Successful Phone Book Transfer!

[Wayne]

I have a new Verizon/Motorola e815, and I wanted to upload my phone book to my 2005 Prius. Problem is, Verizon cripples the phone book transfer on their phones, and I don't have access to a Bluetooth PC, which is what most of the workarounds are written around. There is no manual entry on the '05 Prius.

I do, however, have easy access to a Bluetooth PDA. Problem was, most PDA procedures were also written in conjunction with a PC, and I couldn't connect the PDA I was borrowing to anything else. Some procedures even required seem edits on the phone. I wanted a very simple "PDA-only" procedure.

This is the process I came up with. Note this procedure has not been attempted on a 2006 yet. Please post your experience if you use it on one!

First, I used a Bluetooth-capable HP/Compaq iPAQ PDA. It really shouldn't matter what you use, so long as it's using a similar Pocket PC OS.

1) On the PDA, go to Settings, System, Regional Settings. Select "English (Zimbabwe)". No kidding. This is required to keep the phone numbers you add to Contacts from being formatted with special characters that the Prius phonebook can't handle.

2) Now go to "Contacts" on the PDA and click "New".

3) There will be a down arrow at the end of the line where you enter 'Name'. Click it.

4) In the popup box, type your ENTIRE contact name into the "First" name block. For planning purposes, the entire name will be shown in the phone book detail, but only 9 characters of it will be shown in the phone book summary. The Prius will simply truncate the summary at 9 characters. Click the background when you are completed.

5) Scroll way down to "Radio tel:" and enter the corresponding phone number, without dashes or parentheses. US ENTRIES: DO NOT precede any entries with a '1'. Just enter the 10-digit number, including the area code, even if it is for your neighbor. This is so the name of the caller will appear on the MFD if the caller is in your phone book. If in doubt or outside the USA, look at your received calls log on your cell phone to see how phone numbers must be represented to be recognized on incoming calls. This should leave you with an unformatted number like 2345678901. Click 'OK'

6) Once all entries are complete, go to the car with your phone and PDA. Once in the car, turn the power on, and wait for the phone and car to get a successful Bluetooth connection.

7) Press the "Info" button on the MFD, then the "Telephone" button, then "Settings". Hit the down arrow to get to the second page of settings.

8) On the PDA, open the Contacts screen.

9) Select "Start Transfer" on the Prius MFD.

10) Select 'Add' if asked.

11) Click-hold the contact name you would like to transfer on the PDA, then select "Send via Bluetooth" from the resulting menu.

12) Select the HANDS FREE Bluetooth device and OK.

13) Enter your passkey (1212) and OK.

14) The transfer should occur.

15) Once the transfer completes, wait at least 6 seconds before repeating. If you get a failure, you tried too quick -- simply try again.

Repeat step 9-15 for every contact you would like to transfer. Make sure you select 'Add' when asked.

It took me about a "minute a number" to key 27 phone numbers into the PDA, then 15 more minutes to transfer those numbers into the car. So, the time investment in minutes is roughly 1-1/2 times the number of entries you wish to transfer, or about 40 entries an hour using this method.

Don't forget to delete the contacts if you borrowed the PDA, and don't forget to undo the "English (Zimbabwe)" setting on the PDA when you are complete!

Hope this helps someone!

11/26/05 -- edited step 5 to eliminate a '1' before the phone number, and added a note that this procedure has not been attempted on a 2006 yet.

11/30/05 -- added step 10.

[efusco]

Well done! The Zimbabwa thing is genious...if weird.

Just to be clear, did you have to transfer each entry to the Prius one at a time or were you able to upload the entire list at once?
--evan

Originally posted by Wayne@Nov 2 2005, 12:06 AM
I have a new Verizon/Motorola e815, and I wanted my phone book uploaded.  Problem is, Verizon cripples the phone book transfer on their phones, and I don't have access to a Bluetooth PC, which is what most of the workarounds are written around.

I do, however, have easy access to a Bluetooth PDA.  Problem was, most PDA procedures were also written in conjunction with a PC, and I couldn't connect the PDA I was borrowing to anything else.  Some procedures even required seem edits on the phone.  I wanted a very simple "PDA-only" procedure.

This is the process I came up with:

First, I used a Bluetooth-capable HP/Compaq iPAQ PDA.  It really shouldn't matter what you use, so long as it's using a similar OS.

1) On the PDA, go to Settings, System, Regional Settings.  Select "English (Zimbabwe)".  No kidding.  This is required to keep the phone numbers you add to Contacts from being formatted with special characters that the Prius phonebook can't handle.

2) Now go to "Contacts" on the PDA and click "New".

3) There will be a down arrow at the end of the line where you enter 'Name'.  Click it.

4) In the popup box, type your ENTIRE contact name into the "First" name block.  For planning purposes, the entire name will be shown in the phone book detail, but only 9 characters of it will be shown in the phone book summary.  The Prius will simply truncate the summary at 9 characters.  Click the background when you are completed.

5) Scroll down to "Radio tel:" and enter the corresponding phone number, without dashes or parentheses.  Just to be safe, I preceded ALL my entries with '1' and the area code.  This should leave you with an unformatted number like 12345678901.  Click 'OK'

6) Once all entries are complete, go to the car.  Once in the car, turn the power on, and wait for the phone and car to get a successful Bluetooth connection. 

7) Press the "Info" button on the MFD, then the "Telephone" button, then "Settings".  Hit the down arrow to get to the second page of settings.

8) On the PDA, open the Contacts screen.

9) Select "Transfer Phone Data" on the Prius MFD.

10) Click-hold the contact name you would like to transfer on the PDA, then select "Send via Bluetooth" from the resulting menu.

11) Select the HANDS FREE Bluetooth device and OK.

12) Enter your passkey (1212) and OK.

13) The transfer should occur.

14) Once the transfer completes, wait at least 6 seconds before repeating.  If you get a failure, you tried too quick -- simply try again.

Repeat step 9-14 for every contact you would like to transfer.  Make sure you select 'Add' when asked.

It took me about a "minute a number" to key 27 phone numbers into the PDA, then 15 more minutes to transfer those numbers into the car.  So, the time investment in minutes is roughly 1-1/2 times the number of entries you wish to transfer, or about 40 entries an hour using this method.

Don't forget to delete the contacts if you borrowed the PDA, and don't forget to undo the "English (Zimbabwe)" setting on the PDA when you are complete!

Hope this helps someone! 

[snapback]148995[/snapback]

[Wayne]

Originally posted by efusco@Nov 2 2005, 10:55 AM
Well done!  The Zimbabwa thing is genious...if weird.

Just to be clear, did you have to transfer each entry to the Prius one at a time or were you able to upload the entire list at once?
--evan

[snapback]149071[/snapback]

One at a time. When you select the transfer on the PDA, you are highlighting a single contact, so that's all that gets sent. The process takes about 30 seconds an entry at that point. I'm SOOOO happy to have my Verizon phone book entered! :P

[Wayne]

I set my 17 one-touch buttons using the entries I uploaded to my phone book, so the majority of my phone contacts are now available while I drive. I think it's interesting that the phone number on the one-touch button gets blanked while you drive, but the NAME of the contact stays visible!

I'm still considering the hard-wired Bluetooth override to give me full access to my phone while moving, but for now I'm happy.

[jcupak]

I recently upgraded my cell phone to Verizon's LG VX8300 with Bluetooth capabilities so I could send and receive phone calls in my Prius. I soon discovered that Verizon had disabled the phone book capability, leaving me very fustratrated. I was, however, able to enter numbers manually and move them to the 1-touch menu.

Then, I discovered Wayne's method of transferring contacts from a PDA, so I thought I'd explore that method with my Palm Tungsten T3.

On the Palm, I created a short list of numbers (with the area code and without any puncuation) I wanted and tagged them all "Prius."

Then, in the car with my phone and PDA, I turned on the car (without stepping on the Brake to prevent the engine from starting), and waited for the phone and the car to establish their Bluetooth connection.

I pressed the "Info" button on the MFD, then the "Telephone" button, then "Settings" and scrolled down to the second page of settings.

On the T3 PDA, I opened the Contacts screen and selected the Prius list.

On the Prius MFD, I selected "Start Transfer," then "Add."

On the T3 PDA, I selected the name I wanted to transfer, then "Send via Bluetooth" from the menu.

After the T3 PDA searched for a while, the HANDS FREE Bluetooth Device appeared, which I selected, and entered the passkey (1212) when requested.

After a few moments, the transfer was completed!

It helps if you keep the names on the contact list fairly short.

It took a minute or two to transfer each number.

Like Columbus said: "It's easy, once someone shows you how!"

[aaf709]

Interesting. I uploaded using a non-Verizon BT phone I got off eBay (Sony Ericsson t68i). I did put 1 in front of all the numbers and it works fine. I wonder if I need to remove the 1s, if that's necessary.

[Wayne]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aaf709 @ Nov 5 2006, 12:11 PM) [snapback]344085[/snapback]</div>

I did put 1 in front of all the numbers and it works fine. I wonder if I need to remove the 1s, if that's necessary.[/b]

With my service, removing the 1's was only necessary if I wanted the MFD to tell me who was calling. You should be able to tell if you need to remove them by looking at your recently received call log on your phone. If it doesn't log a 1 in there, then it won't send one to the MFD when it receives a call. If it doesn't send one, and your Prius phone book has a 1 in it, then the phone numbers won't match, and it won't tell you who is calling.

Hope that helps.