Patent ID: 7280852

Claim:
An in-vehicle hands-free apparatus for making a hands-free call using a telephone, the hands-free call being a telephone communication between a user of the in-vehicle hands-free apparatus at one end of the telephone communication and a party on another end of the telephone communication, said in-vehicle hands-free apparatus comprising: a storage unit operable to store a voice of the party on the other end of the telephone communication between the user and the party uttered during the telephone communication between the user and the party; a situation analysis unit operable to analyze a surrounding situation of the vehicle based on information outputted from at least one sensor for detecting the surrounding situation; an action determination unit operable to switch a state of the call between a user of the telephone and the party by selecting either a call state in which output of the voice of the party on the other end of the telephone communication is enabled or a hold state in which the output of the voice of the party on the other end of the telephone communication is suspended, based on a result of the analysis of the situation analysis unit; and a playback output unit operable, when the action determination unit switches the state of the call from the hold state to the call state after switching from the call state to the hold state, to: (a) continue suspending the output of the voice of the party on the other end of the telephone communication and play back the voice of the party that was stored in the storage unit after the state of the call was switched to the hold state by the action determination unit; and (b) thereafter enable the output of the voice of the party on the other end of the telephone communication for the user.