(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Parrot SA

http://parrot.biz

MSRP: $200

If you don’t like driving while using your mobile phone, but you can’t bring yourself to hang a big-ass earpiece on the side of your face like some kind of cyberpunk hero, Parrot’s CK3100 may be for you. The CK3100 is a hands-free speakerphone kit that sends your calls through your existing car stereo instead of some goofy headset. It connects to your cell phone using Bluetooth, a wireless standard adopted by a wide variety of cell phone manufacturers. Since it’s completely wireless, you don’t even need to take the phone out of your pocket to use it. When a call is in progress, it mutes your music and sends the call through your car speakers. Your voice is picked up through a small microphone mounted on your dashboard, and an unobtrusive LCD display shows caller ID and signal strength.

Parrot claims that the CK3100’s hookups are compatible with all major car stereos—which is only partially true. The hookups are compatible with all major European car stereos, leaving me desperate for adapters for my Japanese subcompact. After pulling apart my dashboard to see what kinds of connections I needed, I brought the car to a local bassmobile shop and encountered a grievous failure of communication.

The technician puzzled over the connectors for a couple minutes and finally pronounced “this isn’t going to fit a Ford.”

“Fascinating...” I said, “but my car is a Toyota. It won’t fit that, either, and that’s why I’m here.”

“These cables are a mess,” he said— granted, there were a lot of cables—and he started plugging the outputs into the inputs. “Are you supposed to plug it into itself like this?” And this was coming from an electrical technician?

Eventually it became apparent to both of us that he didn’t know what he was doing, and he asked with a knowing, fatherly expression, “You bought this from the Internet, didn’t you?” Somehow, that made a difference. Then, miracle of miracles, he showed me the exact part that I was looking for, but by this point I couldn’t bring myself to actually spend any money there.

I told him I didn’t think it was the right kind of adapter, and he agreed. “I really can’t help you in any way, shape, or form,” he said as I left. Yeah, no kidding.

So instead I spent the weekend soldering things inside my dashboard. It was a lot more fun than you’d think, and I only blew one fuse in the process.

Pros: Sense of accomplishment when you install it yourself.

Cons: Car stereo technician is a goober.

Dave is Artvoice’s all-purpose computer geek. Email webmaster@artvoice.com and talk nerdy to him.