Basic Day Cabs

Check with your company before you start hooking up any radios etc. Whatever you do, don't start hooking up stuff on your own unless they tell you it's alright. Every mechanic I know has a whole long list of horror stories about drivers who install electrical stuff..

 

Ask someone in the shop.

 

You can use a bluetooth speaker that you bring or leave in the truck. You will likely want at least a 20 watt, if not 40 watt speaker. When BT speaker specs indicate how many watts of power they "blast", each speaker is only half of the listed total at full volume. You can use a BT earpiece or headset that connects to your phone also, although wearing a headset or earpiece all day will not be very comfortable. You cannot legally cover both ears while driving. There are bone conduction headsets that are also very effective. I think the brand is AfterShokz. It doesn't block your ear but you can hear your music/podcasts/phone calls just fine.

 

My trucking GPS WOULD NOT connect to the truck radio. The built-in bluetooth was ONLY for an add-on ELD setup. I had a Rand McNally RM740. Most or all of the tablet-based truck GPSes that do everything will likely connect to anything with BT.

 

Can they even order a truck without a radio & a cigarette lighter these days? I kind of figured these things would be standard equipment anymore.

 

I use the aftershokz headset every day in the office but it’s not very good for in a vehicle unless you’re ok with wearing earplugs. I find that even driving a car there’s enough road noise that I normally try to plug at least one ear and this is with the volume all the way up. So unless they have come up with a newer model specifically for trucking I wouldn’t recommend them for that application. For my work in an office dispatching I love them.

 

Respectfully disagree... I love my aftershokz. Wear mine daily and love the fact that I know I can hear traffic and movement around me and still hear my conversation or music easily. May ask if your positioning of the "speakers" are close enough to where they should be as I have tend to have to turn my volume down. It's also the first bluetooth mic that my significant other hasn't complained about picking up birds a mile away and not my voice like so many other devices we have tried. The mic does a great job cancelling out the in cab noise for the receiving caller. And if positioned where it should be, will be more than enough to hear without blaring. Now. If you are already hard of hearing, then you already picked the wrong device.
You can listen to music plenty through them but go thinking you are going to get bass out of it that most people look for. The bass is limited to the vibration imparted to you and not movement of air via a speaker.

 

I don't know about ordering options on a truck. I alwa drove OTR trucks so they had radios and other creature comforts.

 

Are you saying there’s absolutely no 12V hookup of any kind?