XDA2 + TomTom wired + Car speakers

Hello all,

I've been trawling the web most of the day trying to work out the PDA/GPS bundle that most suits my needs. I may be asking for the world on a plate, but here goes anyway...

I would like something totally hard-wired into my car, so I can just pop the PDA into a cradle and it is connected to the GPS receiver, power supply and car speakers/radio mute without any further configuration or messing about with BlueTooth.

Having thought long-and-hard about my other PDA requirements and compared some of the GPS solutions, I think that I would ideally want XDA2+TomTom3. Of course, as with everything that follows, it may well be that a different package is more suitable - in which case I'd love to know!

HOWEVER: the TomTom car kit appears not to offer the connection with the car's sound system, whilst the XDA2 car kit doesn't offer a connection with the wired TomTom GPS receiver. I could be wrong on either (or both), so please correct me if you know otherwise.

The most promising solution appears to be the (as yet unreleased?) Carcomm HandsFree kit - but, unlike the XDA2 kit mentioned above, this setup looks as though it uses its own speaker instead of the car's. Their Maxi-Mute product, however, (see their website) looks as thought it might do the trick. Does anyone know if this is correct, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Does/will the Carcomm kit have an external GSM aerial?

Will TomTom Navigator work with other GPS receivers (e.g. Carcomm's one)?

Many thanks in advance for your help and advice!

Hi there,
Did you get any further in your investigations? I have an XDA2 and want to move to Tomtom 3 GPS. I am probably going for the Carcomm PDA charger and holder (not full handsfree car kit). Can I get the Carcomm GPS receiver though or do I need to use the Tomtom one?

Thanks for any help.

PDA through the car speakers in a fully hard-wired system was exactly what I wanted myself - but at the moment it would seem it is not available.

The carcomm maxi-mute looked promising but they tell me it is for phones, not PDAs.

They say they are working on a product for PDAs but don't know when it will be available. If anyone has a friend who is an electronics buff then I imagine one could be made - but it would need to incorporate an amplifier (the signal on the headphone output on the PDA is too low to run direct into the car speakers) and a sound-sensing switch (the phones have a terminal which goes down to 0V when the phone wants the speakers - the PDA has no such terminal).

So I think we probably just have to wait on Carcomm!