Best Communicator
While any car with a talk button on the steering wheel gets our attention, some automakers are better than others at integrating voice-command technology and Bluetooth hands-free calling. As with navigation, the primary consideration for hands-free communication is ease of use. You don't want to have to repeat the same command 20 different times and in a variety of accents to get the system to respond. Another related feature we look for is an intuitive and flexible list of commands that gives a driver numerous options to achieve the same result.
Breadth of voice-activated options is also important, and cars that allow drivers to control navigation, phone, climate, and audio functions without taking their hands from the wheel score highly. For hand-free calls, ease of pairing a phone and clarity of incoming call audio through the car speakers are two key factors, and advanced features such as a system's ability to import cell-phone phone books score extra points.
The Winner
Mercifully, iDrive is not needed for the BMW 335i's Bluetooth hands-free phone interface, which is integrated into the BMW Assist or can be added as an option or as part of the Premium package. Pairing a phone to the system is easy and intuitive, and once paired, hands-free audio performance is as good as any other that we've tried. Where the system did excel was its adoption of one of the more advanced Bluetooth profiles, which allowed portions of our Treo 650's call favorites and history to be copied into the car's memory. That meant calling one of our speed-dial numbers or returning a missed call did not require ever touching the phone; those selections are echoed on the car's display for easy execution.
The Runners-up
For the 2006 model year, the baby of the Acura family comes with Honda's Hands-free Link (HFL) Bluetooth calling interface as standard. HFL is only controllable via voice command, and includes a number of neat setup options, including selecting a ring tone or prompts and lock-enabling the system. Pairing up a phone to the HFL system is straightforward, and its recognition of voice commands is next to flawless. The system can also process navigation destinations, and can respond to spoken requests for the current time, as well as changes to cabin temperature, stereo input, or satellite/FM/AM radio channel.
Bluetooth cell phone integration on the A4 works very well and includes
very useful features for accessing a phone's address book and recent calls from
the car interface. The telephone interface can also be controlled by voice
command, which has an impressive ability to recognize numbers and dial
instructions.
The Bluetooth interface on the G35 is controlled entirely by voice commands, activated by buttons on the steering wheel. The system works well, and allowed us to pair multiple phones at the same time, each with its own voice tag identifier. The system successfully recognized the telephone numbers we told it to call, but it didn't automatically copy the information over to our phone address books. Audio quality with the phone system was good for both incoming and outgoing calls. We also found that volume can be set separately for the stereo system and the voice command system, depending on which is currently active, using the steering-wheel volume controls. The separate volume levels and the ease of setting them are thoughtful features.
Bluetooth hands-free calling is optional on the GS 450h, and pairing a phone to the system is quick when you get to the right screen on the in-dash LCD. Once paired, we found that voice dialing was straightforward and that the system was adept at recognizing our spoken phone numbers. Unlike more advanced systems, the Lexus Bluetooth interface won't copy over phone book information in one go, but entries can be sent one at a time from a cellphone to the car.
