Zumo 660, HTC Incredible 2, and SMH-10 aggro

[RBEmerson]

Sigh... I can get my SMH-10 (V3.2 firmware) to connect with my phone (HTC Incredible 2 - DINC2).  I can get the SMH-10 to connect with the 660.  But if I try both, the phone loses.  The 660's audio comes in fine but pushing the phone button doesn't wake up the phone.  Thinking the problem was with the move to V3.2 firmware, I went back to V3.1 (V3.0 never connected to the DINC2).  No joy.  

Ideas, anyone?  

[Hotbrakes]

Does your bike start?

[RBEmerson]

Only when I push the starter...  

[Spanky]

I have to link my htc thunderbolt to my zumo 550, then link the zumo to my sena. That works fine, but I cannot link both to the sena. If you link your phone to the zumo, it will cut music or conversation to let you know a call is coming in. On the 550, the phone button pops up on the screen and you control the phone with the zumo. Works very nice.

I wish I could offer more help, but when electronics don't work, I am usually clueless as to why.

[RBEmerson]

Meh... I was afraid that would be the answer.  That means I lose the phone's better voice recognition, etc.  

[Lawn Dart]

I belive the Sena can only handle one external BT connection on its own with full capacity.  At least, that's where I'm at with my Sena and my IPhone/Zumo 550 combo.

Sena also makes the SR10 BTooth "consolidator" that handles I think 4 different inputs and prioritizes them into one common BT connection to the Sena SMH10.  I'm seriously considering one to hanlde my Zumo/Radar/IPhone connections.  

[RBEmerson]

I'll look into the SR10.  Routing the phone through the 660 is better than a stick in the eye.  But not by much.

[Huron52]

Any updates as to this working for you?  

[RBEmerson]

I shifted to letting the 660 manage the connection to the DINC2 (phone) with the SMH-10 and it works mostly.  On occasion, when powering everything up, the SMH-10 / 660 link gets weird and audio to the SMH-10 sounds as though the 660 audio is distorting by being a full volume although the volume in the phones isn't too loud.  Cycling the power on the SMH-10 fixes the problem.  I'd rather have a direct SMH-10 / DINC2 connection, but I can live with having the 660 in the middle.  "[It's] better than a stick in the eye."

[RCook]

I belive the Sena can only handle one external BT connection on its own with full capacity.  At least, that's where I'm at with my Sena and my IPhone/Zumo 550 combo.

Sena also makes the SR10 BTooth "consolidator" that handles I think 4 different inputs and prioritizes them into one common BT connection to the Sena SMH10.  I'm seriously considering one to hanlde my Zumo/Radar/IPhone connections.  

Interesting reading this review on webbikeworld would suggest that the SR10 simply aggregates devices using physical wired connections then sends one bluetooth signal to the smh-10. From what I understand about the current state of bluetooth it's a 1:1 device <-> reciever relationship. In other words you can only pair one active device at a time. So whatever the 2nd device is that you pair to the smh-10 the first will be cut off. Pretty sure this isn't a Sena issue but a bluetooth spec design issue.

Now there is the possibility that if the Sena supports the HFP (hands free protocol) as well as the bluetooth audio protocol and sees them as separate signals you could in theory pair the phone using the HFP protocol and the Garmin using the bluetooth audio protocol. Then the question arises, where do you get your music from?

The other solution would be to run a GPS app on your phone and then connect that to the Sena which is what I do with my iPhone and the Navigon app.

[RBEmerson]

Meh... unpair the SMH-10 and DINC2, let the 660 manage passing audio between the SMH-10 and DINC2.  The SMH-10 will control the MP3 audio fully (start / stop, track back / track forward).  MP3 audio is stopped and started by GPS audio and phone audio.  In short, things work well but... I don't like the added button pushing demanded to get even voice dialing working.  I much prefer one push on the SMH-10 to start voice dialing.  But then again, maybe it's just as well that dialing via the 660 is a little more complex; I'm not as quick to make a call while riding.  

[Burners]

I've had ongoing problems with HTC phones and blutooth compatability...particularly with Parrot devices or devices that use Parrot BT Technology. Never gotten any of them to work fully as advertised. Adding a Zumo to the mix just made things worse.   Since I have a lot more invested in Car audio and in-Helmet headsets and GPS devices than my phone, the next one won't be HTC. Maybe the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus?  

[RBEmerson]

IIRC, Nexus is having its problems, too, primarily with the cell antenna(s).  Maybe BT performance is suffering, too, but I don't recall hearing much about that.  The point is, unfortunately, all of these gizmos are annoyingly distant from "plug and play".  At some point it's either accept a less than great solution or keep on funding new phones.  The phone makers and cell providers are quite happy to take your money.  I doubt that's going change anytime soon...  

[RCook]

IIRC, Nexus is having its problems, too, primarily with the cell antenna(s).  Maybe BT performance is suffering, too, but I don't recall hearing much about that.  The point is, unfortunately, all of these gizmos are annoyingly distant from "plug and play".  At some point it's either accept a less than great solution or keep on funding new phones.  The phone makers and cell providers are quite happy to take your money.  I doubt that's going change anytime soon...  

Boy isn't this the truth. I bought a VW Passat wagon last year and put an Alpine head unit into it, I specifically got one with BT handsfree so I could make calls with my iPhone in my pocket. Two years later and 5 replacement head units, upgraded over 3 model years, I finally got a unit that works... about 90% of the time which is a vast improvement.

[corndogs]

I had the same problem with my zumo 665 and after getting two different ones under warranty, I sold it.  JUNK

[Cablebandit]

I had the same problem with my zumo 665 and after getting two different ones under warranty, I sold it.  JUNK

What an insightful post.

[RBEmerson]

My Zumo 660 and DINC2 combo is somewhat erratic.  I can't figure out where the problem is, but some days it all works like a charm and some days... not so much.  The same is true in car mode, with a Blue Ant Q2 headset.  I did figure out the best move seems to be let the DINC2 and Zumo link up before enabling the headset.  after that... meh... some days are better than others.  

[RBEmerson]

FWIW, I think I've finally wrestled this problem to a usable conclusion.  The process ain't purty but it works.  

First and foremost, when powering up the Zumo, be very sure the phone (in my case an HTC [Droid] Incredible 2 - DINC2) and Zumo are paired (one time task, of course) and connected.  If the Zumo and DINC2 are paired but won't connect (the DINC2 seems to have problems either hearing other BT devices or making itself heard - either way the failure rate is annoyingly high), go the Zumo tools menu, select the Bluetooth option, tap the Phone connection button, and then tap the ADR6350 button (ADR6350 is the DINC2's BT "name") and tap OK.  9 times out of 10, the Zumo will then connect to the DINC2 (phone icon shows up in the page with the Where To? and Show Map icons).  With the DINC2 and Zumo connected, power up the SMH-10 (of course you paired it to the Zumo earlier, right?) and you should, under firmware 4.0, hear the "hello" followed by "media connected" and "phone connected".  If this doesn't happen, power down the SMH-10 and the Zumo, and start again (let the Zumo and DINC2 connect before trying the SMH-10).  If you power up the SMH-10 before the Zumo, count on the SMH-10 connecting directly to the DINC2 and ignoring the Zumo.  

As I said, the process isn't all that simple and can be frustrating on occasion.  But it does work and once the SMH-10 is connected to the Zumo connected to the DINC2, life is good.    

HTH

[caasland]

A couple things that might help ... pardon if you've already tried them (or I missed something obvious .. don't have the time to read it all in depth):

1. On the droid, set the options in the BT profile to only connect to the Sena with 'phone'.
     Settings->wireless->bluetooth, long-press on the Sena profile, options, unselect "media".
2. On the Sena, update 4.0 now has the abiity to do "phone only" and "media only" pairings to different devices.

[RBEmerson]

I just checked the DINC2's BT pairing info.  The entry for the Zumo is already phone only - without my intervention.  

I'll check the SMH-10's info for the DINC2 and Zumo, although, strictly speaking, both (that is, SMH-10 <=> DINC2 and SMH-10 <=> Zumo) should pair with phone and media support.  Only the Zumo <=> DINC2 should be phone-only, which the DINC2 already knows.  

NTL, thanks for the suggestions.  

- - -

At least the DINC2 and SMH-10 are both capable of multi-point connections.  The start-up drill I listed should prevent the SMH-10 from trying to connect with the Zumo and DINC2 at the same time.  Helpful as the voice prompts from the SMH-10 are, I don't think it knows how to announce multi-point connections as, for example, does my Blueant Q2 headset (non-MC device).  I'd be very surprised if the SMH-10 can do any voice synthesis while the Q2 does it routinely, including announcing the BT device name(s) it's connected to.  Anyway, assuming that's the case, the most it could probably say is that a multi-point connection occurred.  (Your job, dear user, is to guess which devices might be connected.   )