Google Maps .. Again...

Hello,
I'm using a 2013 Moto X with Android 5.1 . I regularly listen to Google Play Music via BT in my car, so I don't think I have a base BT issues. My goal is to get Google Maps directions(not some other navigation app) to play via BT. To that end I bought SoundAbout Pro. I've seen some old threads that talk about TTS settings, Delay, Max Utterances. Now I've read that since Maps uses internal TTS I can't do that because of some delays. However Android TTS allows me to choose SoundAbout as the TTS provider. I am so confused.

I'm sure there are thousands of others who are googling the very same questions, so lets give them a useful hit.

Can anyone tell me if its possible to setup SoundAbout in a way that will have the voice instructions from Google Maps come out over my car's BT? If so, how?

Hopefull in Denver,
Ken

You can choose SoundAbout TTS as the default Android TTS. The issue is that Google Maps no longer uses the Engine that you choose as the default Android TTS engine.

Google Maps just transcribes the text inside Google Maps and doesn't make a call to the default TTS engine to do it.

There is nothing anyone can do. Changing the "Media Audio" setting to "Bluetooth (dynamic) (mono)" will work, but there is a two second delay, which means you miss some of the direction.

Some people use Navigation with Bluetooth A2DP, but then you can't listen to the radio unless your phone is playing music via Bluetooth A2DP.

Thank you.. I think I'll try making the navigation come out of the phone speaker instead. Can Soundabout redirect the Navigation to the phone speaker and still allow me to listen to phone calls and google play music via my car speakers? If so, which options do I enable?

You will have the same issue. To redirect Navigation to a different output than other media that is playing, Text-To-Speech is need as a trigger. Since Google Maps has chosen to no longer allow external TTS, the audio cannot be switched as there is no signal to tell when the switch is needed.

Switching audio per app can't be done.

You can have Google Maps come out of the phone speaker, which is normal. The phone calls will switch to Bluetooth because the phone call is an event that will trigger this.

If you have Google Play Music coming out of the car speakers (Bluetooth), then any other media audio, like navigation will also come out of the Bluetooth connection.

The only way this changes is if Google Play Music has an option to turn Bluetooth streaming on/off. Google Play Music would pause when the navigation is being played. During the pause, Google Play music would have to disconnect Bluetooth.

If Soundabout no longer works with Google Maps (unless one is willing to accept the few seconds delay), are there any other decent navigation apps that still use external TTL?

I use Copilot. It works great with TTS and SoundAbout.

In the newer versions of Google Maps on Android (I don't know about the iPhone), if you go into the Google Maps settings and then go into navigation settings, there is an option to "Play voice over Bluetooth". If you uncheck that box, Google Maps will come through the phone speaker, even if the phone is connected to your car Bluetooth (at least that's what happens for me).

The only downside is that the navigation doesn't mute if you're on a call. To do that, you would need to mute Google Maps by clicking on the menu and clicking mute.

Yes, they control everything inside Google Maps now. Google maps used to use the default Text To Speech engine that you choose in Android settings. Now they do everything inside Google Maps.