Android phone GPS voice bluetooth link to car speakers

I was wondering if your APP can do this?

I have a KIA Rio 2013. I can pair my android phone to the radio head unit through bluetooth. But to hear any audio from my phone I need to switch to "Media" on the Head Unit. If it's switched to "Radio" then no audio can be heard from my phone.

What I would like is to have the GPS on my phone cut in to the radio to give instructions (turn left, turn right) while the radio is playing.

Thank you.

The only way to cut into the radio is to use the Bluetooth phone channel. I am working on using the Bluetooth phone channel in #3 below, but for now here are the choices:

1) Constant connection to car audio (no car radio will play): In SoundAbout, you set the "Media audio" setting to "Bluetooth (mono)". This will send all phone audio, from the phone to the car radio by making the phone (and car) think there is a phone call. The audio is only voice quality. Notifications most likely won't be sent based on the phone's audio policy.

2) Dynamic connection to car audio (car radio will play until phone audio sent): In SoundAbout, you set the "Media audio" setting to "Bluetooth (mono)(dynamic)". This will also send all phone audio, from the phone to the car radio by making the phone (and car) think there is a phone call. The difference is that this setting has the phone signal disconnected until it detects audio. Once it detects audio, it connects to the car "like a phone call". The audio is only voice quality. Notifications most likely won't be sent based on the phone's audio policy. If this setting is used for Navigation, you could lose a second of directions due to the time it takes to connect; which is why I am developing #3.

3) Future setting might be called TextToSpeech Audio (like Media Audio): You can map any TTS audio to various audio outputs, including Bluetooth (mono). To do this, I have to create a TextToSpeech wrapper called SoundAbout TTS. Within the setting of SoundAbout TTS, you can select any "real" TTS engine on the phone. This will allow TextToSpeech requests to be capture by my app. I can then switch the audio routing while holding the TTS. Once the audio is re-routing, I can let the TTS get translated into speech. This way you don't miss anything. I have this working, but Google Maps/Nav is sending me ALL the directions at once instead of just the current instruction.

4) I will probably include #3 in SoundAbout Pro, but will also sell it as a separate app for those who don't need the other SoundAbout features.

Thanks so much. Your answers simply explained everything with solutions to boot! I had spent one month researching this problem and all the hints I got were "dual zone function" and "bluetooth stack" but no solution.

For your solutions below, are you talking about the Pro version? Under Media Audio all I have are:

Let App Decide
Speaker
Wired Headphones
Wired Headset (with Mic)

Or is it under Bluetooth behaviour? But that option is greyed out.

Yes, those are in the Pro version. The TTS is not fully ready yet. I'm not sure it will ever work perfectly as Google Nav requests ALL the directions at the beginning of the trip.

Install the attached version for a couple day trial of the Pro features.

Un-install SoundAbout main app (not the pro version key). Go into Settings, Manage Apps, find SoundAbout (no Pro), click on SoundAbout and then click the Clear cache (if available), Clear data (if available), Force Stop, and then un-install.

Install the attached version.

Reboot the phone.

Ok, I tested it. I'm using Sony Xperia U + Sygic Navigator.

Bluetooth (mono)(dynamic)
It cut in the radio all right but it didn't cut out. I had to manually disconnect the 'call' by pressing the 'end call' button on the steering wheel. Once disconnected, it won't cut back into the radio again unless I relaunch SoundAbout. And, like you said I miss a second of audio and the quality is low.

About Option 3 - TTS, will this have better audio quality and can I test it? Doesn't matter if it doesn't work with Google Maps as I use Sygic Navigator.

Thanks again for letting me try.

I can't do much about audio quality as I am forced to use the Bluetooth phone profile which is meant for phone call audio.

I will have to see how Sygic Navigator works. Does it say the street names? If so, it probably uses TTS. The question is...does it try to get ALL the directions at one time or does it call TTS only when it is about it need a direction?

This is a tough one because not only are Android phones different, but now you throw in the different car systems.


What about Media Profile if there's such a thing? It has a much higher quality and GPS voice is much better but it goes through the dedicated media button on the radio.

Sygic uses TTS. I don't know if it tries to get all directions at once or not but the radio was playing and it only cut in when it had something to say. Problem is it doesn't cut out.

I recovered a bunch of emails and I am going through them now.

Are you still having this issue? If so, can you try the attached version? It has some experimental TextToSpeech settings (and Engine wrapper), for routing TTS audio separately from media audio.

Un-install SoundAbout main app (not the pro version key). Go into Settings, Manage Apps, find SoundAbout (no Pro), click on SoundAbout and then click the Clear cache (if available), Clear data (if available), Force Stop, and then un-install.

Install the attached version.

Reboot the phone.

The new Text-To-Speech settings has:

Audio Output - You can set this to Bluetooth mono, if your car uses a Bluetooth phone profile.

Max Uterance per request - Some Nav apps will request ALL the direction text to be synthesized at the beginning of the trip. This does us no good, so you can set this to do 1, 2...ect utterances at a time. I do 2.

Allow background audio - This either allows other things that are playing audio to continue at a lower volume(if checked), or blocks other audio (if un-checked).

Text-To-speech settings - This brings you to the Android TTS settings so that you can choose SoundAbout TTS as your engine and pick a language.

Is this the right version?

These settings don't appear: Audio Output, Max Uterance per request, Allow background audio

Text-To-speech settings are also not available. I can only see my Pico TTS. I've rebooted the phone.

What version of Android do you have? It needs to be 4.0 or above for the TTS settings to appear.

Due to time constraints and shrinking email storage, I've decided to use a message board to support SoundAbout. I haven't been able to keep up with the emails, and I hope that this forum will allow everyone to find the answers they need.

The URL is : https://soundabout.forumotion.com/

Can you try joining the forum and pasting your issue there? I want to get these issues on the forum so that others can search and find answers.

I'm using Android 4.04.

Under Language and Input - Text-to-speech output, Pico TTS is the only one listed. My phone is rooted.

I don't know if your phone is not installing the SoundAbout TTS engine or if you are not running in the Trial period with the pro settings. Do you still only see four settings for Media Audio?
Let App Decide
Speaker
Wired Headphones
Wired Headset (with Mic)

Can you uninstall SoundAbout and re-install the beta version?

Download Beta version HERE

1) Un-install SoundAbout main app (not the pro version key). Go into Settings, Manage Apps, find SoundAbout (no Pro), click on SoundAbout and then click the Clear cache (if available), Clear data (if available), Force Stop, and then un-install.

2) Install the attached version.

3) Reboot the phone.

It's not installing the sound about tts engine. I see 11 options under media option. The beta installs properly. Using bluetooth mono it cuts off the radio and 'calling unknown' appears on the radio but it doesn't restore the radio until I cancel the 'call'. It's the same problem as the previous version.

I have soundabout pro with TTS but cant get Google Maps to work thru my 2012 KIA UVO system. And I get two turn by turn voices -delayed? coming from phone speaker.

What won't work with the 2012 Kia UVO system? Bluetooth media or Bluetooth mono?

The two voices seems to be an issue with Google maps. I can tell the different easier when I set SoundAbout TTS Language to French or Spanish, Then I can hear the Google Map utterance in the background. It seems to be playing some default audio, like "head west" or "head east" no matter what. I am trying to find out why it does this.