Zumo User Forums

Just acquired a Zumo 396. I have several BT headsets that I have used for a while with just my phone. All work great. Fodsport/Freedcon. Phone is a Samsung7. I can get the Headset itself to connect to the 396 and can hear the voice responses of the Garmin. However, when I try to link the phone also to the garmin things start to go wrong. The headset will automatically disconnect even though it no longer is in the BT lineup for the phone. Then neither Call or music will work through the GPS as it sees no headset. Ultimately the phone goes into a temporary brick mode where nothing on the phone works at all.

Are there only certain phones and certain Headsets that will work with this Zumo 396 unit?
Or is it such that a certain connection sequence must be followed. According to the Garmin books as well as what I can see in reviews, link the headset first, then follow with the phone. UNless of course using the headset as a COM with other riders in which case link to others first, then add the GPS/PHONE.

Thanks, Mike in alabama

Welcome to the forum Mike

This may help. I know its for a 590, but it is close enough.

viewtopic.php?t=520

Download the pdf.

The trick is following the sequence and making sure that Zumo, phone and headset have all forgotten about whatever they were connected to before. If necessary go out of the house away from other bluetooth devices.

JFheath,

Thank you for the welcome and the link to a post that might help. Yeah Ive been trying for the past 3 evenings trying to get these things to link up, but never gets much of anywhere. Will try what you post. Thank you. Mike

Well still no luck. The headset will connect. But trying to get my phone to connect kills my phone . It shows it as connected to phone, audio, and garmin smart phone link. But the minute I try to use the phone app, the entire phone locks up. this last time had to remove the battery to even get it to go into into a restart. My phone works great with all my other Garmin GPS;s but it sure does not want to work with this Zumo. After about 4 nights of trying for hours each night, giving thought to sending it back as it really is not much better a product than to just keep using my car model. Have tried for 2 days to get Garmin to answer tech line but no luck.

Must really love Garmin for the complexity of simple features. The entire world has been using BT technology for over 20 years, and leave it to Garmin to figure out way to make it near impossible.

JFHeath, thank you for taking the time to do an excellent writeup for the masses....it was your reference to being in Dire Straights on L7 that got me to thinking about an issue Ive had with 2 other Garmin products. Great choice of music by the way from a fellow from that era.

In the case of ALL Garmins that will link to headsets, I think it is always best to link to the headset first. In the case of my 396, I think the key to getting all of these features working was to obtain a SD card and load all of my music there, (64G SD capable chose to use a 32G) and not try to have anything to do with the linked phone where music is related. As after I did that more features started to work. The only way I am able to get the cell phone to link and make/take calls is to when pairing for the first time, initiate the pair from the cell phone, not the 396. If I setup the pair between 396 and phone from the 396, it says all is connected on both ends, but the minute I try to access any of the phone options, nothing happens, and the phone turns into a proverbial brick. Bricking to a point that once I even had to disassemble and remove the battery to get it to reboot. If I initiate the pair from the cell phone none of this happens, and all so far works fine. Just be patient for a few minutes and let all of the options boot up before you choose to use anything. After this certain type of hand-standing,mouth-holding, finger-pointing Garmin linking Drama then things work. I have a 2597 that acts the exact same way with any phone.
After pairing in this way, even after I power off the 396, all reconnects on its own after that.

Thanks again for some hints and a great writeup.