Ted K

The dealer used an external Hirschmann Dual Band hockey puck antenna mounted to the inside of the windshield above the rear view mirror. Very small and high quality looking. Also, very not noticeable. They said it would be better than the one in the rear window as I have metallic tint on the window which would limit my reception. Also, I didn't want him to have to pull apart my trunk to get to the stock antenna connection; it's behind one of my sub boxes. They installed the sound system, but still, I wanted to keep it simple.

Here's what they did (I'll post pictures next weekend). They installed the hands free cradle in the center console immediately behind the cigarette lighter. Looks totally awesome and works great; perfect location for me. The only difficulty is that you have to insert a wire (like a headphone jack) into the right side of the phone after it's in the cradle. It's a little tight with the passenger seat there, but I push the left bolster on the passenger seat out of the way with my left hand and slide the plug in with my right. I've only used it a couple of times today, but it seams to be getting easier. They installed the speaker behind the trim pannel under the steering column. This may sound like an odd place, but in actuality, it works great. It sounds like the person on the other end of the phone has their head right behind my steering wheel. For the microphone, the installed one behind the spot where the factory mic would go. They also totally integrated the telephone with my Alpine Head Unit. THIS WORKS SO WELL! Everytime I touch a key on the phone to dial, or the phone rings, it automatically pauses my head unit, and then automatically returns it to it's prior state of play immediately following the end of the call. Since I set the phone on Auto Answer for the Car Profile, I don't have to take my hands off the wheel to answer a call; I just have to press the end button when I'm done speaking. Also, I activated the 1 Touch Speed Dial Feature, so I don't even have to navigate menus to dial. Even with the stereo cranked, I just hold down one of the speed dial keys, the stereo pauses and the phone dials. If I had known it would work so well, I would have done this 8 months ago when I bought the car. It was pricey, but SOOO WORTH IT.

Again, I'll post photos next week first chance I get to take them, that is unless I can convince LI-S4 to take some shots for me with his digital camera (yes, I am still an analog guy, but what an analog setup I have; Nikon F100 with all the trimings).

DrJoshSC

Looks like Smarteq makes an 8290 version as well... What's a good price on that?

DrJoshSC

I'm also really curious how they interfaced with the HU, my HU doesn't have a mute lead or anything.

Ted K

the hand's free cradle/kit at $200, the Hirschmann antenna at $60 and the installation, $140, which includes the cost of the speaker under the dash, hooking into the mic in the headliner, and interfacing with my Alpine Head Unit. Took them a solid 8 hours of work to do it. Don't know what the cradle would cost by itself if that is what you're asking. As for a price on the entire thing; do I think it was pricey??? Given that the handsfree kit that Ed Polisac was selling was around $275, without the antenna or the cost of spending time interfacing the handsfree software with the radio, yeah, I think that was a reasonable price; not great, but not a rip off either.

Ted K

However, this is better, and I didn't even know the radio had this feature. It doesn't mute when the phone is activated, it pauses. COOL. Even when I'm dialing, soon as I start to navigate the menus in the phone, it pauses the head unit. If I don't touch the phone for 5 seconds, the radio exits pause mode. Used it alot today, and I'm really very pleased.

DrJoshSC

Some HUs have a "mute" wire for interfacing with cell phones, and the Smarteq units have a lead that can hook to that as I understand it, but to pause the HU when using the phone? I'd like to know what they did, but they'd probably rather I paid them to do it, no?

Ted K

but having said that (and I indicated this in another post earlier today), Alpine was "supposedly" the originator of this feature where the HU pauses when the phone is activated. Originally, you needed to use one of their phones to have this feature work. However, with the boom in mobile phones that followed, they couldn't compete with the phone companies where you sign up and get a phone real cheap. Who was going to buy an Alpine phone for $300 and then pay to activate it. So they stopped producing them. So, my HU is not of the newest design, but they were able to interface the Smarteq kit with the Alpine HU. Maybe, since you indicate that the kit has a lead for phone interface, maybe it was a matter of just attenuating the output of the kit to match the input of the HU. I'm really guessing here. To be honest, it was something I really wanted, and their installation was probably around $100 more than some other places, but I got a Hirschmann antenna and the "plus" of the HU muting as part of the deal, so it was worth it to me.

Black A4TQ

Looking at the pictures of the unit it should just connect to the phone via the bottom of the phone?

Ted K

which is located at the bottom of the 8260. You still need to insert a wire plug into the headphone jack on the top right hand side of the phone to connect the microphone, external speaker, external antenna, etc. That activates the "Car" profile in the software on the phone also.

Here's a photo of the installation in Steve 66's S4 (while I haven't taken any photo's of the install yet myself, since the wire on mine is between the right side of the cradle and the left side of the front passenger seat, this photo shows more clearly what I'm referring to):

<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/7764/mount-closeup.jpg"><ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/a4/msgs/1072363.phtml">Link to Steve66's Nokia 8260 Installation</a></li></ul>

Steve66

The '01 head units had a mute lead and, according to what I've read, all the '02 units do too. On <a href="http://potato.smashedhat.com/pattjin/audi/stereo.php">this web site</a>, someone wrote up their steps to upgrade the stereo on their '02. Included in the writeup is this picture of the label on the back of the head unit which clearly shows the mute lead:
<img src="http://potato.smashedhat.com/pattjin/audi/images/pinouts-high.jpg">