Bluetooth phone call quality

Wash weekly, no brighter and hand polish or machine polish on aluminum. Can generally use same polish on the stainless and chrome

 

I have driven Pete's and KW's with the DEA500 radios and they all didn't work very well. I could hear people just fine, but they all said it sounded like I was talking very far from the phone.

I am currently driving a 21 Volvo VNR also with a DEA500 radio and I can talk reliable to most people over the BT. Some people complain that I am hard to hear, but I also tend to mumble.

So I feel it may be dependent on the truck.

 

I’ve never had a truck where the Bluetooth worked very well. As said above, I could hear the other person okay, but they could never hear me very well.

 

I drove a 2021 KW T680 with the DEA700 in the dash. I had used the DEA500 in a 2018 Freightliner for 3 years before that. There is a small black mic for the DEA mounted somewhere. I saw them mounted on the A-post, the post between the windshield and door, or mounted just above the sun visor. That mic is about the size of a dice. I never used the DEA's phone function much for the same reason you are noticing. I used my own BT headset. I used the DEA's BT audio function all day, everyday.

I noticed a few weird things with the DEA700. On occasion about every 10-14 days the DEA would forget the BT setting on my phone that instructed it to connect ONLY as an audio source. The DEA700 would connect as a phone device but it would also block my physical BT headset from connecting as a phone. I would need to unpair my BT headset, unpair the DEA700, repair my headest 1-3 times, and then and only then repair the DEA700 radio to my phone. You can connect several BT phones and audio sources to the DEA700 and then choose which of those will be your favorite, in addition to choosing which phone/device you want to connect now. BTW, the DEA700 will not pair and new device while the vehicle is moving, or at least mine was prohibited. If your phone or audio source is saved in the DEA700 you can switch between device while you drive, but you cannot add a new device while in motion.

After some investigation my solution was to make sure to turn the truck key to the off position about once per day, which cause the DEA700 to also turn off. If I left the truck key always in the Run or Acc postion 24/7 I was more likely to experience the problem I described above. The last time I searched I was not able to find any documentation for it on the web as it is so new. The DEA700 switches between menus and selection a bit slower which often caused me some confusion. For example, I could only switch from FM1 to FM2, them AM, 3 satellite banks, Weather, Rear Aux, and BT by pressing the Source button near the upper right corner of the radio. The DEA700 only cycles between those choices in that order. Think of only being able to change channels on a TV by moving up and never down. If you go past your choice you have to go through all of the choices until you get the one you want. The DEA500 allowed you to use the knob to go forward or back among the choices. The one-way selection and the slow menu/display makes it easy to go one step beyond what your were intending.

 

The microphone placement is important. Generally it is too far away from your face to be effective.
I think they should be mounted on a flexible arm above your head so you can swing it down when you need to use it.

 

I have never felt the need for a heated seat.