Workaround for SAY over bluetooth interrupting media stream on car headunit

[craig smith]

There have been lots of posts discussing this issue and all seem to reach a dead end with Android shortcomings that are beyond tasker's control.

I have been trying to have my phone read out and respond to texts/notifications while connected to my BT stereo in the car. As many others have found, there are no issues having tasker 'SAY' over BT as long as you are connected to the BT channel on your stereo. If you're like me you are listening to a different source (radio,  ipod, usb etc) and Tasker wouldn't interrupt the playback to play the output.....

Here is my workaround:

Using a free (or very expensive) app called Soundabout (you have to have a tinker to get settings right for your BT devices, I found that bluetooth mono worked best for me on the media audio channel)

(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.woodslink.android.wiredheadphoneroutingfix&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS53b29kc2xpbmsuYW5kcm9pZC53aXJlZGhlYWRwaG9uZXJvdXRpbmdmaXgiXQ..)

It is possible to open the bluetooth mono channel (the one used for calls) and THEN have tasker play the SAY commands. It requires a bit of fiddling with wait commands and your mileage may vary depending on your BT setup and the speed of your phone. Here is an example of what I have got working:

Message received - Kill app SoundAbout (use root if you have it) >>>this forces soundabout to restart the service it uses and initiates the BT mono connection, your stereo acts like a call is incoming

                            - Wait (I have 8 seconds to give enough time for the BT mono channel to open)

                            - SAY (whatever you need to do. The channel will stay open until you close it by pressing the bluetooth button on your stereo, or however you would normally end a call)

Downsides: can be fiddly to setup and seems to be affected by load on the phone's CPU. You must close the channel manually.

I have managed to use GET VOICE over BT in this fashion as well, which means I can give commands eg: New message from %SMSRB would you like to hear it? >> YES/NO, This seems to work only if you have the task wake the device AND unlock the display, otherwise the get voice action fails immediately, so use the securesettings plugin here.

If anyone wants more details, I can bundle up some examples and post them, but my tasks are pretty rough and ready at the moment.

[Max Hodgson]

Hi

Funnily enough, I was sitting in my car in the rain today and found I can get speech over the BT with this:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joaomgcd.autovoice&googleplus=1

Unfortunately the speech recognition bit doesn't work with my Parrot car kit, but the speech over the call audio channel bit works fine.

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[craig smith]

As it happens I've just downloaded autovoice too. It does exactly what I have set up already but much more elegantly. I have ludicrous IF/ELSE IF loops in my profiles. I'll have a good play this weekend and hopefully I can cut out the hack-a-round with SoundAbout completely. I just don't think my JVC stereo unit will play nicely unless I force the mono channel some how.

[Baz 8755]

Hi,

I have a profile that when the car bluetooth is connected it will speak the contents of any incoming test message.

However I cannot seem to be able to get the car to automatically switch to bluetooth in the same was as when I answer as call and then speak the message.

I have had a poke around the forums and even tried autovoice but nothing seems to work.

Anyone had an success of would like to share a task they have created that does this?

Cheers

Baz

[Markus Birth]

Connecting to a specific BT device should also be possible using SL4A (maybe even Tasker's Javascriptlet action suffices). Here's some example code: http://paulusschoutsen.nl/blog/2010/08/automatically-connect-to-a2dp-hosts-with-android-powered-phones/ .