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mikeyp
Member Since: 29 Dec 2009
Location: London. Scotland. The Alps.
Posts: 113
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| Parrot MKi9200 Mini Review |
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I thought I'd share a few thoughts on the MKi9200 I had installed last week. I've had a few days to play around with it, and have also been on the phone to Parrot tech support a couple of times to clarify some specs and useability issues. Thought i'd share a summary of this with you lot. Hope you find it useful. Will try and post some pix of the install later too.
Location
- Had the display mounted to the right of the GPS on a mini ball mount that is mounted to the dash using self adhesive. Is viewable through the steering wheel, and by the passenger.
- Had the control mounted sideways on behind the parking brake switch. Its stuck to the flap you remove for emergency brake release. Very easy to drop your hand to whilst driving and your arm is in a natural position. Easily accessible by passenger too.
Navigating Music on iPhone
Yes you should be able to use the fwd/rwd keys to easily jump to the next letter, but this falls down if any music begins with the word "The". See list below. Whilst the iPod ignores the word "The", the Parrot doesn't. Which is a right pain if you have lots of stuff beginning "The". See list below as an example. Basically, its shoddy and lazy coding, as it's so easy to right code that tests to see if anything begins with the word "The" followed by a space, ignore it and use the next letter... Should be resolved in a later patch, but no date.
Calum...
Charlie...
The Chemical Brothers
Cie...
The Cure
Cz...
Da...
The DC's
Di...
So with the above list, if you start at letter C, its 3 clicks to get to the letter D. Doesnt sound a lot, but if each of your letter categories have a load of "The " in it, its a lot of clicks to get from say A to M.
In the phone book, you get to see the letters A-Z down the screen, and can v easily turn the wheel thru the alphabet. Would be great if the Parrot used this presentation format for music. This would make it a whole lot more useable. May be a patch update later?
USB Sticks
Only FAT/FAT32 is supported. NTFS formatted USB sticks are not supported.
Using a hard drive (instead of a USB stick)
The issue here is power consumption. THe Parrot box likely does not provide enough juice to power a hard drive. In contrast, a USB stick consumes very little power.
Annoyingly Parrot dont provide a power supply spec for their USB interface.
So, a hard drive may work or it may not. But, you can inject 5v into the hard drive separately with a little jiggery pokery so it doesn't consume power from the Parrot.
The only downside of this is that the Parrot parses all directories when a USB stick (or drive) is plugged in or the Parrot is powered up. So you have a lot of music on a stick or hard drive, it will potentially take an age to do this before it can play any music.
Music Files
Only MP3 and WMA are supported. Which is a right pain as all my music is an Apple format. Fine when on the iPod, but pants for using a USB stick. Seems a bit ill thought out to me.
Contacts
Parrot technical info is misleading. The data sheet that is available here (http://www.parrot.com/pdf/mki9200_uk.pdf) states that the product supports "Number of contacts: up to 8,000 in total (dynamic memory allocation)". Now according to Parrot support their definition of a contact is one name, one number, and their data sheet is incorrect. He claimed this was semantics, but the data sheet should be specific and define what is meant by a contact. Now I have 1700 contacts, most of which have more than one number - so likely around 3000 contacts using the Parrot tech support definition. Pants.
A work around is to use the Blackberry function called "Hotlist" which transfers a subset of your contacts to the H/F kit. Not sure what defines a hotlist yet, but a quick google search revealed this:
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Bla...4B419C7AF4
Having said that, all contacts do seem to eventually go across, but it takes around 20mins !!!
In contrast my Garmin GPS (Zumo 660) works seamlessly with the same phone and contact database, and takes seconds to get contacts data across to the Garmin.
Something is not quite right in the software of the MKi9200.
Voice Activation
I cannot get this to work. Quick press on the green button to activate voice mode, it asks who I want to call. I say a name and it either doesnt recognice it or dials a name that bears no resemblence.
Tech support reckon you need a couple of weeks to get used to it and less contacts. But that sounds like tosh to me.
Dialling Calls
I have quite a bit of buzzing on the line as soon as I dial a call or enter voice activation mode. The buzzing is not really noticeable when on a call, but it is there. Will have to get this looked into.
Fuses
- The Parrot box comes with short fused power leads.
- As standard, this results in fuses being buried behind the dash / radio etc.
- My installers standard practice is to bury the fuses.
- It is very bad practice to bury any fuses - they should be easily accessible so they can be checked / changed. Yes, they are unlikely to blow, but it is tosh to be told that they never blow. Insist that the fuses are accessible; I did.
Software Update
My installer failed to update the Parrot s/w and delivered the job to me with v1.14 when v1.24 was out. Parrot issue best practice guidance notes to installers to update as part of an install. Insist your installer does this as part of the job. Its what you are paying for !
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 Tue Jan 26 2010 10:15am |
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Stu
Member Since: 08 Feb 2009
Location: Hampshire
Posts: 2360
 
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1700 contacts is a huge amount of data to process for voice recognition I'm not suprised that it doesn't work.
It seems to me you need to cut down on your contact list on your phone - you can't need that many contacts! D3 HSE MY05 Auto
Expo Rack, Club MTR, LR Spots, A Bar, Light Guards, GNVP Sump Guard, GNVP Ladder, Cup Holders, RLD A Bar brackets. Disco3Club stickers, Aux power on Mod
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| Tue Jan 26 2010 11:04am |
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methley
a.k.a. Mint Sauce
Member Since: 07 Oct 2008
Location: Land of the Icecream
Posts: 1683
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| Re: Parrot MKi9200 Mini Review |
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mikeyp wrote:Voice Activation
I cannot get this to work.
Are your contacts stored first name, last name or last name, first name? If it is the latter, then you need to say "last name, first name".
Mine works fine - 800 contacts with multiple numbers. The only word it struggles with is "home", but if you say "call home" it seems to work ok. Andy
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| Tue Jan 26 2010 11:31am |
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mikeyp
Member Since: 29 Dec 2009
Location: London. Scotland. The Alps.
Posts: 113
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| Re: Parrot MKi9200 Mini Review |
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methley wrote:mikeyp wrote:Voice Activation
I cannot get this to work.
Are your contacts stored first name, last name or last name, first name? If it is the latter, then you need to say "last name, first name".
Mine works fine - 800 contacts with multiple numbers. The only word it struggles with is "home", but if you say "call home" it seems to work ok.
Stored lastname, firstname. Saying this still doesnt work.
1700 contacts is an accumulation over the years. I back my phone up and transfer them from phone to phone, and sync with outlook. They take up such little space it just isnt worth spending the time rationalising them. The Blackberry makes it so easy to search for contacts - again, not worth rationalising.
As I said before, the amount of contacts works fine with a Garmin Zumo 660 which is, I might add, a GPS principally, and h/f kit as secondary function. The Parrot on the other hand is a h/f kit principally. I know a lot of folks with more contacts, and many others with a similar amount. Nature of the job.
Me thinks that Parrot has not thought this through properly. Grr.
Am currently thinking of ripping the parrot out and making do with the Zumo, getting a proper mount for it, and getting it wired in to power, the speakers, and a mic. At least it works properly, and also provides a "proper" sat nav as well (the LR sat nav is  compared to the Garmin).
Stu wrote:1700 contacts is a huge amount of data to process for voice recognition I'm not suprised that it doesn't work.
It seems to me you need to cut down on your contact list on your phone - you can't need that many contacts!
Not at all. The device still has to turn your voice into text (the hard bit that requires the most processing power), then do a simple text search (minimal processing power).
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| Tue Jan 26 2010 12:20pm |
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mikeyp
Member Since: 29 Dec 2009
Location: London. Scotland. The Alps.
Posts: 113
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Decision made. Its coming out. The MKi 9200 is trying to do too much and is too immature. Need to research what to get instead. SWMBO cant get over the ipod user interface and thinks its a right load of tosh. Am intrigued by the Harmon Kardon Drive and Play, and will go for a v simple h/f car kit.
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| Fri Jan 29 2010 1:26pm |
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MikeS2005
Site Sponsor
Member Since: 13 Sep 2008
Location: Midlothian
Posts: 510
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Hi All
The Parrot 9200i is a brand new piece of kit and has only been out for about a year parrot are continually improving this as they discover problems.
Any blue tooth kit suffers problems as not all are compatible with every phone.
Personally I think some people expect too much from new peces of kit and some manufacturers seem to try to cram to many things into one gadget and this causes problems.
I always inform customers that sometimes there choice of product will compromise on something that does multiple things and not to expect to much from a new piece of kit.
The parrot kit does not come with a large processor unlike a Satnav which does.
On a lot of sat navs I have come across the bluetooth is apalling and clarity is not the best but that is not what they were intended for, it is now included as an extra because thats what the consumer wants.
If anyone dosnt like the Parrot kit then there is a bluetooth kit called Bluetouch which is manufactured by a German company and this is a very good piece of kit but is expensive compared to the parrot (£300)
I personally find that in most things that are software driven as most people will know or have found out the hardway that there are always gremlins in electronics just look at most D3's .
I would also like to point out that it isnt part of the certified iinstallers job to check that the parrot kits have the latest software especially if you get your kit fitted on site as this isnt always possible due to the lack of an internet connection if it is booked into the workshop then this may be done, as you drive away parrot could email us and tell us there is a new update you then check your software version and see that it isnt current so you think we havnt done our job.
We also cant check the parrot kit before we install as they are all clear sealed so you have to install the kit before you can check and the kits can be sat in a warehouse as any electronic item that uses software can for months on end so you never know what version is on them.
The 9200 was designed so it was easy for the customer to update via the USB port all other kits need to be bluetooth flashed which is a bit more fiddly so I feel it is a bit unfair for you to be giving your installer a hard time about this and you ask him to extend your original Parrot wiring so you can get to the fuses this would in my opinion invalidate parrots warranty as you are asking your installer to cut the OE wiring to extend it wiring so you can get to the fuses.
Just out of curiousity did you ask LR to extend your fuse box wiring so you could easily get to the fuses behind the glove box I wonder where your warranty would have be if you did this NUll and void I think
regards Mike
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| Fri Jan 29 2010 9:31pm |
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mikeyp
Member Since: 29 Dec 2009
Location: London. Scotland. The Alps.
Posts: 113
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MikeS2005 wrote:
I would also like to point out that it isnt part of the certified iinstallers job to check that the parrot kits have the latest software especially if you get your kit fitted on site as this isnt always possible due to the lack of an internet connection if it is booked into the workshop then this may be done, as you drive away parrot could email us and tell us there is a new update you then check your software version and see that it isnt current so you think we havnt done our job....
...and you ask him to extend your original Parrot wiring so you can get to the fuses this would in my opinion invalidate parrots warranty as you are asking your installer to cut the OE wiring to extend it wiring so you can get to the fuses.
Just out of curiousity did you ask LR to extend your fuse box wiring so you could easily get to the fuses behind the glove box I wonder where your warranty would have be if you did this NUll and void I think
regards
Mate - With respect, you are talking tosh.
Parrot issue installation guidelines to installers, and it says on there that installers should update to the current latest version of the software. Sure, a version could be issued as the customer drives away, but thats life.
All the Discovery fuses are easily accessible, even the ones behind the glovebox.
Cutting the a fuse off power leads of the Parrot box and extending the power cables will not invalidate the warranty! Basic knowledge of electrics will tell you that a fuse should be located as close to power source as practically possible for safety reasons. If you are taking power from the battery, then the fuse would be at the battery end of the cable as close as practically possible to the +ve terminal.
I will likely go for an older parrot unit that has been out for longer. Auto Audio in W London advised me to go for an older version as it is proven. I stupidly went for the latest. And picked an arsey incompetent installer (not Auto Audio - I should have gone there !)
Last edited by mikeyp on Sat Jan 30 2010 3:34pm. Edited 1 time in total
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| Sat Jan 30 2010 10:43am |
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kernowexpeditionaryforce
Member Since: 15 Jan 2009
Location: Kernow
Posts: 314
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the mki9 1/200 kits in my opinion are fairly poor, i try not to sell them tbh, on ipod the system often slows down to a standstill, while the remote control is very fragile, we have had many, many customers have broken them only after a few days use....
in my professional opinion the ck3100 is still by far the best product parrot make...
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| Sat Jan 30 2010 11:36am |
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mikeyp
Member Since: 29 Dec 2009
Location: London. Scotland. The Alps.
Posts: 113
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Forgot to mention one other issue.
- The MKI9200 allows you to pair a number of phones to it (8 I think).
- We have 2 phones paired to the kit. His and hers.
- But the kit will only auto connect to the phone last used with the kit.
- Pain in the arse when we share use of the car. You need to manually select a phone by twizzling the knob and pressing buttons.
- Quite why the kit does not scan for paired phones when it is switched on, and auto select the first it sees is beyond me.
(I accept the kit could get confused if 2 paired phones are in range, but this is not the case. But in any case, the phone could just auto select one of them based on the first one seen by the kit or randomly. Or even an advanced setting to set order or precedence. Mickey mouse coding effort).
Underdeveloped product.
Pants.
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| Tue Feb 02 2010 12:22pm |
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methley
a.k.a. Mint Sauce
Member Since: 07 Oct 2008
Location: Land of the Icecream
Posts: 1683
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Mike, you do seem to be having some problems which others don't experience.
When I get in the car ithe MKi connects to my phone. Likewise, when my wife drives it pairs with hers with no manual intervention.
When both phones are present, the kit connects to the "preferred" phone (mine).
In any case. I thought you were ripping the Parrot out?
mikeyp wrote:Decision made. Its coming out.
Andy
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| Tue Feb 02 2010 12:28pm |
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mikeyp
Member Since: 29 Dec 2009
Location: London. Scotland. The Alps.
Posts: 113
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Yep it is coming out, but not decided what to replace it with yet. Like I said, forgot to mention one other issue.
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| Tue Feb 02 2010 10:22pm |
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Pelyma
Member Since: 06 Jan 2005
Location: Clymping, Sussex
Posts: 6488
 
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So do Parrot (or anyone else) make a hands free kit that connects to an iphone in a D3 HSE that will play the music on the phone too, that any installer can fit? DS3 TDV6 HSE
Silver with Alpacca (old one)
DS3 TDV6 HSE
Silver with Alpacca (new one)
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| Wed Mar 03 2010 5:35pm |
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Gene_Genie
Member Since: 22 Feb 2010
Location: Essex
Posts: 54
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Pelyma,
I hope so...having one (MKi9200) installed today (now the fitter has ordered the correct lead!). I'm having the screen mounting to the left of the sat nav, and the iphone connector, usb etc run to below the ashtray so I can easily plug in the phone from there.
The idea is phone calls made via bluetooth and music played via dedicated connector.
That's the theory anyway 
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| Thu Mar 04 2010 9:56am |
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Gene_Genie
Member Since: 22 Feb 2010
Location: Essex
Posts: 54
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Wrong lead ordered again 
Can anyone confirm that it's the 06-124B that's required - I'm sure it is!? I have a HK 8 speaker system with amp. (Parrot is a MKi9200)
One last roll of the dice!
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| Fri Mar 05 2010 9:17am |
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methley
a.k.a. Mint Sauce
Member Since: 07 Oct 2008
Location: Land of the Icecream
Posts: 1683
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You will need 06-124B (well half of it) and 06-426B
The Parrot phone output (at speaker level) is fed through an isolating transformer (the shrink wrapped little black blob on 06-124B) into the phone inputs on the radio, via the pins which need to be inserted into the multi-plug. During a phone call these inputs are switched in via the MUTE connection, and "phone mode" appears on the display of the radio.
In addition, the 06-426B lead presents a line level output, which can be used to feed directly into the AUX input on the back of the radio (lots of posts here describing how to do this). Andy
Last edited by methley on Fri Mar 05 2010 9:38am. Edited 1 time in total
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| Fri Mar 05 2010 9:26am |
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