not know a way of connection a parrot system to the most bus.

Pretty much , if you want the steering wheel controls and through the hifi , you will have to get the telephone system UHI retrofitted at around £700-900 cost.

the comand in your car is comand 2.0 even with dvd, the number refers to the din the system uses , comand 2.0 uses 2 din space in your dashboard.

Comand 2.5 uses 2.5 din and was fitted to only the previous generation S and CL class. as it was 2 din high and .5 din wider than normal.

 

[miro]

In opting for not getting the factory fitted system , youve basically done away with the functionality in comand for the telephone which i think is crazy since comand cost you 2k.

Comand in w211 uses MOST bus and the head unit is basically a dumb terminal connecting to the audio brain in your boot as is the navigation dvd in your boot too. I do not know a way of connection a parrot system to the most bus.

Pretty much , if you want the steering wheel controls and through the hifi , you will have to get the telephone system UHI retrofitted at around £700-900 cost.

the comand in your car is comand 2.0 even with dvd, the number refers to the din the system uses , comand 2.0 uses 2 din space in your dashboard.

Comand 2.5 uses 2.5 din and was fitted to only the previous generation S and CL class. as it was 2 din high and .5 din wider than normal.

COMAND 2.0 is a designation owned by BOSCH. The COMAND in the E-Class 2005 is a BECKER COMAND in the Euro version.

 

[miro]

Hi. This is my 1st post and it is long but I hope others will find my experience useful.

I have spend the better part of the last month looking for a suitable built-in hands-free solution for my E320 (W211) 2005 model with COMAND 2.5 This is the COMAND with the separate DVD navigation disc in the boot. It can also play DVDs including those filled with MP3s in the dashboard slot.

My current phone is a bluetooth-capable Palm Treo 650 PDA smartphone.

The car did not come with the Mercedes pre-wired UHI telephone kit. I enquired about a retrofit and was told that it would cost over £2000 and need at least a whole day's installation. This would only allow me to use a narrow range of phones-SE T610, Nokia 6230, 6310 and a few others. No bluetooth which means I can't use my current phone or most of the new phones available now.

I decided to go for a Parrot CK3100 which is a bluetooth kit with a small display which can be placed discreetly on the dash somewhere. It also comes with a mic and its own speaker which can be hidden in the dash. The best part is that it can do voice-dialing irrespective of whether that feature is available in your phone. You do need to put in voice tags for your contacts but this only has to be done once.

It will also transfer your phone book or let you send it by bluetooth if your phone doesn't sync automatically.

My installer was able to get it to mute the radio when I receive or make a call. I found a cable from connects2.co.uk which can connect the Parrot to the steering wheel telephone controls but we could not connect it to the fibreoptic cabling in my COMAND. It only works on COMANDs which do not use fibreoptic cabling.

Does anyone know how to do this? Or is there any other cable available that can do this?

I am very pleased with the current arrangement which cost under £250 for much better functionality than the Mercedes UHI kit.

Install one new speaker.

 

[BabaBJ]

Fuzzer,
I do regret not being able to use the functionality in the COMAND but it just does not not make sense at over 2K which I was quoted by 4 different installers. You mentioned £700 - 900 for a UHI retrofit. Are you referring to the side mounted kit where the phone is on display? That system does not use the COMAND screen but will use the steering wheel controls and the dashboard display. I would definitely install the full UHI kit if it could be done for a grand

Miro,

What do you mean by "install one new speaker"

Does anyone know where I can read about the COMAND system? I would like to know a bit more about MOST, CAN, D2B etc

Thanks

 

[fuzzer]

Fuzzer,
I do regret not being able to use the functionality in the COMAND but it just does not not make sense at over 2K which I was quoted by 4 different installers. You mentioned £700 - 900 for a UHI retrofit. Are you referring to the side mounted kit where the phone is on display? That system does not use the COMAND screen but will use the steering wheel controls and the dashboard display. I would definitely install the full UHI kit if it could be done for a grand

Thanks

UHI full factory retrofit can be done for about a grans , from someone like Braybrooks or MBNZNL

 

[BabaBJ]

Not sure where you got your facts but Braybrooks quoted me 1650 +VAT which equals £1938. MBenzNL doesn't install in the UK unless he has enough orders to make it worth his while. In short, there are very few options available in the UK.

If you know of any others who can do it for a grand. Do let us know.

 

[fuzzer]

Not sure where you got your facts but Braybrooks quoted me 1650 +VAT which equals £1938. MBenzNL doesn't install in the UK unless he has enough orders to make it worth his while. In short, there are very few options available in the UK.

If you know of any others who can do it for a grand. Do let us know.

Oh , ok .. they must have jacked up their prices then .. last i heard , telephone retrofits were going for the region of £900 ish

 

[miro]

Fuzzer,

Miro,

What do you mean by "install one new speaker"

Does anyone know where I can read about the COMAND system? I would like to know a bit more about MOST, CAN, D2B etc

Thanks

Put in one phone speaker and mute the head unit. How hard is it just because there is a star out the front.

 

[miro]

Not sure where you got your facts but Braybrooks quoted me 1650 +VAT which equals £1938. MBenzNL doesn't install in the UK unless he has enough orders to make it worth his while. In short, there are very few options available in the UK.

If you know of any others who can do it for a grand. Do let us know.

It has to do with tearing the car to pieces and spending 5 hours doing what takes 1 hour in the USA.

 

[BabaBJ]

Put in one phone speaker and mute the head unit. How hard is it just because there is a star out the front.

We have already put in the speaker which is hidden discreetly in the dash and the radio mutes as I described in my 1st post. I might take another look at the UHI arrangement if and when a bluetooth UHI option which is phone-independent appears in the future.

Anyone know whether this is likely to happen anytime soon?

 

[Simonish]

Why use a seperate speaker, I also have CK3100 and it mutes the head unit and conversation comes through my speakers, admittedly I have no amplifiers but even if I did I could isolate and just use front speakers bypassing the amp. Just think about what you want to achieve then solve the problems - thanks for the info about the connects2 cable though, I will be buying one of those

Simon

 

[miro]

Why use a seperate speaker, I also have CK3100 and it mutes the head unit and conversation comes through my speakers, admittedly I have no amplifiers but even if I did I could isolate and just use front speakers bypassing the amp. Just think about what you want to achieve then solve the problems - thanks for the info about the connects2 cable though, I will be buying one of those

Simon

It depends entirely on the setup of choice.

 

[BabaBJ]

Why use a seperate speaker, I also have CK3100 and it mutes the head unit and conversation comes through my speakers, admittedly I have no amplifiers but even if I did I could isolate and just use front speakers bypassing the amp. Just think about what you want to achieve then solve the problems - thanks for the info about the connects2 cable though, I will be buying one of those

Simon

I did have the option of connecting to one of the front speakers but I decided to go for a stand-alone speaker to keep the system relatively independent of the car system apart from the muting. My car has amplifiers and fibreoptic cabling. In any event, there was hardly any point since I couldn't connect to the COMAND or the steering wheel controls. It is a shame MB make such a beautiful system but have made it so propietary that it won't use industry standard connections

 

[fuzzer]

I did have the option of connecting to one of the front speakers but I decided to go for a stand-alone speaker to keep the system relatively independent of the car system apart from the muting. My car has amplifiers and fibreoptic cabling. In any event, there was hardly any point since I couldn't connect to the COMAND or the steering wheel controls. It is a shame MB make such a beautiful system but have made it so propietary that it won't use industry standard connections

Its not just mercedes , everybody used the MOST bus now.

 

[miro]

Its not just mercedes , everybody used the MOST bus now.

Exactly. The pressure needs to be put on kit makers.

 

[fuzzer]

here is a wee thing on the most bus.

http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_Automotive.html

 

[jdrrco]

Thanks for your posts on the above.

I have the same phone, car and Comand as BabaBJ. Do I understand that you couldn't get the steering wheel controls to work or was it just the Comand phone buttons? Also what were the options for sound coming through the car speakers? And where has your guy put the speaker, mic and display thingy? I am going for a 3100 for the same reasons as you (my car has phone prewiring but would still need to be ripped out and replaced at a cost of nearly £1000, then wait for MB to produce a BT adaptor for another £400).

Any info you can give me would be gratefully appreciated. Also an update on how well it is all working would be great.

 

[miro]

Thanks for your posts on the above.

I have the same phone, car and Comand as BabaBJ. Do I understand that you couldn't get the steering wheel controls to work or was it just the Comand phone buttons? Also what were the options for sound coming through the car speakers? And where has your guy put the speaker, mic and display thingy? I am going for a 3100 for the same reasons as you (my car has phone prewiring but would still need to be ripped out and replaced at a cost of nearly £1000, then wait for MB to produce a BT adaptor for another £400).

Any info you can give me would be gratefully appreciated. Also an update on how well it is all working would be great.

IMHO go with the UHI upgrade and then install the Mercedes Bluetooth module in the armrest. It doesnt require any drilling.