iPhone

by wooter on Garmin, iPhone, Motorcycles

BMW Navigator 5 and not supporting phone calls on a connected iPhone

An odd problem, yesterday evening. My BMW Navigator 5 was nicely giving me riding instructions on my Sena SMH-10 headset, but I was unable to call my wife to let her know what time I’d arrive on our meeting point. Odd, because Garmin’s SmartPhone Link icon was visible in the title bar, as was the bluetooth icon. So my phone was connected and transmitting information to the Navigator 5, but the Navigator 5 didn’t know it was a phone?

I went to check the Bluetooth setings on the Navigator. My phone was connected through Bluetooth, but the phone call functionality was unavailable. Retrying the connection would immediately fail on me.

After removing and re-establishing all Bluetooth pairings on my phone, the Navigator V and my Sena SMH-10, and even rebooting my phone and switching my SMH-10 with another SMH-10 I had laying around, I did the only other thing possible: reboot the Navigator 5.

Well, it turns out this solved the problem. Pairings were restored, and my Navigator 5 remembered again an iPhone is also for initiating and receiving voice calls.

 
by wooter on Apple, Garmin, iPhone

iPhone 4S, Siri and the Garmin Zumo 660

So I just received my iPhone 4S. I love it.

One of the new features is Siri, an AI assistant which uses voice to interact with me as an user, and the backend of what is my iPhone: reminders, my calendar, my contacts, and the internet.

Now, interacting with voice is not something entirely new. My car’s hifi and satnav system supports a basic level of voice commands to call people from my contact list, and even my Garmin Zumo 660 which I use on my motorcycle supports it.

Whereas in my car the voice commands are processed by the car, however, Garmin’s Zumo 660 uses the voice support of my phone. So if I had a phone which did not support voice commands, I’d be out of luck. But Garmin’s Zumo 660 specifies in the documentation that this voice is only limited to calling people: you shout their name in the microphone, and your phone should know what to do: call the contact who’s name you shouted.

It all goes a bit haywire on the iPhone 4S though: instead of simple voice commands, the

 
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