Personal hands-free kit
A personal hands-free kit comprises an earpiece with a microphone on a wire, or occasionally on a mini boom, which connects to the headset socket on your mobile directly or through an adaptor. To comply with mobile phone legislation, you must either have the phone fixed to the dashboard or be able to make or receive calls without holding your phone - i.e. by using the 'voice dial' feature found on many phones or by using a quality mobile phone holder.
Personal hands-free kits are very cheap at around £5 to £25, but they do have their limitations - the wire between the headset and phone can sometimes be too short to mount the phone on the dashboard and safely steer without getting caught up in the cables.
Advantages of Personal hands-free kits
A Personal hands-free kit’s advantages are their price, starting at as low as £5. Also, light and portable, there is nothing visible left in the vehicle when the hands-free kit is not in use. You are simply able to store it away in the glove compartment, out of view. A personal hands-free kit also allows you to talk with a number of handsets, using a phone specific adaptor, if required
Disadvantages of Personal hands-free kit
There are several disadvantages to be found with a personal hands free kit stemming from the price. The kit has no charging facility and doesn’t hold the handset, therefore not complying with hands free car kit legislation. Also, due to the lack of a separate microphone or speaker the sound quality on both ends can be poor. The ear piece and wire are impractical as the lead may be too short and the ear piece uncomfortable.
Other Portable hands free kits
The main advantage of having a Bluetooth headset is, unlike the non-Bluetooth version there are no trailing wires. Also, in theory there is no need to change the Bluetooth headset as long as the user’s new handset has Bluetooth. This type of kit also allows the driver to use multiple handsets. The main benefit of this lies with the fact, that if the driver has more than one Bluetooth handset, either handset can be paired up to the headset at different times
The disadvantages a user could encounter with a Bluetooth headset are similar to those associated with the rest of the portable hands free car kit genre. The headset does not charge the phone and leaving a handset Bluetooth active, drains the battery. Also, in order to comply with mobile phone legislation the handset must be in a fixed position and calls cannot be made or received whilst holding the phone.
The advantages associated with plug-in hands free car kits is they offer several of the characteristics offered by a hard wired car kit at a smaller cost. A plug-in hands free car kit offers charging of the handset and therefore the battery charges whilst on the move and some also hold the handset in a fixed position. There are also Bluetooth plug-in hands free car kits which could be fixed reasonably discreetly to the sun visor. All plug-in hands free car kits can be moved between vehicles extremely easily
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