Snappin' Cradle

As one of the first accessories for the beamer I decided to purchase and install a snap-in cradle for my cell phone. The cradle isn't technically needed—the phone will pair to the car via Bluetooth without it and will charge when plugged in to the USB port via a USB-mini connector. All that's well and good (Bluetooth kills the battery so the phone must be plugged in otherwise it'll die in no time). But...of course that isn't convenient enough. One had to fumble with the cable, the phone would slide around loose—the snap-in cradle presented a much more elegant solution, albeit at the slight expense of three separate parts (base plate frame, base plate, and the snap-in adapter for the specific phone type) and the loss of some storage space.

Now I just push to flip up the cradle, slide the phone in to dock with the USB connector sticking out, and press in. I made one of my phone's soft keys a shortcut to the Bluetooth setup so now connecting the phone is much easier. The cradle charges (leaving the other USB port open for an mp3 player) and (supposedly) boosts the antenna signal. This latter bit I'm not quite convinced off. The back of the phone does have a little antenna connector, but the cradle has no little jack to plug in to the phone's antenna receptacle. Speculation on the web has it that the signal boost is made by induction. Yes, there is indeed a wire loop underneath the part of the cradle that hinges up, and that loop appears to be connected to the coax wire that connects to the cradle's base plate, which, in turn, sends out a wire that I had to attach to a Fakra antenna connector nestled underneath the manual brake lever. So I think the connection to the "shark fin" antenna is being made, but I'm not seeing a whopping boost in signal. I may need to recheck that Fakra connection again...

Anyway, the only place I don't get good cellular signal is at home. I was hoping that with the signal boost I might be able to use the car as a type of cellular phone booth while in the garage (sort of like Get Smart's cone of silence). But, I still only get 1 bar and that's only at the top of the driveway. Anywhere else where I do get a good signal, the integrated phone works quite well. Above is a shot of what the phone interface looks like. The phone syncs its address book with the car, and then you just scroll to find who you want to call...you can also use the car's voice activation and say "dial home" to be totally hands-free. I especially like how the audio is fed through the stereo speakers and the microphone (embedded in the ceiling light console) picks up your voice as you talk normally.