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Hands-Free Calling
My Garmin 3590LMT has a hands free calling feature that uses bluetooth, but it's so bad I disconnected my phone from it. For every successful connection, there were 5-10 failures, often confusing the caller. And whenever I made the mistake of touching the icon that appeared when someone texted me, the Garmin would immediately reboot.
And the interface for making a call is a joke; my first attempt was my last. So much easier to just pull over and take my phone out of my pocket.
But that's an old model and probably an early effort at hand free calling. Maybe later Garmin models are better at it. Any suggestions for an upgrade from my 3590LMT that works better for hands free calling? Hopefully still an older model I can get inexpensively, used on eBay.
And the interface for making a call is a joke; my first attempt was my last. So much easier to just pull over and take my phone out of my pocket.
But that's an old model and probably an early effort at hand free calling. Maybe later Garmin models are better at it. Any suggestions for an upgrade from my 3590LMT that works better for hands free calling? Hopefully still an older model I can get inexpensively, used on eBay.
Comments
I disabled the phone connection in the app, however it occasionally would connect in-spite of that and I'd get a call via hands free anyway. Unless you are driving a twenty year old vehicle like me, I'm surprised that you don't have a hands-free built into the vehicle.
There were also the issues with trying to view a text or push another icon and accidentally hitting the wrong icon. I guess garmin thinks all roads are smooth as glass instead of the norm around here.... pothole ridden.
Most state's Department of Transportation have a smartphone app and website that provides traffic updates, access to traffic cams, and road closure and maintenance schedules. So I use those along with googlemaps traffic notifications.
Since traffic updates seemed only marginally helpful and many I was suspicious of it being very old information on the Drivesmart, I quit using the smartphone link to garmin.
Some say the new version works better with regards to the reboot issue you mentioned.
And my 1990 Maxima definitely doesn't have it. :-)
However, I can see where if anyone wanted to grammatically pick a conversation to pieces that it might have seemed that I was.
:D
I don't know what your standards are, but suspect you won't be much happier with the hands-free system on newer Garmin devices. Before you buy one, be sure to check the sellers refund policy...
Are you still using a flip phone in your 2004 Toyota? ;) Seriously, instead of buying a new Garmin GPS, perhaps a smartphone would be a better upgrade? You should be able to find used models from a few years ago very cheaply since people upgrade so often, and I suspect many of them will have a speakerphone mode that's as good as or better than a GPS.
I was a dumb phone hold-out for a while, but finally caved and got a smartphone in 2015. I'm now on a Samsung Galaxy Orbit, running Android 9. $40 refurb from Tracfone. Not really excited about pulling it out of my pocket, mounting it in a dash holder, unlocking it, and configuring it for speakerphone mode, every time I hop in the car.
Another option would be a replacement stereo from Crutchfield. Lots of them have hands free. Some of them have something called Android Auto which basically makes the stereo an interface for the Android phone in your pocket.
Once the phone has been paired with the GPS you can choose to use the phone for calls (or not) by going into the GPS Settings, Wireless Networks and looking for a line that has the name/model of your phone (paired device). This line should show 3 icons, a telephone handset (for telephone calls), cellphone (for Smart Notifications), and the Garmin Drive logo. If an icon is black that option is not active/connected, if there is a different color (mine is blue) then that option is selected and the device is connected for it. Press on any of the 3 icons and you will go to the next screen where there is a line for Phone calls with a box on the right side of the screen. Press on the box to check or uncheck the box, selecting or removing the ability to use the GPS for telephone calls.
Go to your phone's Garmin Drive settings to select which app categories can send notifications to your Garmin.
I used a DriveLuxe 50 using the Smartphone Link the same way but don't recall the specific settings menu options.
After turning mine off so it wouldn't take calls, I still would get the occasional call through the gps hands free. Each time I checked to be certain it was still set to not do hands free and it was showing it was supposed to be hands free. If I toggled the BT of my phone off/on then let it reconnect to the GPS, it would work as expected with no hands free but sending traffic.
Maybe it was fixed in a later update or maybe it was just unique to my experience. However by July or August of 2018, I'd gotten annoyed with the traffic info as being too old to be useful as well as seeing info about where I been in the fourSquare data even though I'd not signed up or knowingly given permission for it's use with fourSquare.
I would have made more since to me to have the control of such in the garmin phone app itself, but I suppose Garmin wanted to consolidate where you controlled stuff.
On the DriveLuxe 51 you get to it via Settings > Wireless Networks > (click on your connected phone) > uncheck the box for Phone Calls.
And the phone was connecting to my car system, I was able to answer a call and hear it. But the other party couldn't hear me. Anyway... this all just reinforces my opinion that the speakerphone feature on Garmin devices is terrible. ;)
I do recall one incident where the nuvi answered when I thought I had the feature turned off in the Garmin. Since I was driving at the time I didn't try to diagnose it, but I never did figure out for sure what happened.