ND BT1 Bluetooth "fix"

[Fusion13]

This was an email from our Pioneer Product Specialist



Hello all, I was wondering if any of you would be able to help me with
this. I was reading in the owner's manual of the DEH-P980BT/DEH-P9800BT
that you have to adjust the headset volume of your phone before you bond up
with the radio (pg. 35). I noticed that this is not stated in the Z1's
owner's manual. At the time I thought about this my phone was currently
bonded with the TECHCAR Z1 so I made a few phone calls and heard the
complaint that the other caller heard an echo, it was less when I turn the
phone volume down, but it was still there. I cleared out the harddrive and
rebonded as if it were the first time I had ever bonded, but this time I
did it with the volume on my headset turned down to 1 or 2. I made the same
phone calls and the person on the other end did not hear any echo. I tried
with different phones and it seem to work also. I have spoken to a dealer
that called the Tech line that had echo problems and told him about this
solution and he called back with no more echo. This is where I need some
assistance, I'm sure you all have a dealer or yourselves with echo
problems. Can someone please verify if this will work. You need to bond
with your volume turned down, most of us have it cranked all the way up.
Some of you may need to completely clear the hard drive and rebond. Page
175 of the Z1's Owner's Manual will tell you how to clear out the hard
drive. I will be keeping an eye on this post for responses. Please call the
Tech line or send an email if you have any questions.



This has worked on a the vehicles here in the shop try it out and let me know

[whtcrxghst]

Helped a ton for me

[Fusion13]

cool

[bdmpastx]

I tried it and it didn't work for me. I tried several variations of it too but no luck.

[Inspector_Gadget]

I'll try mine in the morning. It is worth a shot. This echo is so bad that more often than not, I have to NOT use the BT...

[Agro]

I have been out of the country now for a while but have been watching this thread. Anyone else try it? I am looking forward to flying home tomorrow and trying this out.

[tsiawd666]

I tried it using my SLVR the other day. I had to use some software to adjust my headset volumes for bluetooth, turning both the speaker and mic gains for bluetooth to 1. Hopefully this is what was described. It had no effect on the echo, and I tried resetting everything including wiping the hard drive first. I still have to have the phone volume on the Z1 set to three bars to eliminate perceivable echo by the other side. This sucks because at speed I have too much additional noise and the phone volume makes it tough to comprehend the other party's voice.

[digxrayguy]

Funny, I just posted a message agreeing/trying to organize complaints about the BT quality. This sounds cool and hopefully works.

Question I have as a newbie (and I paid for installation): of the four methods availble to delete data from the HD, which do you recommend and what are the results? Is it simply a matter of reprogramming presets and other minor things or is there a bunch of items that need to be set up? The Nav side and Nav Traffic is my biggest concern since it's working great. XM presets, POI's and MP3's are no big deal.

Thanks for the input, looking forward to a possible fix.

digitalxrayguy

[billyinlilla]

When I did mine i had it on Vibrate I wonder if that was why i have not got any Echo ?
It is strange that these units have a mind of there own, what works for one don`t for another?

[whtcrxghst]

Read this info on another board. Guess I may have done it by coincedence.

The unit memorizes the handset volume AT THE INITIAL BONDING (setup).

Sooo....
1. Reset the unit to clear phone memory, if required
2. Turn down the handset volume
3. Re-bond and set-up the phone to the AVIC-Z1
4. Now, you can re-set the volume on the handset
5. Everytime after this, even if the handset volume is up, when it connects to the Z1 the volume will be set at the initial (lower) setting while connected

[digxrayguy]

Update; I got a reply from the email I sent to Pioneer, they asked me to call in:

>Thanks for contacting Pioneer Electronics, Inc.
>
>Based on your e-mail request, we feel that we can be of better >assistance if you contact our Product Support line.
>
>Please contact us at (800)421-1404 for further assistance.

So, I called in. First level quickly put me to second level. Second level acted like it was a new problem and wanted to take further information to pass along to the engineers. I provided my s/n, name, phone etc. I then explained what I heard on this forum regarding doing a reset so the BT is wiped clean, re-pair with the volume down and problem goes away in some cases. She sounded interested but not knowledgeable of this. I then asked about doing the reset to verify I wasn’t going to wipe too much as I’m getting a little tired of resetting stuff all the time to make it work and having to enter in lot’s of stuff to get it where I want. Excuse me but I just dumped my Treo 700w for that very reason. I felt reassured enough, did the reset, re-paired and it was still an echoing problem. I thought about what I did and realized I only turned down the volume on the handset. So, I turned down the volume on the Z1 for the phone “incoming voice”. Rather than reset the whole unit again, I tried a little trick that might help others and went into my BT properties of the new phone I have, the Motorola Q. Also windows based but appears to be a little more stable so far. I changed the name of my phone under the BT settings. Rebooted the phone and sure enough, the Z1 didn’t know it so I re-paired it again and it seems to be improved. Too early to tell but I will use it for a week or so and report back.

Good luck to others on trying to resolve this.

Digitalxrayguy

[tsiawd666]

So, I turned down the volume on the Z1 for the phone “incoming voice”.

Turning it down in the Z1 is the pseudo "fix" we're already aware of. The problem with this is that it makes incoming calls hard to hear. I've found in my car the threshold for echo is at three bars, and anything above the caller can hear echo, more and more as I go above the three bars setting.

[RSX]

I have tried EVERYTHING discussed on this forum, plus some other things - like changing the phone audio to come only through one speaker and positioning the microphone in the other direction. What I think I have discovered is this:

The echo is actually the person's voice coming from the car's speaker and being transmitted back through the Z1's voice mic. I'm not sure how you could fix this (other than lowering the caller's voice volume, so it is not picked up as well by the mic!).

I was able to make to reduce the echo under the following conditions:

1) Using my hand to "sheild" the microphone on the side of the car that I had the caller's voice coming from.

2) Lowering the volume of the caller's voice.

3) Driving while talking. The cabin "noise" of the car seems to detract from the caller's voice being picked up by the mic and echoed back.

Of all of the "fixes" above, #3 seems to be the most effective. The echo is a lot worse if the car is very quiet.

What do you think of this theory? Does anyone have NO echo problem at all? If so, I would be interested in the cabin noise conditions of your vehicle...

[digxrayguy]

Well, tsiawd666 was right. The echo is still there and I'm back at square one. The only way to try and work with the system is to turn the volume down where it's really not useable. I have a fairly quiet '04 Suburban and it just doesn't work. I'm going to call back to Pioneer tomorrow and follow up with the case # to complain. I would encourage everyone else that is not satisfied with the results of the bluetooth product to call and complain. Other companies are able to provide a product without the echo so Pioneer needs to improve the processing of the system to ignore the signal it just output.

Thanks to all for the input.

digxrayguy

[RSX]

I think moving the Mic to the dash location is a great idea! Seems the speakers that transmit the caller's voice would be sheilded if you selected the right location - plus, the quality of your voice would be better as well.