Zumo 400 and Zumo 550

I have a couple of Zumos My favorite is my 400 but it doesn't have bluetooth, How do I make it bluetooth compatible?

My 550 is bluetooth compatible, but someone has reprogrammed it at some time, so maps are in an sd card, it doesn't do the miles per tank thing with a guide to show how much fuel left in your tank. With it using an SD card for the maps it means I can't put an SD music card in and listen to my Bowie collection.

With the 400 i have to use my autocom, but with the 550 I don't.

So, how do I get the 550 back to how it should be coming out of the box when new. How do I make the 400 Bluetooth compatible?

Ever heard of Google?

https://www.gpsnation.com/support/gps-factory-reset/garmin-zumo-550-factory-reset.html

Lots of others, including self help videos.

If some careful previous owner (or owners) has fecked about too much with the poor device’s internal soft / firmware, no amount of factory re-sets will bring it back

The 550 is an old device, with a limited internal memory. It will need the SD card to run the very large map sets. There is no obvious link between the maps being on an SD card and its inability to perform fuel usage calculations. You have a fuel gauge on your bike / a trip meter / you know the tank size, use those. As a pretty good guide (in mixed units) 1 litre of fuel equals 10 miles of range.

No idea how you add make the 400 Bluetooth compatible. There is a specific sub-section on the “I can’t hear anything” type of questions. If it is not Bluetooth compatible out of the box, good luck.

PS The simple word ‘Please’ does not go amiss. Thank you.

Re the 400 bluetooth.

Unfortuantly you cannot make the 400 or any device for that matter withouth a bluetooth chip, bluetooth enabled via a firmaware update.

Bluetooth it's self is executed via a bluetooth chip on the motherboard.

The chip it's self (if it was fitted) may be capable of running some, all or none of the bluetooth instructions depending what the OS (firmware)

instructions regarding bluetooth have been coded into it.

Later firmware or homebrew firmware may have enabled other functions on the bluetooth chipset, but if the chip is not there or

isnt capable of running that particular firmaware instruction, it wont happen.

Take the 550, it has bluetooth, unfortuantly it's only in mono not stereo , this is because Garmin used a Parrot mono bluetooth chip.

So any instructions sent to the chip regarding a stereo function wont work.

Thats the bad news, however there is some good news.

Yes you can get stereo bluetooth, however it comes at a price..

You need to buy a stereo bluetooth adapter, whuch plugs into the 3.5mm audio out jack, you can then link that to your helmet / phone.

However i did say it comes at a price -

Volume - the volume level will be way lower than comming direct from the original device,

as the signal is having to go via an output jack at 1.2v then being turned back into a bluetooth signal and reamplified to your helmet.

This needs power - power to do the signal conversion & more power to amplify the signal

So whilst it will work, at 50mph or over you will struggle to hear anything.

If your techsavvy and are familiar with flashing firmware to a device, you may be able to get the firmware for the 550 reflashed to the RAM on the

550's motherboard, assuming it's not corrupt.

However if my memory serves me correctly, the maps have to run on the SD card, as the internal memory is to small.

MP3's will run off the SD card at the same time, however they need to be in the correct directory, and all lumped together.

ie its one folder with all your individial tracks in. it dosent do folder or album structures , it just plays one track after another

Skudd said:

With the 400 i have to use my autocom, but with the 550 I don't.

Click to expand...

Many years ago on the Pan European forum a member used one of those cheap Chinese Bluetooth dongles plugged into his autocom audio out with reported success.

Andi_archer said:

Many years ago on the Pan European forum a member used one of those cheap Chinese Bluetooth dongles plugged into his autocom audio out with reported success.

Click to expand...

Yes it will work - post 2

But its a proportionate soloution,

To run an amplifier you need power, & the more volume you want, the more power you need from the amplifier stage to increase the volume.

they have such small batteries, they run out of steam, both power & volume wise very quickly

It would be a lot easier to flog the two shonky devices and buy one up to date device, capable of doing everything, straight out of the box.

Wapping said:

It would be a lot easier to flog the two shonky devices and buy one up to date device, capable of doing everything, straight out of the box.

Click to expand...

I was thinking that plus the two more I have for spares or repair.