[kaiser]

I spoke to customer support today and they said in order for my voice control to dial numbers by name I have to have my numbers stored on the car. I asked if there was a way to do that in bulk and he said I could copy them across using USB and vCards. I have tried this but I am not having any luck, anyone know how to do this without me going through every contact in my phone and saving it to the car?

Kai

[doughboy]

Your phone should automatically transfer all he contacts to the car as soon as you pair it up via bluetooth.

If it doesn't then your phone isn't compatible with the car.

I just got a new HTC desire at the weekend, paired it up this morning on the way to work and in 1 minute all 406 contacts were fully loaded into the car and i was making voice dial calls!!

What phone do you have?

[kaiser]

I have an iPhone 4, I can see my contacts but they are not saved in the car

[doughboy]

if you can 'see' them then they are transfered to the car. What do you mean they are not saved?

Of course, you only 'see' them when the phone is connected via bluetooth because the car uses your phone to make the call.

If you use one or more phones with the car then only the contacts from the presently connected phone are visible in the car. If more than one paired phone is within BT range then they connect in the order set in idrive.

Each time you connect the phone syncs with the car and any new numbers are displayed in the car.

[kaiser]

The problem is that when I say "dial name" the car says "phonebook empty" and it seems I need my contacts stored on the car rather than on my phone

[Pyth_UK]

Originally Posted by kaiser

I have an iPhone 4, I can see my contacts but they are not saved in the car

Hi Kaiser,

I think I know what is happening here. Do you know if you have Business or Prof voice control ?

I suspect you have Business. Easy way to find out is this.....press voice button and wait for bleep.....Then say "options".....If you get list of options then you have Prof......If the car doesn't understand try saying "help" after bleep....if "help" works you have Business.

With Business voice control you have to almost treat the phone your pairing and it's contacts seperately from the voice control. So for example you may have "Fred 123" saved on your phone.

Now, you can call "Fred 123" by selecting it within idrive as normal in say the phonebook.

But....If you want to use voice control to call "Fred" then you need to save "Fred 123" on your voice control with your voice (nothing to do with phone). I think you have to say "save number" (check manual - memory hazy at this time of night) then you say "Fred" and it learns your voice. It will then say for you to say number.

Once this is done you can then press VC button and just say "Call Fred" and the car uses the number you've saved through VC (nothing to do with your phonebook on phone but obviously uses the phone to call out !!)

[kaiser]

That sounds overly complex, I definitely have business nav, I guess I will have to stick with it as is. What I really do not understand is there seems to be no use what so ever for my USB port in the glove box, I can't move contacts with it, I can't play mp3s from it, it is completely useless. Thanks for your help

[Pyth_UK]

Originally Posted by kaiser

That sounds overly complex, I definitely have business nav, I guess I will have to stick with it as is. What I really do not understand is there seems to be no use what so ever for my USB port in the glove box, I can't move contacts with it, I can't play mp3s from it, it is completely useless. Thanks for your help

Kaiser,

It's far far easier to explain in person than in writing. Sit down with a cuppa and go through the manual, it's easy really. Just so hard to get it across in writing.

The USB in the glovebox is for updating your Nav map. I've never carried out a contact exchange through there so I'm not 100% on that for Business models. Again, have a look in the manual with a brew. I will look into that a bit further tomorrow at work, see if I can get you a better answer.

Pyth

[kaiser]

Thanks mate I really appreciate your help

[leetennis]

The numbers you see listed is just the data/contacts stored in the phone that the car is accessing.

To assign a voice command to that contact you must first save the number to the cars memory.

Not sure how you go about doing a bulk transfer of numbers but I'm pretty sure you will have to go into each contact to assign a voice command.

[Pyth_UK]

Kaiser,

I'm sorry to say that I checked today and it seems you can only transfer contacts via the USB with Professional and not Business. Therefore, the USB can only be used on your model for Nav Map updates.

[kaiser]

Originally Posted by Pyth_UK

Kaiser,

I'm sorry to say that I checked today and it seems you can only transfer contacts via the USB with Professional and not Business. Therefore, the USB can only be used on your model for Nav Map updates.

No worries, thanks for checking it out for me. I have given up on it now and I am just going to enjoy what I have. Do I take it that you work for BMW?

Kai

[doughboy]

Originally Posted by leetennis

The numbers you see listed is just the data/contacts stored in the phone that the car is accessing.

The numbers must be stored in the car, but only visible when the relevant handset is connected.

Otherwise the car would take ages each time you connected to show the numbers, but they are available immediately.

When you first connect a new phone it takes a while first time to transfer all the contacts to the car, and it actually says "transfering contact details" or something similar, with the little spinny circle 'working' graphic.