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Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

5616 Views 18 Replies 13 Participants Last post by  Charged in The OC
Hi all - got a Fisker Karma EcoChic Tri Tone Glacier.

Couple of questions.

First, the suede - what's the best way to wash it?

Second, my iPhone sounds TERRIBLE on phone calls over bluetooth. There is constant cracking noises. When I move it closer to the dash it seems to work a bit better but it's very temperamental. Anyone else have this problem?

My software is 6.13 (according to the dealer - not sure if there is a way to check it).
1 - 19 of 19 Posts
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

No iPhone, but my Palm Pre works great. In fact, I get better quality over thru the car when talking to my buddy on Skype or whatever he uses, than using the phone itself. I have the phone in the frontmost cup holder when using it, as I stream music thru the Bluetooth connection also. When a call comes in it pauses my music player on the phone. My only issue is that when a phone call ends, it does not "unpause" the music and continue in Bluetooth mode, it reverts back to FM radio.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

kabalah70 said:
No iPhone, but my Palm Pre works great. In fact, I get better quality over thru the car when talking to my buddy on Skype or whatever he uses, than using the phone itself. I have the phone in the frontmost cup holder when using it, as I stream music thru the Bluetooth connection also. When a call comes in it pauses my music player on the phone. My only issue is that when a phone call ends, it does not "unpause" the music and continue in Bluetooth mode, it reverts back to FM radio.
Kab,

I'm a Palm Pre guy as well. I love the thing. A while back I asked David Harris to be sure to develop a webOS phone app for the Karma. I'd love it, but I'm not holding my breath :) I'm sad that they've killed all the phones and the OS' future is uncertain at best!

Brent
:) I worked at Palm for 11 years, until the device team shutdown last August. Interesting how given the small market share WebOS had, that there are >1 WebOs user in this forum. I emailed MartiE in 2009 about codeveloping a WebOS app, didn't get a response - no surprise given Fiskers cone of customer silence. I'd love a web-based HTML5- based interface/"app", it would work on most/all new smartphones.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

I have same issue with my iPhone calls in Karma
My iPhone 4s (yeah, I ditched the WebOS devices when I started a new job) consistently sounds fine on a BT carlit call with my Karma - on my end at least, I don't know about the other end.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

siliconkiwi said:
:) I worked at Palm for 11 years, until the device team shutdown last August. Interesting how given the small market share WebOS had, that there are >1 WebOs user in this forum. I emailed MartiE in 2009 about codeveloping a WebOS app, didn't get a response - no surprise given Fiskers cone of customer silence. I'd love a web-based HTML5- based interface/"app", it would work on most/all new smartphones.
Very cool! I'm still on an old school Sprint Pre-. I buy spares on eBay so I have a backup for when I inevitably lose it, break it or it dies.

I've written a grand total of one app for the phone. It was just a simple Mojo app that was barely more than a Hello World. I just wanted to see if I could do it, and to validate I had my IDE and development environment set up correctly. I had some grand plans for Apps, but I never got around to them :-/

I'm hoping Brian writes an iPhone app for the Karma then ports it to webOS! (Brian - porting the app is allegedly trivial, FYI) Actually, a moblile-optimized HTML5 site/app would be awesome.

Brent
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

LonePalmBJ said:
I'm hoping Brian writes an iPhone app for the Karma then ports it to webOS! (Brian - porting the app is allegedly trivial, FYI) Actually, a moblile-optimized HTML5 site/app would be awesome.

Hehe... no offense, but WebOS? Really? Might as well write a version for the Apple ][+ while I'm at it ;)

-Brian
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

brian said:
Hehe... no offense, but WebOS? Really? Might as well write a version for the Apple ][+ while I'm at it ;)

-Brian

Sadly, that's pretty accurate :s
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

LonePalmBJ said:
brian said:
Hehe... no offense, but WebOS? Really? Might as well write a version for the Apple ][+ while I'm at it ;)

-Brian
Sadly, that's pretty accurate :s
Not to beat a dead horse, but since the Karma has not have wireless connectivity, it would be impossible to implement a web-based OS, no?

-- Fab.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

Fabulist said:
LonePalmBJ said:
brian said:
Hehe... no offense, but WebOS? Really? Might as well write a version for the Apple ][+ while I'm at it ;)

-Brian
Sadly, that's pretty accurate :s
Not to beat a dead horse, but since the Karma has not have wireless connectivity, it would be impossible to implement a web-based OS, no?

-- Fab.
That's true - so the iphone App they're talking about must just be over bluetooth? not much utility in that!
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

SoCalGuy said:
Fabulist said:
LonePalmBJ said:
brian said:
Hehe... no offense, but WebOS? Really? Might as well write a version for the Apple ][+ while I'm at it ;)

-Brian
Sadly, that's pretty accurate :s
Not to beat a dead horse, but since the Karma has not have wireless connectivity, it would be impossible to implement a web-based OS, no?

-- Fab.
That's true - so the iphone App they're talking about must just be over bluetooth? not much utility in that!
That's why I thought the App was not going to happen. First they need to set up 3G or at least WiFi connectivity for the car (the latter would only work when you are at home or office) so that you can interrogate the car for information, or open the doors, or whatever. Without it the app would be useless.

Of course another option is an app that can download performance data, error codes, charging history, etc., directly using a USB connection or via BT. This kind of app would be interesting for the nerdier types ;) but not particularly useful day-to-day.

-- Fab.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

When I spoke to my son via BT in the Karma today, he told me that he hears his own voice echoing back. Even when I lower the volume, only small improvement. Where is the mic for the BT phone anyway?
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

My I-Phone 4S has the same intermittent crackling sound as well as the volume issues relative to the music.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

I have been using my Iphone 4S and except for yesterday when the BT interface crashed completely, it has been working fine both for music playback and for phone conversations. I have not experienced any feedback and judging by the other persons's responses, they appear to hear and understand me fairly well. I have even used the hands-free interface to talk to Siri and she responds more or less the same way as talking directly into the phone (which is to say, not great).

-- Fab.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

adam said:
Hi all - got a Fisker Karma EcoChic Tri Tone Glacier.

Couple of questions.

First, the suede - what's the best way to wash it?

Second, my iPhone sounds TERRIBLE on phone calls over bluetooth. There is constant cracking noises. When I move it closer to the dash it seems to work a bit better but it's very temperamental. Anyone else have this problem?

My software is 6.13 (according to the dealer - not sure if there is a way to check it).

If your iPhone WiFi is enabled, try disabling and see if that improves. WiFi and Bluetooth share the same spectrum.
[hr]
kabalah70 said:
No iPhone, but my Palm Pre works great. In fact, I get better quality over thru the car when talking to my buddy on Skype or whatever he uses, than using the phone itself. I have the phone in the frontmost cup holder when using it, as I stream music thru the Bluetooth connection also. When a call comes in it pauses my music player on the phone. My only issue is that when a phone call ends, it does not "unpause" the music and continue in Bluetooth mode, it reverts back to FM radio.
What version fo Palm Pre do you have? Sprint?
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

I had the same issue with the BT phone quality: terrible crackling noise over the speaker, particularly when the voices on the other end paused.

I experimented a bit and found that if I turned down the volume on my phone, then the sound quality dramatically improved. I have a Dell Venue Pro phone, when I set the volume on the phone (not the car) to be about 5 (on a 0 to 10 scale), the sound quality is acceptable. I can then turn the volume on the car speaker to whatever level is appropriate for the road noise, etc. The quality went from unusable to pretty good.

I'm not an iPhone user so don't know offhand if the same trick would work on an Apple or Android phone, but I'm inferring from my experience that there is a dynamic clipping problem.
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

Karma 2012 said:
Where is the mic for the BT phone anyway?
in the front overhead light console, off to the side
RE: Two questions - washing the suede interior and iphone bluetooth phone audio quality

Karma 2012 said:
When I spoke to my son via BT in the Karma today, he told me that he hears his own voice echoing back. Even when I lower the volume, only small improvement. Where is the mic for the BT phone anyway?
I have had exactly the same issues - crackling on my end and feedback on the other end, so the people I have talked to on the Karma phone have told me. And I have an iPhone 4.
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