Parrot CK3100 Bluetooth LCD Display Car Kit
Product Description
The Parrot CK3100 LCD is the most renowned hands-free car kit on the market. With the Parrot CK3100 LCD, you will be able to place and receive calls in comfort and safety, without ever touching your mobile phone. The wireless connection between the Parrot CK3100 LCD and the Bluetooth phone and its voice recognition system is enabled as long as the phone is turned on. At a time when legislation is tightening up to restrict the use of mobile phones in vehicles due to safety concerns, Parrot CK3100 LCD benefits are not just for the sake of convenience and comfort – they are fast becoming a real necessity.Amazon.com Product Description
With the Parrot CK3100, you will be able to place and receive calls in comfort and safety, without ever touching your mobile phone. At a time when legislation is tightening up to restrict the use of mobile phones in vehicles due to safety concerns, the Parrot CK3100′s benefits are not just for the sake of convenience and comfort — they are fast becoming a real necessity. The Parrot CK3100 wirelessly connects with all Bluetooth phones on the market and is compatible with all brands. The display of the CK3100 provides the same visual information and functions as your mobile phone, such as caller ID, carrier signal strength, or last calls received, in large well-contrasted digits easy to read at a glance on a screen that can be clipped in the ideal position for the driver to see.
Turn on the car engine and the phone connects wirelessly to the Parrot CK3100 Car Kit. The screen unit has easy-to-navigate menu options just like your phone, and your mobile phone book is wirelessly downloaded to the car kit. Calls can be dialed either through the screen, or by using voice-recognition speed dialing. According to your phone’s model and firmware, most features are accessible from the hands free console, including one-touch redial, dual call, and auto-answer.
The Parrot CK3100 Bluetooth car kit can be installed in almost any vehicle, and is designed to automatically mute the radio during use. Incorporating high-quality sound, the CK3100 includes both echo cancellation and noise reduction technology. As with all Parrot car-kit devices, the CK3100 Bluetooth car-kit offers the user seamless, hands-free use without the inconvenience of wires, headsets, or cradles. This unit also features user connection priority management for up to five users, up to 200 voice tags for its voice recognition, multi-user use for up to three phones, private conversation mode, and much more.
Please note this car-kit will not work in cars that use optical cabling. Check with your car dealer before ordering. Also, since this car-kit is installed by hard-wiring to the existing car stereo, professional installation is highly recommended.
What’s in the Box
The CK3100 electronic control unit, LCD display with buttons and cable, microphone with cable, radio mute cable with line output (ISO cable), power supply cable, and a user guide in 7 languages.
Features:
- LCD screen displays standard mobile phone information: incoming calls, recent calls, missed calls, voice mail, directory, ect
- Hands-free, unidirectionnal microphone provides voice recognition dialling of up to 150 names, while reducing background noise and ambient echo
- Browser button allows users to scroll through menus and control the volume
- Automatically mutes the radio
- Quality audio (Digital Signal Processing)
Price: Too low to display
Parrot CK3100 Bluetooth LCD Display Car Kit
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Tagged with: Bluetooth • CK3100 • Display • Parrot
Filed under: Accessories
I played with one of these at Best Buy and thought the display was hard to read and the knob and buttons felt cheap. When I ordered my unit I got the newer all BLACK version display panel and these things have been improved. I chose the 3100 model because I realized I don’t have a lot of space on my cars dash to put a lot of displays.
I ordered mine with not just a custom wiring harness for my 1998 Accord EX, but with a custom wiring harness which includes prewired mute configuration (quickconnectproducts dot com). I was dreading having to run the wiring for power until I realized I didn’t have too!! The power is also automatically taken via the wiring harness from the power going to the radio. I installed it myself in about 1 hour.
The Parrot has some thoughtful ergonomic design. Very functional. For example, when you turn your key ignition off while on a call, instead of going dead and dropping the call, it continues to to stay on and asks you if you would like to transfer the audio back to the phone! How cool is that.
Audio quality is great. First, unlike my 2008 RAV4 factory bluetooth which is very good, the Parrot is FULL DUPLEX which means both of you can talk at the same time which allows much smoother conversations. It has the magic DSP background noise elimination so callers don’t hear the road noise. All the echo is cancelled as well, and your voice is processed to remain strong and loud despite being distant from the microphone. Callers tell me I sound like I am directly talking on the phone and not on a speaker phone. The Parrot audio amp which sends sound to the car speakers does have a small amount of high frequency hiss/noise in the background; however this isn’t a problem as you can only hear it when the engine is shut off.
Even though the Parrot doesn’t have an interface for your steering wheel controls (I don’t have them anyway), you can still operate some of the key functions via voice recognition. Because the Parrot voice recognition limits you to half a dozen voice commands, they actually work!
The 2-3 line display of the Parrot CK3100 is plenty of display for me. Some users may not even need a model with a display. The display indicates phone battery charge and cellular signal strength, although on my Palm Treo 700p with Verizon the cell signal strength is not accurate as displayed on the CK3100 display.
Mounting the display and microphone for these types of devices in a car is always a challenge. However, the Parrot kit includes several different mounts for both the display and microphone. Some quite unique and helpful. The best assortment of actually useful mounting hardware I have seen.
When talking on my cell phone while driving, I am aware that my attention is diverted. I don’t like it. So for some time now I have used a Plantronics headset (great product). That improved the situation some but then I tried talking via bluetooth speakerphone in our 2008 RAV4. Talking on speakerphone is VERY different. It is much safer in my opinion. It is just like talking to the person sitting next to you in the car. I would encourage everyone who wants to be a safer less distracted driver while on the cell to get a GOOD QUALITY FULL DUPLEX speakerphone for their car. The Parrot 3100 fits the bill.
update***
after using this for a few months I have learned a few important things for anyone considering this kit. First, Al & Eds in los angeles can barely strip a wire. Much of what they told me, described below, turned out to be false. For example:
1. when a BT car kit is hooked up to a passat or any car that has a factory phone-kit option, the stereo does not have to be on to receive phone calls, hear the ringer, etc. The stereo senses an incoming call and either turns itself on, or if it is already on, mutes the music and plays the phone call audio. You DO NOT NEED an external speaker if you have one of these stereo systems. I got snookered into buying one.
2. The voice recognition built in to the unit works very well.
3. the pairing works very well with a variety of phones.
4. the sound quality is very good.
5. two people with two paired BT phones are in the car, it is very easy to switch from one to the other mid-call.
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I had this installed by Al & Eds in los angeles for $150 plus the $40 for an external speaker. You can use the car’s speaker’s but the stereo has to be on to use the car kit. also my phone, when blue tooth paired doesn’t ring the phone, it only rings the bluetooth device it is attached to, so if the stereo were not on you wouldn’t know someone was calling. I still had teh stereo mute hooked up.
there weren’t a lot of good places to mount the screen on my passat, and I didn’t want to drill any permanent holes because it is a lease. as a result it is in place where the angle makes reading the lcd difficult to read. the color version has a much sharper easier to read screen. I am going to make a custom bracket for the screen so it is tilted just right. I haven’t tested the unit’s native voice recog, but the sync with the phone’s p-book and using the phones voice recog works very well. people say it sounds ok, as good as any head set I have worn (wired not BT). FYI I am using a sanyo 8400. For the price here on amazon, it is a good value.
I just completed the installation of this unit in my Chevrolet Avalanche. The one thing that was not known to me prior to purchase is the need for an aftermarket wiring harness adapter to hook the Parrot unit to my factory Bose system. I did some research online and found only one company who provided the harness for $80.00 so do your research before buying. The harness that comes with the unit is based on european ISO connectors found in mercedes benz, volkswagen and other cars, you could splice into your existing system but it is NOT recommended what so ever.
Once the harness arrived the install was easy for me since I have previous experience with removing the factory system, avoiding the theftlock etc. The unit was easy to mount on the dashboard with the provided double sided tape, the microphone also has many different adapters for different locations, I used the smallest self sticking pad placing the mic on the top of the steering column between the steering wheel and instrument cluster. The main unit is hidden within my center console so the overall installtion is very clean.
The unit hooked up to my Verizon VX8300 phone with no problems, the phone book and voice activation system works great. The volume is very loud but adjustable and so far anyone I have talked to did not know I was on a hands free system even at 70-75 mph interstate speeds.
The Parrot CK3100 looked like just the thing I was looking for. I drive a tractor trailer so have been looking for a handsfree system with high volume and this is to be incorporated in your sound system. I can hear calls just fine but the microphone BITES!!!! It works great when I am not driving, but at freeway speed people always complain that I cannot be heard, I paid Cicuit City $150 to install it, so I am just stuck with it now, I will just have to keep looking for a decent Bluetooth set.
The Parrot CK3100 hands-off car phone kit is not the coolest-looking gadget around. It just works.
Form lags function in this case, but the function is so good that you hardly notice.
Countless pedestrians have had their lives spared by the installation of one of these little dudes in my car and another in my truck. Now I spend my road hours yackin’ away for business, family, and pleasure, redeeming countless hours for productive purposes whilst allowing innocent bystanders to get on with their lives without the tire tracks across their extremities that would certainly have resulted if I’d kept dialing and speaking through my cell phone.
Most customers will want to have their Parrot 3100 installed by a professional. Many more will find the owners manual moderately maddening. Some may be driven to become axe murderers as a result of their unsuccessful efforts to make sense of the instructions.
Fortunately, the little gizmo is pretty self-explanatory, so homicide rates will likely continue their steady decline in spite of Parrot’s growing market share in the hands-off cellphone sector.
I get good sound flowing out and coming in. Customers with a more negative experience likely have their installer to blame. For effective use, the Parrot needs to be installed where the noise of wind and vibration are at a minimum, something that is true of any gadget in its class. If this is done well – my two were installed by Indianapolis’ Auto Outfitters – the Parrot should give you good sound.
An incoming call automatically mutes the stereo. Voice recognition is a staple. The really cool feature is how BlueTooth technology synchs up your PDA – including all your contacts – with the Parrot when you enter the car so that you can dial from your electronic address book.
It looks a little dorky, but some things you can overlook for the sake of getting the job done.
The Parrot 3100 certainly manages *that*.