TomTom Go 700 GPS: Treo 650 Hack
Recently I traded some gear I wasn't using for a TomTom Go 700 GPS with Remote Control, in practically new condition. I have to tell you folks, this was the best trade I have done in years. The Go 700 was TomTom's flagship GPS until their latest edition this year, the Go 910. There are some nice upgrades on the 910 like a bigger screen, hard drive and additional Plus Services, but overall, for the price I paid, the Go 700 is one heck of a GPS unit and quite a nice add-on to my car. You can read some great reviews on TomTom's GPS systems, as well as many others over on GPSreview.net. If you are in the market for a GPS or just like keeping up on the latest navigation gadgetry, you should definitely check the site out.
TomTom has some great extra "Plus services" that come along with the purchase of their units. Many of the services require pairing the GPS unit with your phone via Bluetooth. Unfortunately the list of compatible phones is less than stellar. If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that my current phone is a Treo 650. It's been a solid phone, minus a few problems in the beginning, and I am generally overall satisfied with the unit. It also happens to be one of the most popular phones around, and you would think that most companies would try to make their equipment compatible with it. As many of you know, that isn't exactly the case. TomTom is no exception. The Treo 650 is not "officially" supported on their site. That's actually not entirely true. I was recently able to hack the Go 700 and got it to pair up successfully with my Treo 650. The trick to this was enabling the Bluethooth mode on the Treo 650 and turning "Dial-up Networking" [ ON ]. The phone WILL successfully pair up with the Go 700 (you might have to try a few times) and if you have a service plan like Cingular's MediaNet (I have the unlimited), then you will be able to connect to TomTom's Plus services and download updates, get traffic and many more services. You will NOT however be able to connect to the Go 700 and use it as an external speaker/mic for the Treo 650. Basically you won't be able to use *any* normal bluetooth features, like pairing it with your headset, while in DUN mode. That's not such a big deal to me, it might be to others. I thought it might be interesting info for any of you Go 700 users out there that might have a Treo. This hack might even work on the newer Go 910 and with the Treo 700 series phones.
If you don't have a portable GPS unit, you don't know what you are missing! I wasn't really sold on the idea before. I figured since I didn't drive out of my normal areas too often, it was a waste. Well, how wrong I was. If you have any kind of a lengthy commute, combining the GPS with the traffic services alone is worth the money. The Points of Interest (POI's) is another great feature to have. If you are somewhere and need to find say...the closest pharmacy, the Go 700 will take you to the closest pharmacy you specify. The unit comes with an internal database of millions of POI's and you can add additional POI's by downloading them via the net, or through TomTom's website, as well as directly via the Plus services via that bluetooth connection on your phone. Pretty darn slick. And if you get tired of the voices that ship with the unit, you can add additional voices, available via a variety of websites out there. My favorite co-pilot these days is "Yoda". Yeah, you read right - YODA. ;-) "Right you must turn in - 400 yards!" If you haven't had Yoda as your co-pilot, you haven't lived yet. ;-)
Comments
I just recently purchased a TomTom 910 and I have a treo 650. I am trying to pair the 2 up. I noticed you made the comment to switch on the "dial-up" on, however I can not find it. Any ideas or assistance you could provide would be great.
Posted by: trey | August 20, 2006 10:20 AM
Trey,
If you go to the bluetooth icon in the upper right hand menu of the Treo 650, click that. Make sure that Bluetooth is turned ON. Once it is turned ON, you will see a menu item below it that says "Dial-up Networking". Turn that option to ON and accept the warnings. Make sure that "Discoverable" is also set to YES. Once you have completed that, you will be in Dial-up Networking mode and will be able to pair up the Treo (if the 910 will allow it). You may have to try a few times, and I also noticed that when your TomTom is searching for a Bluetooth Device, that is a good time to also go into the Treo 650 Bluetooth Menu and hit "Setup Devices" to get them both searching for each other. If I remember correctly the PIN for the devices is either 0000 or 1234. If you play around with it enough, I am sure you will get them paired up, it worked for me after a few tries. Good luck!
Posted by: Frank Bisono | August 20, 2006 11:18 AM
I have been trying to pair my tomtom 910 and treo 650 and can only get it to work with dial up networking set to off. This pairs the two devices and I can use the tomtom as a handsfree phone device. I am unable to use plus features such as traffic and weather.
If the traffic service is any good, I would definitely sacrifice the speakerphone to get it to work. Can you provide some more details of how you got this to work?
I dont have the unit in the house right now, but the tomtom asks for a bunch of domain numbers when I try to pair it with dun set to on. I am using sprint service on the treo 650.
Thanks.
Posted by: Mitesh Kapadia | September 29, 2006 10:31 PM
Mitesh,
Unfortunately I don't have a 910 or Sprint, so anything I tell you would be pure speculation. The firmware from Sprint may have different effects than the Cingular firmware I am using. I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but unless I had your same setup, I wouldn't want to give you any advice that would be incorrect. Good luck!
Frank
Posted by: Frank Bisono | September 29, 2006 11:41 PM
Frank, this is certainly no hack. Bluetooth DUN is a feature of the Treo that must be turned on in order to use your Treo as a bluetooth modem; this is not specific to the TomTom. It is quite well documented in Palm's manuals.
Posted by: Hugh Jass | October 1, 2006 1:26 PM
Hugh,
Yes, you are correct in the "tradtitional" sense of the word "hack". However, when it comes to getting eyeballs on a site, you have to use what most people * think * is the right term to get something to work which IS NOT supposed to work...which in this case, is using the term "hack". Hack was the best word to use in the subject of the post because it attracted more visitors than using some other generic title. After all, it got you here didn't it? :-) Thanks for writing...
Frank
Posted by: Frank Bisono | October 1, 2006 1:37 PM
So is there or is there not a way to connect the treo to the Tomtom 910 for use of bluetooth function from the tomtom screen?
my try have been unsucessfull so far at the store (trying to decide what unit i buy to work with my phone)
Posted by: nick | May 3, 2007 3:04 PM
Does anyone know how to pair the treo 700w? everytime it asks for the pass key it won't take it? Any suggestions?
Posted by: Jennifer | July 11, 2007 10:19 PM
Hi there
I am using Treo 650 (Sprint PCS) since one year and recently bought Tomtom 700 without knowing its comaptibility. Now whenever I try to pair it up with my phone, it ask for the pass key. I have tried 0000 that came with 700 but it says that it is not supported. I have tried the last four digits of my phone number and that also didn't work Please help
Posted by: Tarun | July 18, 2007 2:03 PM
I just got the TomTom GO 720 and am trying to get it to work with my Sprint Treo 650. Bottom line: Good luck! TomTom says it is not compatible with Sprint because Sprint has its own version of GPS. The new ATT/Cingular is your best bet. Verizon doesn't work either.
I cannot stand the bad service I've been getting with Sprint. Here's my next very real excuse to can them once and for all.
Posted by: Kat | July 31, 2007 1:32 PM
Hey there. OK, I just spoke with TomTom technical support yesterday. Not sure if I can answer anyone else's questions, but I do have a unique one myself I was hoping someone could answer. For some reason, my TomTom XL worked with my sprint phone for a bit, it didn't ask for a passkey or domain number, any of that. It just worked. Then I had to reset my TomTom to its factory settings, but then traffic didn't work! TomTom technical suuport said I "got lucky" and that when you reset it, the factory setting flip a switch and it won't work anymore. They said the only thing we could do is look on forums like this to see if there a trick to switch it back. Does anyone know who to switch this back to before I resent the device? Any advice?
Posted by: Brian Levis | March 9, 2008 11:03 AM