So I have been having problems using voice commands to dial any of my contacts by name. I can dial by number, I also had full voice control in iPod mode. When trying to say the name I was trying to dial, on the first attempt I got, “What was that”, second attempt, “I didn’t understand you”, third attempt “showing all albums”. I spoke with 3 different Pioneer techs and got different stories from all 3. I was working with a Crutchfield technician who has been instrumental in trying to find a resolution to this. Here is what he found out from a Pioneer technician who has seen this issue.

If your contact list (name field only) has any special characters on any 1 name, it will affect the entire contact list. So for example:

John Smith Mobile Jane Smith Mobile John & Jane Smith Home

Being that the contact “John & Jane Smith Home” has the “&” you will not be able to dial any of the listings even if they do not consist of the “&”. I went through and edited all the contacts in my list that consisted of any special characters and was able to dial by name. The other thought I had too was maybe having my Facebook contacts synched to my phone contacts was also causing a problem. After doing some tests I found that not to be the case. So when it boils down to it the radio only cares about the main header of the contacts i.e. the name itself not the payload (if you will) of the contact. So that resolves that issue.

Now the other issue still remains, if you have a contact list populated and transferred to the HU all is well until you need to edit, add or remove a contact. If you do and try to re-transfer your contacts, it does warn you that you are about to delete the old and reload the new which is what you want it to do. The only problem is it doesn’t, the original list remains. So if you add a contact you will not see the new contact in the list on the HU. But if you delete a contact from your phone you will still see that contact on the HU even after re-transferring the list. The funny thing is if you say the name of the one you deleted from your phone it will still call that contact. On your phone you will not see the name only the number. You literally have to disconnect the phone then delete it from the radio. Then pair the phone up again and transfer the phone book in order for any of your changes to take. That is a bit irritating but I can live with it.

Can you just delete all of the phonebook entries and reload the new phonebook?

In the phone book settings there is a Clear all section where you can clear everything or select what you want to clear. I chose to clear the contacts then I reloaded the contacts and the same thing. The only workaround is to delete the phone from the radio and start all over.

I use the exchange sync on the iphone to sync my google contacts. When you sync to the 910, it brings in ALL 100+ contacts, many of which I don't want or need on my 910. I really only want the 10 or so frequently called contacts.

To make this work, I manually entered LOCAL contacts on my iPhone using first name only and primary number. Then turn off exchange sync in iphone settings. Then delete/re-upload contacts to the 910. I got a clean list of my 10 primary contacts. Once done, turn exchange sync back on for contacts.

The only down side is that I have the 10 names duped on my phone, but that's ok. Works well for me.

Wow... this nailed my problem exactly. I edited my phone contacts and re-downloaded them, now I can dial entries by voice commands.

THANKS GUYS!!! That was bugging the hell out of me.

Worked on my F900 perfectly. I had AT&T as a contact. ATT looks kind of funny but I can use VR now!

Great tips...

I thought it was a microphone error or something. THANKS!