w211 bluetooth options-opinions welcome
 

thinking about ways to upgrade the capability of the w211 (2005)......not as concerned about the audio as much as being able to connect my phone (bluetooth) for hands free.
what have we seen that has worked?

thanks

g

I've looked at lots of possibilities and finally gave up and just use headset and my phone. The bluetooth set up from MB in the 211s (mine is 08) just wasn't ready for modern phones. I even have the factory dongle that installs inside the armrest and that wouldn't talk to my android. I believe the dongle may have been designed to interface with an Iphone.

The bluetooth in the 07 and 08 w211, probably others, is only for phone calls. It does not support any other Bluetooth options, such as music playing. I've been able to get it to work fine with my iPhone 8. It was not specifically designed for iPhone, although it probably didn't test against Android, since Android only launched in 2008.

As for other dongles, it can have either an AUX plug or an iPod (32-pin) plug attached, coming into the glove compartment. These allow music playing, and even controlling the iPod/iPhone play from the steering wheel. The volume, however, tends to be very low power. There is a box under the passenger footwell where the iPod plug connects. Not sure whether the AUX plug goes through the same box, or just directly to the small plug on the back of the COMMAND module, I only had the iPod connector on my w211 when I got it.

Am currently struggling with installing one of the Seicane stereos. Maybe I'll figure out more about all this once that is done.

My son's 2008 E320 has the built in handsfree cell phone (the stick at the back of the cup holders) and the Aux jack in the glove box.

The handsfree interface is only for calls (Headset protocol), it will not handle streaming (A2DP protocol).

My work around was to find a Bluetooth audio to line level dongle. I found it on eBay and spliced the audio into the Aux connection on the back of the radio (it's on an independent 3 pin connector). I got power for it from the cigarette lighter socket.

If you do this yourself I recommend adding a switch to turn the thing off when you don't want it to stream (i.e. you are listening to the radio instead). Otherwise your phone will still connect and stream even though you are not listening to it.

If you have one of the older 211s that did not have the factory cell interface then you're pretty much out of luck trying to even get hands free cell phone to work.

If you have the 'iPod interface kit' that uses the Aux path to the radio (my other son's 2008 ML320 has this). This is why the stereo has to be on 'Aux' mode for it to work. It is very much an after thought. The control box has a connection to the body CAN bus so that it can talk to the instrument cluster and steering wheel controls.