An ordinance is going into effect in our city in January making hands free use of phone in car mandatory. I know lots of other cities/states already have this.
Any recommendations, tips, suggestions, pitfalls for equipment? My car is a 2007, so not bluetooth-equipped. For those who have had to add a device (as I will have to), what did you buy? Are you satisfied with its performance? Would you buy something different if you were doing it over?
My phone is bluetooth compatible. Ideally, I’d like to use a headset or bluetooth earpiece, but I wear hearing aids, and you can only stuff so many things into your ear before you run out of room. I know there are hearing aids that are bluetooth compatible, but I’m not ready to go there yet, as my current hearing aids cost a fortune.
I’m researching other places, too, but I always get the best answers (when the answers are genuine) from SDMB. Thx.
How hands-free do you have to be? In some places (CA I think), you literally can’t hold an electronic device in your hand while you’re driving. As long as the rule is that you can’t have the phone smashed up against your face, you might just try speakerphone for a while. It’s come a long way. I use mine at home once in a while when I don’t want to pick it up and, so far, no one’s complained (even people that I know would complain about being put on speaker phone).
Depending on your phone, the speakerphone might work well enough that you can just turn it on, and put the phone in your lap or cup holder and be fine. If that works okay, I’d do that before spending money on anything. After that, I’d just check out the endless list of things meant to do just what you want on Amazon and read the reviews.
As a driver, I had to use bluetooth earpieces, but you can’t use those, I guess. They make bt headsets, with a headband with one speaker cup for one ear and the mic is off that. There’s nothing for the other ear. That would work if you’ve got an “in the ear” hearing aid in each ear. And they make bt speaker phone things that’ll clip onto your visor.
I want to (gently) point out that, of course, the laws requiring that all cell phone use while driving a car be hands-free were passed because it is known by nearly everyone that talking on a phone while driving is unsafe. It’s less well known but apparently true that it doesn’t matter if you’re holding the phone in your hands or not:both behaviors seem to be very dangerous. So if your goal is simply to comply with the law, the above advice is probably good. If you want to minimize your risk of causing an accident, you should scrap the idea of using the phone at all.