I'm thinking of upgrading my aging Treo 650, which works well with MINI's bluetooth. Anyone using a Treo 755p (Sprint) with their MINI ? Update: Got the Treo 755p (Sprint), and it works perfectly with the MINI's Bluetooth system. As with the 650, it will only transfer "favorite" entries to the MINI's phonebook.

 

Thanks for the update! Glad to know that I can plan for both an R56 and the 755p :D

 

My 650 works kind of intermittenly with the Cooper's bluetooth system. I can see the favorites, but I cannot dial out... I can't dial with the system in general. I have to dial with the treo, then it connects with the MINI bluetooth.... do you experience that as well?

 

Update: The Treo corrupts the Bluetooth module, and makes it inoperable. According to the electronic wizards at MINI, any phone not on the "approved" list (which no one seems to be able to locate), can in a short time, destroy the BLuetooth module. If a phone such as the Treo is connected, it sends the address book to the MINI every time the car is started. After 1-2 months, the bluetooth ULF can't store any more phone book entries, and locks up, then stops working. Removing power to the module does not reset it....it is toast at this point. So, it seems that any "normal" Bluetooth phone that sends the address book upon pairing, has the potential to smoke the MINI's Bluetooth module.

BMW bluetooth, however, does not use this insane phonebook scheme, so Treos work fine in BMW's.

Why MINI would go to the trouble and expense of developing a totally different Bluetooth deployment than BMW, is beyond comprehension. I suspect that this moronic deployment is going to cause some problems for MINI....

 

Ick- maybe it's possible to adjust the behaviour of the Treo to compensate? Somehow keep it from trying to sync the address book when it pairs? Sad news for me, since I keep everybody in my Treo... I bet with a few hundred contacts the problem is amplified.

EDIT: Oh, wait- I missed the part of your update where it's only the favorites that are sent.

 

The only solution that I can think of would be to totally empty one's favorites, and to also eliminate the voicemail entry in favorites. Then there would be zero contacts that would constantly upload. The downside to this is that one would always have to dial from the phone.

 

And still there's no up-to-date list of approved phones, right? My Blackberry works fine, but it's disconcerting to know that it could go south someday.

 

Yup, a case of non-disclosure, if I've ever seen one. By using the Bluetooth® trademark, MINI buyers, in the absence of having easy access to an "approved" list of current phones, must rely on the Bluetooth® trademark when making the decision to purchase this option. A list of "approved" Bluetooth® phones is no where to be found on MINI USA's website, and is not listed in any brochure that I've seen. When will BMW admit that they are really amateurs at electronics, and subcontract this stuff out to the Japanese?

 

FYI you can't remove the Voicemail entry from Favorites on a Treo. It is undeleteable. I have a Parrot Bluetooth in my Z3 Coupe which works well with some phones. But Bluetooth on Treos has always been sketchy. I have had a 600, 650 and now the 680, and none will transfer SIM card data or real contacts to a bluetooth device, just favorites.

 

Here is a link to the Mini-approved phones: http://www.wireless4mini.com/phones.html

Pat

 

Actually, you can remove it:

http://mytreo.net/treofaq/RemovingLockedPhoneFavorites

 

Hi! I have a treo 650 but keep having problems with the oem bluetooth. It keeps connecting and disconnecting continuosly... Did you have the same problem? How did you solve it?? Thanks!!

 

I've been doing some research and found that my Treo 700p had an OLD version of its firmware... so this afternoon I went here: http://www.palm.com/us/support/downl...te/sprint.html
and began the process of loading 1.10 from the 1.08 that wason my Treo.

I was having some screwy sync problems before this upgrade, I have a new 2008 MCS. Now, post phone upgrade, my BT seems to sync much faster and work a bit better... I can receive calls, dial out by using the voice system by speaking the number... I use my phone to call my contacts if I don't know the number... as soon as the phone begins to ring the radio turns off and the phone syncs to my speakers and in car mic.

I followed this link's instructions to a T... used my phone's SD card to copy the firmware from my PC to my phone, the upgrade worked well and so far I'm happy with the results. I should point out that I'm pretty tech savvy and had everything on hand to do this phone upgrade. If you aren't a geek and you look at your phone's info and see that your software is below 1.10 perhaps your best bet is to take your Treo to your local Sprint store and have them do this for you.. Just be sure to BACKUP all your information first!!!

Hope this helps my fellow Treo/MINI User/Drivers!!

 

Interesting. Does this mean the Treo is now safe to use with Mini Bluetooth if you upgrade the firmware? Or do you think they made a change with 2008 models? No evidence of corrupting the Bluetooth module yet? And what exactly are the warning signs of impending corruption, if anyone knows?

For what it's worth Palm has an update to the 755p Sprint to version 1.07. Presume this would accomplish the same as the 700p update?

 

The only reason we know that there was a problem at all was that it happened to someone- there's no known symptoms, just the change from working to not-working once it's been corrupted.

Everything I've seen says the corruption is irreparable, and the fix that MINI has chosen to take is to replace the entire Bluetooth module- the only way for us to know if the firmware update would make a fix would be for someone to try it and keep using it and have it not break.

So far this has happened with a 755p and a Sony Ericsson K850i that I know of.

 

I'm the 2nd driver in a Clubman with the Nav/BT setup and I have had no issues.. My wife has the iPhone and her's is the primary phone setup and she reports that the system requests for her to 'sync' to the system regularly...

 

I might be our test lab... so far so good... however I only have three favorites and as I mentioned above some things don't seem to work completely but well enough to make it a convenient way to talk while I'm driving... Sprint has a new phone coming out I think in June its a iPhone like phone made by Samsung... so, if I don't break my MINI before June I hope to upgrade to that device and hopefully it will work completely.

 

God, I can't believe this!! I just bought a 755p and love it. Last night was trying it in the car and realized it wasn't working right, so this morning found this thread.

That wireless4mini.com website? Is that an official Mini website?

Double checking here.... is it only transferring the favorites or does it try to transfer the entire phone book but then only list the favorites? I'm like Nick, I have close to 100 phone numbers in my address book.

The way it's sounding now is that we can't use phone at all without risking the car's Bluetooth? Coffeeman, where did you get that Mini tech info? Did you talk to someone directly or was it through another post you learned the problem about it nuking the BT module? Wonder how much a new module would cost.... And would they repair it under warranty given that no one hands you an "approved" list.

Kathy

 

Hi Kathy!

Nice to see you Saturday, hope you're feeling better! (Hi to Pat too )

Yeah, it's bad news on the Treo 755p. From what I've heard the Treos only sync the Favorites list. Sync is probably a misleading word, from what I've seen, Bluetooth just makes the data available and whatever is connected to it has to pull the data it wants off.

The most specific details I've ever seen of this problem are what Coffeeman's got in his post above- it seems to be some sort of quirk between the Treo and the MINI's Bluetooth system.

The same problem seems to happen with the Sony Ericsson K850i. The user over on Mini2 was given the same explaination separately through Mini Germany. In his case, the problem was repeatable.

I've never seen the "official" approved phones list, but it does seem that the Wireless4Mini site is affiliated with BMW. Not all of the officially compatible phones are listed, I know of some that have arm-rest snap-ins that aren't listed. (At least, I'd hope that phones that have a compatible snap-in can be assumed to be officially compatible...)

 

Hi Nick!

It was nice seeing you and Becka on Sat. Sure was fun being around 60ish Minis, even if I did have to go home. Took Pat 25 hours to get home from Andover.

I spoke to Coffeeman (thanks, Coffeeman, for the help!) some yesterday and yeah, I think the 755p is bad news after what you and he and everyone else has said. I sadly called Verizon and turned back on my old LG. I love the Palm but I love my Mini more and don't want to risk it. I inquired about a second line so I could forward the Palm to the LG and have the LG live in the car and they wanted something like another $30 a month to do that. So forget that idea. Guess I'll go back to my separate Tungsten E2 and my LG. I played with some Blackberries last night and I just don't like them like I like the Treos. Guess I'll be selling my 755p on eBay shortly.

Kathy

 

It's the same for us too- we've got a 600 that's on it's last legs.

I toyed with the idea of a separate car line too, with some family plans you can add another for ~$10.00 per month. Even so, there's the hassle of remembering to forward the phone, keeping all the contacts synced between phones, plus the extra money for no other reason...

We've put it off almost a year now- but we're finally going to switch to Blackberries once our contract is up in a couple weeks. It'll be a killer to lose the touch screen, but we'll also gain the phone over WiFi support with T-Mobile, so we'll finally be able to get cell service at home. Six/Half Dozen, I guess

 

I don't know of this helps, but I've been using a Palm Centro for about 2.5 months with no issues. I believe the centro is just a smaller, watered-down version of the 755p, so the operation should be similar. Only the favorite contacts are transferred, but other than that works fine. I have the latest firmware for the device and use Sprint.

 

Good to know! Hopefully there's been enough changes that it's not an issue. I wish there was enough people out there things would be more certain. It's odd that there's so few intersections of Palm and Mini Bluetooth users.

 

After all this now I'm thinking of jumping ship to AT&T (despite the fact that people I know are on Verizon) and getting an iPhone. We just got back from playing with them at the Apple store. Or maybe I'll just sit tight and not do anything (that's probably the more intelligent thing to do ). But first I think I'll search this forum and see if anyone has any issues with their iPhone!!! At least it's on the wireless4mini website. I just sent an email in the Owner's Lounge to Mini about whether or not they have an updated "approved" list. If they come back with anything, I'll let y'all know.

Kathy

 

P.S. What I really want is for Palm to get off their duff and release the long lost new Palm based on Linux. That's the unix sys admin in me talking.
Maybe that one would work with the Mini.... (one can only hope!)