Have an LG8600 which works great through the BT system (R56 MINI), but for one thing: anytime I try to use the voice-activated dialing, it says" Phonebook is empty". The voice activation works great when dialing a #, but anytime I say "Dial name", it replies "phonebook is empty".

The phonebook is NOT empty, as I can pull it up through the interface and scroll through it, so the phonebook is definitely pulling in from my phone, but yet it doesn't pull in for access through voice dialing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

Read the other posts regarding setting up Voice Activation. You actually have to set-up these separate from your phones PhoneBook. I've not done this yet so I won't be much help.

 

You don't have to set them up separately if you phone has synced with your Mini. The "Phonebook" is the MINI's onboard phonebook. The ones on your phone are in a phonebook called "A-Z". Try voice commands "Phone" then "A TO Z", then "Dial Name ...".


Cheers

Jim

 

His phone has synced with the MINI, but (at least based on reports) the address book that the MINI uses to display a name and phone numbers is separate from the list that is used when the MINI automatically generates voice tags.

This is the first report that I've seen for the VX8600, but a number of the other Verizon LG's have the same issue. I'm told that Verizon makes a limited number of profiles available through OBEX that makes for compatibility issues.

There's a few other phones out there like this, where the address book transfers, but you still have to create your own voice tags for each number. In my Bluetooth spreadsheet, I've been labeling phones like this with "Manual Only" for voice dialing.

 

That seems to be the case with mine. I found a link that someone (you?) had provided to Verizon's website/BT matrix, and all the BMW variants all said the same thing...BT phonebook works/integrates into the display, but voice activation does not. Can only imagine (since that's what I'm seeing!) that this applies to MINI as well.


It's working fine now that I've done the manual voice programming. Can still use the interface on the dash to access the phone book, or use the voice activation for those that I've recorded with voice tags.

 

I stand corrected.... I think. The commands I posted work with the Nav system and the iPhone. Tonight we picked up my wife's new Mini without the Nav and the voice dial does not appear to work the same. I initially selected A-Z on the display and got "phonebook is empty" when trying voice command. I then went through the sequence I posted above and got a "Say Name" response but the system would not recognize the name which I know is in the book............Hum?

Cheers

Jim

 

Yep, you've now experienced the same thing as me!

Was that witht he same phone that successfully voice-dialed in the other car? If dso, weird! MINI must have slightly different software packages in each car.

 

There is different software for the NAV over the standard head unit. They d use the same ULF module but the control computers for the NAV have extended functionality due to the screen.

Why they can't just make them both work the same i am not sure but the problem i have is that my phone (motorola e815) works great in my BMW 525IT wagon. It voice dials by using the voice dial built into the phone. Why BMW changed this feature in their software I am not sure. I would love to go back to a Generation 1 ULF module and have it work just as it does in my BMW but then i would loose other features such as USB integration.

It's all software so they should be able to it all work.

I remember reading a post where one person states they have voice control of their phone for dialing and have not had to do the voice dial setup. I.E. the system/phone responds to the voice and figures out what number to dial via the phone menu not the car voice system. I can not find the post right now and do not remember if it was this forum or mini2.

 

Aw man, serious? Did you find a definitive reference then schatzy? This is the first I'd heard that Nav/Non-Nav cars behave differently.

 

I think someone posted Verizon's listing of compatibility with the BMW's in the Bluetooth sticky- however BMW's bluetooth systems are different from the 2nd Gen systems.

Based on some of the Nav software stuff I was looking at a year or two ago, I'd say that the 1st Gen (Pre-07) MINIs probably share some components with BMW, but I haven't looked into enough to comfirm this.

 

The tech data I was looking at a couple of weeks ago showed two different part numbers for software one for NAV units and one for standard units. Note that the head unit for the radio is different between the two and the NAV units are supposed to be (have not confirmed) fully voice controlled, i.e. you are supposed to be able to speak to the NAV unit and tell it the address you want to go to and it is suppose to find it and give you the directions. How true this is I can not tell as I do not have NAV in mine. It was just to expensive.

Also all the display software has to be different so as to display the proper things in the proper place.

As far as i can tell from reading the tech manuals it seems the 08 models went over to the MOST system and in that case should be the same as the BMW, okay maybe a revision or two behind but at least work on the same type of communications system.

 

Ah, okay- maybe I read too much into your message. I wouldn't expect the exact same software in both the Nav and non-nav versions of the car. All that Nav control stuff is a lot of overhead to display two LCD lines.

It doesn't work as you might expect- you can't rattle off the entire address, eg: "123 Fifth St, Seattle WA". It's more line-by-line, something like:
<VC Button> "New Destination", <VC> "State", "Washington", <VC> "City" "Seattle", <VC> "Street Address", "123"...

Yeah, I was mostly concerned that you'd discovered different Bluetooth bits specifically. As above, I'd expect software revisions to change wildly- even if functionality didn't change any.

MOST is a pretty generic layer though and would only handle the communication between modules. The aftermarket stuff that I've seen for BMWs makes it look like the Bluetooth module just passes audio and display info to the car's software and the Bluetooth module handles everything between it and the phone internally.

You'd think that would be an argument for using exactly the same module though... Oh man, now I'm confusing myself.