Motorola Roadster

[dirkbonn]

Has anyone had any experience with the Motorola Roadster?   And then used the Motospeak app with it? (It reads your text messages to you)

Good?  No good?   Like? Dislike?

Saw the Roadster on Amazon for $54.98 w/free shipping.

[B33]

I have seen it Dirkbonn but don't know that  much about it but i bet it would sound good  an might in our Truck too

Droid Roadster Portable Bluetooth® Speaker

Read Reviews (7) |

[HappyJackDaddy]

I don't have one but I've done a lot of research on them.  What I don't like is that it supposedly turns itself off when you leave the car and back on again when you return.  But it's really just a proximity thing.  That feature would work fine if you went to the mall or something, but if you park in your driveway and go in your house, it'll likely still be in range and stay connected.  That would be kind of a pain.

[B33]

Happyjackdaddy: i would say this is to possibly prevent battery drainage while your away from the unit it disconnects an powers off or goes to very low power state an when you return to your car it reconizes the phone by a sensor in the blue tooth an goes back to full power an re connects with phone. 

[HappyJackDaddy]

Right, I understand that.  But what I'm saying is it's advertised as having the capability to turn off when you leave the car, but it doesn't do that when you leave the car, it does it when you get out of range.  If your car is parked in your driveway and your phone is in your house but still in range, the Roadster won't turn off.  It'll stay connected.  That's fine if you remember to either turn it off manually or turn off Blue Tooth on your phone.  But if you're my wife and you're not tech smart, it won't happen.

[B33]

Well if the car is parked in your garage or settin outside an it's less than thirty feet from were you phones are the Roadster would stay connected as blue tooth devices have a range of 30 feet unless your wife shuts it off. now if

you was to go into your back yard it would break the range an then shut off but as long as its in that 30 ft. range

its going to stay on.

All blue tooth accessories like, head sets ,speakers phones ,car speaker phones have a 30 ft. Range

[curtterp]

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DincX110 wrote:

Well if the car is parked in your garage or settin outside an it's less than thirty feet from were you phones are the Roadster would stay connected as blue tooth devices have a range of 30 feet unless your wife shuts it off. now if

you was to go into your back yard it would break the range an then shut off but as long as its in that 30 ft. range

its going to stay on.

All blue tooth accessories like, head sets ,speakers phones ,car speaker phones have a 30 ft. Range

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30 ft range is clear line-of-sight view. The range decreases with buildings in the way.

My garage is less than 10 feet from my house (its not an attached garage). When I walk into the house, I lose bluetooth. My headset reminds me when I leave my phone in my car. If I leave the garage door up and walk to the mailbox, I have coverage and the headset doesn't whine about it.

[dirkbonn]

Thanks for all the info and assistance.  I ordered 2 from Amazon, one for me and one for my wife. I see it also has the abilty to connect via bluetooth to two phones at the same time.  I also downloaded MotoSpeak from the market.  To bad it only available for Android. (My wife has an iPhone) 

MotoSpeak, reads texts through your hands-free device, and lets you dictate a reply with your voice.

[Gumby]

dirkbonn-

I think you'll really like the roadster.  I got 2 of them when they first came out via a special from Moto.  Have not been dissapointed. They connect right away, stay quiet when you're not using it and the battery seems to last more than a week with moderate use.  MotoSpeak is pretty cool, and it is very good at capturing your voice back to txt for responses.  Only caveat with that is if you have others in the car, they by definition also hear your txts - well the same is true for phone calls too I suppose.

I'm not sure they work entirely on proximity, because closing the car door is what activates ours.  Closing the trunk does too, but that's not really a problem.  I have an attached garage and have never had issues with either one remaining connected.

I especially like that it can announce who's calling you if they're in your contacts - first device I've had that actually does that.  I use the second one in my truck, my car has bt built in - but it can't read txt to me, and calling with the roadster is a lot easier than my car too.

I'm real happy with mine, the price you got on Amazon is excellent.  The roadster's gotta be one of Moto's best kept secrets.

[HappyJackDaddy]

That's interesting, Gumby.  Maybe it isn't just a proximity thing after all.  Maybe it "hears" the sound of the car door (or trunk) closing and uses that distinctive sound as its cue to turn on or off.

[dirkbonn]

Thanks guys.  I'm looking forword to their arrival.  I chose the super saver (free) shipping option.  That ususally takes a week or so here in Hawaii.  (Amazon is one of the few businesses that offers free shipping to Hawaii.  Most want to force us into 2-day.

Anyway, we'll see when they get here and I'll post on the thread what we find.

[HappyJackDaddy]

Right.  I understand that.  But what I'm saying is that it's advertised as being able to turn itself of when you leave the car.  It doesn't do that.  It turns itself off when your phone goes out of range.  If your car is parked in your driveway, and your phone is still in range inside your house, they'll stay connected.  It's no big deal if you either turn off the Roadster yourself when you exit the car, or if you turn off Blue Tooth on your phone.  But if you're my wife and want to have it set up as easy as a car with Blue Tooth from the factory, which disconnects when you open the door, this isn't it. 

[dirkbonn]

What we need is to ask someone who has a Roadster to walk away from his car with the Roadster in it and see how far away you have to be in order that the Roadster turns itself off.

[tkdunn]

I use it with my iPhone. It does everything I ask it to do. It plays through my FM stereo. I send texts and emails and set up reminders. It reads my texts to me and allows me to reply. It will play my  music by title artist or playlist It is pretty cool.

I left mine on when I went into the store with my phone. It disconnected my phone then attached to another persons phone walking by because they had their bluetooth on.. weird..

only once while on the phone in my house it reached to my truck and activated in there.. I just turned off my bluetooth on my phone. no problemo!

[Tidbits]

Bro I got some good and some bad news...

Motospeak is purely for texting only now.  It does what you think it does, and replies like it should...

The problem is with a change you can't get voice command working with that in place.  I ended up dropping Motospeak entirely since this change.

FYI I don't have the roadster, but I have the command one.

[dirkbonn]

When I hit the voice dial button on my Roadster, a window comes up on my phone asking if I want to text or voice dial. Obviously this is not hands free but you can set it to default to one or the other.  Then it's hands free but you can't choose between text or voice.   Heck, I had to touch the call button on the Roadster to initiate the text/call so for me it's not a problem to touch my phone to choose.  My phone is in the car dock on the dash so it's easy to see and to reach.

I like the latest MotoSpeak update..... I voice text all the time now when driving. (but can make a call if I want to)  I used to have to wait for someone to text me in order to play with it.  Now I can initiate text messages.  Make my drive time just fly by....

[Tidbits]

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dirkbonn wrote:

When I hit the voice dial button on my Roadster, a window comes up on my phone asking if I want to text or voice dial. Obviously this is not hands free but you can set it to default to one or the other.  Then it's hands free but you can't choose between text or voice.   Heck, I had to touch the call button on the Roadster to initiate the text/call so for me it's not a problem to touch my phone to choose.  My phone is in the car dock on the dash so it's easy to see and to reach.

I like the latest MotoSpeak update..... I voice text all the time now when driving. (but can make a call if I want to)  I used to have to wait for someone to text me in order to play with it.  Now I can initiate text messages.  Make my drive time just fly by....

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With the command one it never does it  It doesn't even give me an option to pick and choose what I want it to do