Jabra 100-46000000-02 Freeway Bluetooth in-Car Speakerphone (U.S. Retail Packaging)

This is a review for Jabra FREEWAY Bluetooth Speakerphone I'm not one to take my time to write reviews, but after purchasing three of these speakerphones I thought maybe it would be helpful to tell you why this is the best speakerphone I have ever used. We live in California and, by law, have to have our Cell Phones connected by Bluetooth if we use them in the car. I have probably used 4-5 different brands and configurations in the past 5 years - all with mixed results, until I came across the Jabra FREEWAY Bluetooth Speakerphone. I really dislike using in-ear Bluetooth devices (for many reasons, but mainly because they interfere with hearing and make you look like a . . . . ). Speakerphones I have used in the past (including the less expensive Jabra products) seemed to never clearly pick-up my voice and transmit it to the caller. When I purchased my first Jabra FREEWAY Bluetooth Speakerphone (after reading a glowing CNET Review) I started using it as soon as I charged it for a couple of hours. It is the easiest, most user friendly product I have bought in a long time. Getting up and running requires: 1. Charge unit (USB) 2. Turn on Cell Phone and put in pairing mode 3. Turn on Jabra FREEWAY Bluetooth Speakerphone - it will find the phone and announce "Connected" 4. That's it, your done. Now to use it you only have to do one thing and remember 2 words: 1. Attach the Speakerphone to your visor and turn it on. 2. Remember 2 words when it announces by name an incoming call. a) Answer (connects you to an incoming call) or b) Cancel (phone goes straight to you voice answer message). It really is that easy. There is a lot more that the Speakerphone will do, and there is a one year subscription to a second party company that keeps all your contacts + more so you can call one number and transfer to anyone in your contacts, send text, etc. But you really don't need to know or use any of that. Oh, I forgot, the main reason I like the Jabra FREEWAY Bluetooth Speakerphone is that my clients have no clue that I am even on a Bluetooth device when I talk to them in the car. No extraneous noise, no wind noise, just a clear voice. That, plus the ease of use is why I keep buying more of these and giving them to my wife, children, etc. Did I mention that once you turn the Jabra Freeway on you don't have to touch/recharge it for a month or more (my experience, moderate use). It turns itself on when I get in the car, and turns itself off when I exit (motion detector). Pros: All of the above. Plus, iTune music sounds pretty good through the 3 speakers and podcasts are great (you can also transmit the music/podcast to you FM radio) - the Speakerphone "knows" to to stop the music/podcast if a call comes in. Cons: It takes a couple of minutes for the speakerphone to turn-off automatically when you you leave the car. For a short time, if you are fairly close to the car (in you home or office) the unit still picks-up calls. This has happened to me only once, and my iPhone asks if I want to not use the Bluetooth on the screen, so it really is a minor annoyance.

I purchased this March of 2012 and on the occasion of its second charging I decided now was the time to write a review. RIDICULOUS battery life. I'm not kidding. I put this in the car at the beginning of March. It has never been switched off and is just now on its second charging. That means better than two (2) months on a single charge. I don't know what the exact full standby time is but the talk time is 14 continuous hours. 5 Stars for battery use. I don't get the negative comments about the speakers. If you expect an "aural experience" of Bose like sound quality with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround then turn on the car stereo and stop using a speakerphone as an entertainment device. For calls, the Freeway is outstanding. The callers voices are as clear and as loud as you would expect from a $400.00 conference room hands free set up. Extraordinary voice quality and volume enough to make you turn it down. From the recipient's end: They don't even know I'm on a hands-free let alone a cell phone. The noise cancelling on this is really nailed down. 5 Stars for volume, sound and voice quality. Connecting phones could not have been easier or faster. First phone was a Droid and current one is an iPhone4. Switch on the phone Bluetooth, turn on the Freeway, then follow the voice prompts from the freeway. 30-60 Seconds is all it takes. The unit has a motion sensor that disconnects from the cell phone after ten or so minutes of being stationary. This means you leave the car and after a few minutes the Freeway goes to sleep. Conversely, when you get in the car and start the vehicle moving the motion sensor immediately turns the Freeway back on and re-connects to the cell phone. In other words: Turn it on and forget it. It will turn itself off and on without your help. 5 Stars for Bluetooth connectivity. (I just realized this is all out of sequence but what the heck.) Mounting is a no brainer. It is very light weight, downright tiny in size and has a double bail wire on the back. The front of it curves to match the contour of the driver's sun-visor. Slid it on the visor and that's that. It has not slipped, bounced, or moved in any way since it was installed. I took it off this morning and it left no marks on the visor. In place, tucked up on the visor, it is almost impossible to see from outside the car. No advertising for the bad guys. 5 Stars for size, weight and mounting. It has a list of voice commands built in you can access by pressing the "voice" button. It also expands to include voice commands resident in the given connected phone. Any/all voice commands for my droid and iPhone4 work through the Freeway. Very cool. Someone made mention that it's not a true hands free as you have to push the phone bar at the front of the Freeway to place a call. Really? OK so you do have to actually touch it and maybe someday we'll be able to use thought commands but for now: Once you bump the bar it asks you for a command and from there forward it's all hands free. Granted you can't use it with the windows open driving 70mph down the interstate but without that kind of tornado like wind-noise, the voice commands are flawless. 5 Stars for hands-free. The "Voice Assist" package that came with the unit was free for one year. It is a third party vendor service and is frankly silly. The service could be used from any phone or hands-free device and actually has nothing to do with the Freeway. If you're a social networking techno geek you may enjoy the service but if you're not, don't waste the time and effort. Bottom line: A super high quality hands-free unit that does what you want the way you want with no apparent shortcomings or vices. So when was the last time you could say that about an electronic device? This is the real deal. Get one.

I've gone through a few BlueTooth systems before. I found for the ear piece systems, I never felt like putting them in my ear before hand since I rarely get calls on the road anyways. Not only that they were a pain in the ass to charge up. So I moved on to speaker style BlueTooth systems. They were all tinny and difficult to understand. Then came the Jabra Freeway. I've heard great reviews about it even though it was a little pricey, I took the plunge. And this is what I found. In some ways it works fantastic. But on the other hand, you'll find a huge terrible design mistake. On the fantastic side: 1) It's loud and can be used as a bluetooth speaker! 2) Battery lasts a long time 3) Charges back up quite quickly 4) It verbally tells you who is calling 5) Voice commands* allows you to do cool things (this also shows up on the utterly terrible side) 6) FM Transmitter! On the utterly terrible side there's only one thing. The voice commands. Yes it's in the fantastic side too but it's caused me no end of frustration. This might be specific to just me but it's completely unreliable. One of the biggest concerns is it does things immediately without asking for confirmation. For example say you want it to tell you how much battery life is left. You say "Battery". While you wait for it to tell you your battery life you might suddenly hear a ring tone and well, Jabra Freeway decided you ACTUALLY said "Call my boss" and look, there your boss is on the line now! I tried "stop music" before and it immediately called a friend of mine. "Stop" is nowhere near "Call" and "Music" was nowhere near my friend's name. I tried "stop music" again and yep it called him again. I found out later the command is just "stop" but "stop music" shouldn't be calling ANYONE. I tried "Battery" which normally works fine for me but once it started playing music off of my phone instead. This issue wouldn't be so bad if it said "Calling XXXX, is this correct?" But no, it skips this which is a problem when it's horribly inaccurate at times. On the not so great side, the FM Transmitter like all FM Transmitters due to FCC laws is weak so you have to be lucky to find a station that this will work with if you're in an area with a lot of radio stations. You can't knock the Jabra for this because it's not their fault, but for those of you who are eager to use the FM Transmitter, realize that it's very dependent on where you live. Also I think the microphone isn't so great because the few times I've talked on the phone with it the other side said I sounded a bit... weird but I was totally understandable.

Jabra I stand up and give you a standing ovation for the Jabra Freeway Speakerphone. I previously was using the Jabra CRUISER2 Bluetooth In-Car Speakerphone but sadly had to give it up to my dear husband who refused to use a headset. I did not mind because this way I was able to acquire the newer model. The Jabra Freeway is the newest model since the Cruiser 2. It is a tad bit larger, but offers a few more features such as automatic turn on and off with the built-in motion sensor, and acoustically optimized HD quality microphones and surround sound speakers. You pretty much give all the commands by your voice. For example when you call comes in, you can just say "answer" or "ignore". If you want to make a call, just hit the "Voice" button once and say "phone commands", then say "call <John Doe> mobile". It is that easy. That is one big difference between the Cruiser 2 and the Freeway. With the Cruiser 2 you had to hold and count the seconds on the action button to make it do certain commands such as last redial or voice dial. With the Freeway everything is done with the touch of one button and I don't have to hold it for 1, 2 or 3 seconds! I got so excited about talking about the actual usage of the speakerphone that I almost forgot to mention the setup. I am using it with the Verizon iPhone 4G and setup with so simple it took less than one minute. The automated programmed voice is very clear to hear and understand. This is the first time I have had to actually turn the volume down on a speakerphone because it was too loud! The sound is crystal clear. I really do not know how anyone can give this item a bad review unless it does not work with their particular brand of phone. in regards to the FM transmitter functions, it works as well as other types of transmitters I have tried. There is NO wireless FM transmitter out there that is not going to be static free. Think about, the only way is be able to be static free is to be directly plugged into your radio and not be "wirelessly". This speakerphone will be primarily used for phone calls and not for my the FM transmitter. I can hear perfectly loud and clear by the units speakers and have no need to be using it to play my iTunes music through it. the speakers alone will be sufficient for me to hear my calls loud and clearly. Now lets get to the Voice Assist. Forget about it. Not worth it. I did sign up for it since it is a free trial offer for one-year but I don't see any use for it. I asked myself do I really need to urgently send someone a text message or post a status on Facebook? Is it that important that I can't wait till I am out of the car and on my computer, iPad or iPhone. I can wait - I am not that important to be posting about my life's every moment for all to know. Also, what most might not realize is that you have to call a landline phone number that uses airtime off your cellular plan in order to use the Voice Assist. Signing up was not as much of a hassle as some made it sound. Just make sure to read the instructions on the Voice Assist website and you should have no problems. You have to download the firmware upload and apply it, THEN enter your UPC code after the firmware update is applied. This is for units purchased from Amazon ONLY. YOU WILL LOVE THIS SPEAKERPHONE. I am curious to see what is next for Jabra since I can not imagine how something so perfect could be improved. Well now that I think about it, maybe they will come up with "Park Assist" on their next units. :-) EDIT: I almost forgot to add one more thing. This comes with a really nice long micro USB cord. Not one of those "bungee" ones either. It is straight and long enough to fit plugged into a 12V that is inside my center console glovebox while charging the speakerphone still clipped to my sunvisor (while parked of course).

I do not own a Smart Phone, so I was aware when purchasing this that I wouldn’t be taking advantage of all of the features. But I hope to some day. For now, I just want to be legal if I take a call when driving. For that it works well. The sound quality is good on my end and I’m told by others that my voice comes in nicely on theirs. It was definitely easy to set up. Charge it up, turn it on and it tells you how to pair it to your phone. I’d had another Jabra device for a few years and it recently died. No amount of charging or re-pairing would work. I am happy to say that there are 2 areas that this new one works better. The first was the aforementioned sound quality. The other is that this automatically turns off once the phone is a few feet from the car. I’ve had no problems using my phone and having the Bluetooth hijacking my call. But my not having a Smart phone is causing a problem that I’m guessing Smart phone users aren’t experiencing after the first time they use this. Every time the device reconnects, a signal is sent to my phone asking if I’ll accept the request to share my contact information with the device. I’m driving, so I’m not grabbing my phone to deal with it and it only lasts on the phone for seconds before it’s too late to respond. So I keep getting this signal, causing my phone to ding, like every 10-15 seconds until I am able to answer yes or no. And answering no doesn’t prevent the device from doing this all over again the next time the connection between my phone and the device is made. For now I’m giving it just 3 stars due to the annoying dinging issue I put up with every time I get in the car. But if I ever get that Smart phone, I’ll update my review.

I've had this for about 3 weeks now, and the functionality with Siri has been spot on. I don't bother with any of the built-in voice commands since Siri does what I need just fine and with no additional learning curve. It's been on for 3 weeks and I'm still around 65% battery (although admittedly I don't spend *lots* of time talking). The motion sensing works great -- I would hate to have to remember to turn it on and off. Other bluetooth auto-off devices rely on your phone being out of range which can be hit or miss when your car is nearby in the garage. This unit has no problem figuring out I'm out of the car. The audio streaming works fine, although I prefer to use the aux in on my car stereo for that. For you iPhone users (mine is a 5s), the good news is that when you get in the car the Freeway says "connected" yet when you plug in the aux cable the phone is smart enough to know that it should play music through your stereo but calls through the Freeway. The auto muting of sounds still works perfectly even though they are getting routed to multiple destinations. This was a pleasant surprise. I believe this is all a function of the phone, though, and not the Freeway so YMMV. Based on my prior experience with Android phones this might not work quite so smoothly, again depending on the particular model of phone. All I can say for sure is that with an iPhone 5s (and I'm guessing any iOS7 device) it works great. I tried the FM transmitter mode and found it to be far less great than just using the built-in speaker. Didn't matter to me so I didn't deduct a star. If I had any complaint it would be that occasionally the full-duplex operation is a little iffy. In other words, if someone is talking to you and you talk over them, the onboard mic stays muted and the other person doesn't hear what you said. This is most noticeable at higher speeds when there is a lot of noise in the car. I suspect the auto-mute detection struggles a bit in that environment. I *almost* deducted a star for this but the rest of the product is so solid that I can't bring myself to do so. I can't comment on the built-in voice commands because as I mentioned earlier I prefer Siri. All in all I have been pleased enough to buy one for my daughter (who loves it too) as well as recommend to my friends. If you don't have a hands-free thing like this for your car and are fumbling around with headsets like I did for years do yourself a favor and buy this thing. If you're like me you'll be kicking yourself for not having done it long ago.

If you're looking for a basic interface between your cellphone and your non-Bluetooth car stereo, this unit often functions well. But look out! You have to regularly shop around the FM band to find the magic un-used frequency (which, for unknown reasons, will not work every time, even within the same geographical area in which it worked the day before). The bigger problem, though, is that the unit's internal speakers are junk. They sound great out of the box, but they simply are not sufficient to last. The speakers in my unit blew during a several hour-long drive in which I used the internal speaker function to make multiple phone calls. I had turned up the volume pretty high to be able to hear all phone conversations, and the speakers just plain couldn't handle the load. Now any sound coming out of those speakers, whether music or voice/phone calls, is significantly distorted from the blown speakers. I've had the unit for 5 months. The speakers started really being annoying with their distortion about a month ago. I've tried the seller (the Amazon primary seller) to return them, and today received a courteous email saying the product was beyond the return window. It's not the seller's fault: the unit just has junky speakers. Why on earth would a company manufacture a device with such potential, only to use junk speakers in it that cannot handle the load from the unit itself? Disappointing. I may be stuck with this thing now. It will still work as an interface between my phone and the car stereo... but that only works when you find the exactly perfect position inside the car for its transmitter to work/for the car stereo to receive it. I've frequently had to drive with the visor (on which the unit was mounted/clipped) half way or all the way down in front of me as I drove, partly blocking my view. I actually installed a piece of wire, wrapping one end around the antenna wire where it enters the back of my car stereo, and leaving the other end just sticking out of the console, acting as a second antenna for the FREEWAY to transmit to; it helped some. I've read lots of reviews on this product, which stirred me to buy it originally. Perhaps in certain cars, the reception isn't an issue. And perhaps if you never turn it up above half volume, the internal speakers may never blow. The unit looks great, and when it works, it works great. I've never bothered to try using the voice-activated functions, having had enough work on my hands just positioning the unit each time... which makes it a less than hands-free proposition while you're tampering with its position to maximize its functioning. Here's the killer: for maybe $40 more than what I paid for that thing, I've now seen that I can get some really nice Bluetooth-enabled car stereos. That's my next step, now that my FREEWAY is all but useless. That distortion just drives me nuts. Of course, if you do go the 'new stereo' route, you've got to either install the new stereo or pay someone to install it.

I was hesitant to purchase any speakerphone because of the number of poor ratings given to any brand or type. I have an iPhone 4. It is the only "Smart Phone" I have had. Upon receiving the Freeway I: 1)Plugged it into my computer and charged it for two hours. 2)Upgraded the Firmware. 3)Paired it to my phone and turned it off. I don't know if this was necessary. 4)Paired my wife's phone. Both paired in less than 1 minute. When I turned my phone back on, the Freeway replied "connected". I placed it in my vehicle and turned it off. It replied "power off". The next morning I got in my vehicle, turned the Freeway on, it replied "power on" "connected". I left home and placed a call. To place a call I tapped the voice button of the Freeway. It replied "say a command". I said "phone command". At which point it connected to the voice commands of the iPhone. (I was impressed. I had never used this feature). I said "call Beth" it replied "two options, home or mobile" I said "home" it dialed the number. The clarity on both ends was great, very clear. My wife hung up first. The Freeway replied "ended" my phone hung up. I reached my destination, put my phone on standby, left the Freeway on and left my vehicle. I returned 1-1/2 hours later. When I got in the car the Freeway stated "connected", so it must have disconnected automatically. It has a motion sensor, when the vehicle is still for a given amount of time it turns off. When it senses movement it turns on. I tried the FM feature which I am not really interested in. The third try at an unused station was the clearest but still had static. Transmitting from a phone to the Freeway and then to the radio, there's bound to be signal loss. I have other options for listening so, for me it's not a problem. The antenna on my 12 year old vehicle is loose and may be part of the problem, not grounded properly. Others have stated it's not hands free because you have to touch a button. It would be pretty slick technology that could differentiate between a conversation and a phone command. At most, one touch to make a call and one to hang up, if the other person hangs up first it's one. How many moves does it take to set the fan and heat, intermittent wipers or cruise control? So, for me, it's about as hands free as it gets. If you want the FM feature you should arrange to use one first and if it's not what you want return it. Otherwise I am pleased with it. Update 1-31-12 My wife has had two hands free speaker phones and did not like nor use either. She used my vehicle for a week. The afternoon of the first day, after using the Jabra in my vehicle, she called me to ask me to order a Freeway for her car. Same setup as above. While suffering from a head cold the Freeway ask me to repeat a command, several times, but otherwise it works very well. I set it up as numbered above. 10-14-12 I am still very pleased with the Freeway. I have a voice assist GPS app on my iPhone it works automatically with the Freeway. I have noticed that when then battery is at 9 hours of charge remaing, or less, it does not always connect easily. 4-25-13 I washed my iPhone 4,oops, so I replaced it with an iPhone 4s. It pairs works with out a problem. 2-13-15 I purchased a new vehicle a year ago. The bluetooth system is such a pain I still use the Jabra